Gremlins

Some films are not what they seem. Take "Gremlins" (1984) for example. It is the story of a small-town kid who acquires a strange creature that spawns a pack of menacing green beings that terrorize the inhabitants of the cheery little area.

A silly idea, yes, but surely a fun one, and surely one to be cherished. It isn't technically a great movie, or even a very good one, but it doesn't mean to be. The genius lies in the modest scale of the film -- it isn't just a crude horror film with evil alien species (see "Critters"), but a tongue-in-cheek parody of the rest, that still manages to fit in a few thrills along the way as if by accident.

Thank Joe Dante for this movie. And thank him for providing us with magnificent and imaginative films over the years. He is one of cinema's great underrated directors, the man responsible for bringing other creatures to life very often, whether it is werewolves or small toys or Looney Toons.

The movie is centered around Billy Peltzer (Zach Galligan), the small-town kid mentioned above who is handed a Mogwai by his father (Hoyt Axton), who picked the puffy furball up in Chinatown during one of his routine salesman trips. Billy's father is a sort of failed inventor, reminding us of the frizzle-haired Doc Emmett Brown played by Christopher Lloyd in "Back to the Future," only not quite as eccentric. "Back to the Future" came out a year after "Gremlins," and the two are similar in the way they entertain -- silly little ideas that nevertheless become almost genius. Time travel was a myth before "Back to the Future," which turned it into an adventurous notion, a way of being able to transport people back in time to see their own parents. (H.G. Wells himself hadn't even approached these topics, and I can guarantee he would have never sparked a relationship between the sibling and his mother.)

"Gremlins" is milestone movie-making magic, a simple idea like "Back to the Future," stretched out into a bigger picture. I won't kid you -- it's not as complex as "Future" is, but it doesn't need to be, and certainly doesn't want to be. It relies on humor and charm, and it has plenty of it.

Billy works at the town bank, hounded by the city grouch (Frances Lee McCain) and threatened by the vice president (Judge Reinhold). His long-time sweetheart (Phoebe Cates) works there, too, and at the local bar, occupied by drunks at night (and on occasion some nasty gremlins). The town loon (Dick Miller) is convinced there are gremlins about, and soon he is right.

"Don't ever get them wet," Billy is more or less told by his father. "And don't feed them after midnight." (See if you can spot the huge flaw in that rule.) Well, the small little Mogwai, Gizmo (voiced in burps and small cutesy sentences by Howie Mandel), does get wet, and spawns a set of fellow furballs -- all apparently mean-spirited and vile. And after tricking Billy by cutting the power on his clock, they get fed after midnight -- and basically evolve overnight into a bunch of green, nasty little gremlins, all of which continue to spawn throughout the town and cause absolute chaos.

Will Billy defeat the gremlins, get the girl, and save the town? Take a wild guess.

Everything Joe Dante touches is usually magic. Even his live-action/animation film "Toy Soldiers" was a load of fun because of its charming disposition. Dante doesn't try to make his films anything other than what they are -- charming and wildly, wickedly funny -- and that is undoubtedly the key to the outrageous success of "Gremlins," one of the biggest box office moneymakers ever released.

I wasn't a huge fan of the sequel, even though I have it in my DVD collection right next to the original. It lost the darkness of campiness of the original and went for all-out laughs (many of which failed) instead of the laugh-out-loud laughs of the original, which were concealed within a film that actually made sense (in some ways) and still managed to be dark and fun. The sequel also introduced the mandatory Goofy Idiot Character. In fact, it had two -- a Donald Trump-like manager and a gremlin that more or less belonged in The Three Stooges, and definitely not in a movie about menacing creatures. In fact, another of the first film's highlights was the way it made its creatures dark, hurtful, and just plain funny. (People complained that the launching of Frances Lee McCain out a window was too much, but come on.)

As a whole, I didn't think that the sequel worked especially well. But it has as big a fan following as the original in some respects, for those who favor goofy, pointless cash-ins over original, hysterical movies.

I wouldn't expect many people to love "Gremlins" as much as I do, but its charm is certainly worth commenting on -- and so is its wicked humor. Dark, chaotic and pretty darn infectious, the film's sense of humor quickly kicks into boot even during the campy voice-over narrative. The whole film is campy. And unlike something like "Critters" (which I loathe), this film is endearing and fresh and funny and has a bunch of likable characters -- especially Gizmo, the favorite and most infamous little critter ever seen on screen, and Stripe, the lead gremlin whose unfortunate frying incident at the end of the film actually makes you sad. No sequel for that little creep.

5/5 stars.

• John Ulmer

Gremlins was a fantastic comedy film from 1984-the best year ever in my opinion for great movies.

Basically, a guy called Billy Peltzer picks up a new pet called Gizmo and after breaking a few rules he shouldn't have, ends up spawning a bunch of ugly creatures called Gremlins who proceed to terrorize the town.

The film is a success because it succeeds at producing both a comedy and a horror in one go which can't be easy. Most comedy horror films are a joke (such as some of the Ghoulies films which emulated the Gremlins series) but Gremlins is both funny and scary. It's funny seeing the Gremlins cause mischief but it's also scary throughout-they're not exactly pretty creatures and are quite scary as well.

Gremlins deserves a look from anyone interested in seeing a good comedy horror movie.

Made in a time when they had to make use of practical effects instead of CGI, 'Gremlins' still holds very well by today's standards. It's hard to believe this film was made almost four decades ago!

The film is an interesting mix of comedy and horror. There are some really silly, illogical moments, but 'Gremlins' is not to be taken too seriously. You might sit shaking your head wondering why the creatures would do the silly things they do, but hey, it's all in the name of fun, right? Since these are also fictional creatures, who's to say what they are capable of and what their behavior should be?

Towards the end all hell breaks loose, and some scenes are disgusting (in a comedy-horror good way), and it's wonderful! The film has a good, fairly suspenseful, action-packed final act.

After this movie there were several other movies that tried to capitalize on the success of this movie. For the most part though they failed to live up to the energy and fun of this movie. Heck, not even the sequel of this one had the energy of this movie. Here we have a guy getting a pet as an early xmas gift, a cute creature called a Mogway. It however, does have a few problems, as it needs special care. One thing you can't do to it is get it wet. Well Billy does (that is the guy who got it). This breeds more of the little critters, and they are harmless enough at first as well. Then they are fed after midnight and this turns them into Gremlins. This new form is a beer drinking, candy eating, mischief machine that isn't above killing. Most of the original batch is killed off in a gruesome kitchen scene, but the leader, Stripe, gets away and dives into a ycma swimming pool, so the whole town gets overrun by the little monsters. This movie is very funny and enjoyable to watch. Even though the Gremlins do kill, this movie never gets as dark as some of the copycats, or too goofy like some of them do. It ends up being a well-made movie that is fun to watch.

When this movie first came out, a lot of parents made the fatal mistake of thinking it was a cute, children's movie. In fact, it was this movie and "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" that prompted the film industry to create the PG-13 rating. This one only got a PG.

My mother was one of the parents who confused the movie as one suitable for children.

Needless to say I was horrified by this movie as I was only 4 years old. This movie caused me to be severely afraid of the dark for many years. Yet, strangely enough, I wanted to watch it every year at my grandmother's house at Christmas time. It was tradition.

I think that if parents knew what they were getting into, this wouldn't have been as big a movie as it was, and would probably have been lost among rummage sales, and good will donations as a movie nobody wanted.

I love this movie, and it takes me back to when I was a frightened little boy, who was too scared to check under the bed when he heard those strange noises in the middle of the night. Almost 20 years later, those old scars still haven't healed completely, and sometimes just seeing "Stripe" on the cover will send chills down my spine and prompt me to move to a room with better lighting.

That's damn good film-making. Freddy Krueger didn't even do that to me.

I do get a kick out of the fact that every once in a while, the Disney channel will play this movie around the holidays.

Hoyt Axton's monologue at the begining trys to bring us into the movie by being the "story-teller" but during the movie, we trick ourselves with "it's only a movie." Ending it with Axton's end monologue drags us back into the movie, leaving us with the though... "There just might be a Gremlin in your house."