Gremlins

Whorticulture.com Reviews Gremlins, Starring Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates

Gremlins (1984) is currently tied for the lead in our Best Yuletide Horror poll (which you can see displayed to the right of this post, and if you haven't voted on it GET ON THAT).

Oh, Gremlins.  What a fantastic movie.  It stars the poor man's Ralph Macchio (sorry, Zach Galligan) and the girl famous for ruining the sheets of a thousand young boys by getting her tits out in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

I'm not even going to bring up how Jennifer Jason Leigh was robbed by this scene.


Not to mention a star studded cast which includes Corey Motherfucking Feldman, Howie Mandel as the voice of Gizmo, Frances Lee McCain who was so big in the '80's it's not even funny, and Hoyt Axton who you probably don't know, but is responsible for songs I have no doubt you know.  Look him up on IMDB sometime, it's really quite fascinating.

In any case, let's do a brief plot summary:  Billy gets the cutest pet ever, takes piss poor care of it, and unleashes its ugly, hellbent spawn on his small town on Christmas.  Hooray!

And it really is the cutest pet ever.  Nothing in this whole world is cuter than Gizmo.  It can't be done.  Gizmo is literally as cute as the human mind can stand.  Anything cuter and your brain would explode. 

He sings, he talks, he watches TV, and he drives.

The audience is literally overwhelmed with cuteness.

We learn early on that "with Mogwai comes great responsibility."  Billy kind of shits all over that.  But what we don't learn right away is that with Mogwai comes great disappointment as well.  Don't kid yourself, ever since you saw this movie you've secretly hoped to stumble across a Mogwai in some tiny shop in Chinatown.  We all have.  And we all know that we'd even settle for one of Gizmo's spawn - or as I call them, the jerkass Mogwai.  Damn you, Chris Columbus.

I mean, all you gotta do is keep them dry, not expose them to bright light, and not feed them after midnight.  Sure, Billy couldn't do any of these things, but I know I could.  Somebody get me a Mogwai.  NOW.

In any case, I think Gremlins is the perfect horror movie for kids to cut their teeth on.  But I do have to say that this movie is not for the wee little ones, because some of the Gremlin death scenes get either disgusting or too scary for them.  For example, at one point one is nothing but a crawling skeleton.  However, after doing a little reading, I found out that the original concept was far more fucked up.  Apparently the original concept called for the mother being decapitated and one of the Gremlins tossing her head down the stairs.  WHAT.  Oh, and they totally killed the dog originally, too.  But Warner Bros., in their infinite wisdom (cough), decided on a more family friendly film.  So what we have is Gremlins as we know it today.

Gremlins spawned a sequel, a video game, and still lives and breathes in movie culture today.  You know what that means?  That means Hollywood is just aching to remake it.  I know you are, fuckers, I don't even need to look.  But until you get some fancy scientist on the job of actually creating real, live Mogwai, just leave it alone.  Yes, I can be bought.  Suck it.

And by the way, Kate's story on why she hates Christmas is amazing.  I don't want to spoil it here, but am I a total dick for laughing every time I hear it?

How about now?

Gremlins gets a solid 9/10.

Trivia: This movie is partially responsible for the invention of the PG-13 rating.