andrew-repko There is no better way to spend the Christmas season, then enjoying one of the greatest seasonal movies, the Gremlins. The movie really gets it when it comes to understanding the Christmas season. It takes you through how most people view Christmas as a happy time of year full of joy and happiness, but it also shows how the holiday season can be a very depressing time for others. No one hammers this home better in the movie then Phoebe Cates,.You know her from her role in Fast Times at Ridgemont, in the iconic scene where she jumps in the pool and ol Judge Reinhold gets his mind wondering and imagines her take off her top off (she takes it off in the film for real, but you knew that) but while Judge was busy dreamin, she catches him in "the act" in the bathroom. V embarrassing for Judge, who is also in Gremlins. Must have been pretty weird to have to work together again just 2 years after the "incident". Anyway, Phoebe, who's name in the movie is Kate, tells Billy Peltzer why she hates Christmas. She first hints at it earlier in the movie when she says "a lot of people get really depressed....While everybody else is opening up their presents, they're opening up their wrists." Pretty damn dark. But eventually she sheds more light as to why she hates Christmas. It turns out her genius dad tried to surprise his daughter on Christmas but dressing like Santa and climbing down the chimney and didn't even tell his wife he did that. Anyway, when he goes to attempt this ridiculous and probably not possible stunt, he falls down the chimney and instantly breaks his neck and dies, like an idiot. His body got stuck there and his family couldn't find him for days until his daughter smelled a terrible odor from the chimney. That's a dark story and you can understand why she has such a dark outlook on Christmas.While everyone knows this movie is mostly about Christmas and celebrating with family and friends, it does veer into a different direction with a subplot involving little furry creatures call Mogwai's. Con-man, sleazy salesman and all around terrible father Rand Peltzer stumbles upon Mogwai's in an underground chinatown shop. He refused to listen to the old wise man who lived there and made a backdoor deal with the young kid to purchase a Mogwai as a Christmas Present for his Adult Son. Also, Rand is an inventor of crappy products such as the Bathroom Buddy, trust me.. its a bad invention. He's know around town as a joke and a weasel and everyone knows his adult son supports his parents with his job as a bank teller.Upon purchasing this Mogwai, the young man warns Rand that to care for the Mogwai he must follow 3 simple rules: 1. They hate bright lights and you need to keep them out of the sunlight, it will kill them (fair and very straight forward rule) 2. Keep them away from water and 3. Don't ever feed them after midnight. It turns out that if they touch water, they multiply pretty cool but more trouble for the owner. If you feed them after midnight, they become these sweet creatures called Gremlins. I have a lot of questions on why "midnight" is a time they can't be fed and how these creatures are timezone centric. So obviously Billy Peltzer f's up when him and his pal Corey Feldman accidentally spill water on the Mogwai they call Gizmo, which immediately spawns off 5 more Mogwai. Now Mogwai are kind of whack, they are pretty much Bootleg Furby's, the popular children's toy from the Late 90s early 2000's. They add no real value and are more of a burden then anything. The 5 Mogwai's spurned from gizmo are kind of badasses. They plays a prank on the dog and hang him by the Christmas lights. They also chew threw the power chord on Billy's clock which stopped his clock at like 11:40pm. And Billy is a total weenie and didn't realize his clock his wrong and fed the 5 BA Mogwai's some fried chicken after midnight.This led to the Mogwai transforming into Gremlins which the movie tries to tell you they are "bad guys" but i'd disagree. They were however very ugly. These maniacs just wanted to drink booze, smoke cigs and shoot some guns, like most americans. There's a great montage when they are at the local pub holding Phoebe's character hostage as they all raged! Seemed like the type of bar I'd like to go to. The lead Gremlin, who they called Strip got loose after Billy's mom stabbed and microwaved his 4 other Gremlin friends. He went down to the local Y and jumped into the pool and multiplied the Gremlins by about 1,000. After a night out on the town causing some light mischief and some partying with their homies, they settled down for a screening of Snow White at the local theater. Billy, Gizmo and Kate (Phoebe) were jealous of how much fun the Gremlins were having and ambushed them by blowing up the theater and killing them all but Stripe. They eventually tortured spike by slowly melting him to death in sunlight. Extremely violent and unfair!.One Random thought, how come if the Mogwai/Gremlins touch water, they multiple but they can walk around in snow and not multiply? Also, I laughed every time Stripe shot a gun, So great!

classicsoncall It's always cool to revisit a movie that was seen when it first came out and not again until the present day. This time it's my turn for "Gremlins", a gem that made it's mark in the comedy/horror genre way back in 1984. Being a classic movie fan, it was a treat to catch clips from even earlier films like "It's a Wonderful Life", "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". I enjoy those little bits of nostalgia whenever they pop up in something I'm watching.Once the furry little fuzzball Gizmo pops out a handful more of his look-alikes, the fun begins until things get out of control during the metamorphosis stage when mogwais turn into gremlins. I don't think I have to go into the whole back story to explain things, there are enough reviews here if you haven't seen the movie, and most likely if you're reading this you already have.The one caveat I would offer here is that for real young kids, this might be too intense, what with the ugliness of the gremlin creatures and the nasty violence they bring to the story. Not to mention the highly creative ways Mom Peltzer (Frances Lee McCain) deals with her home invaders. The blender deal was pretty dicey, but she really outdid herself with the microwave treatment, never considering who was going to clean up the mess afterward. That's what I liked about her.There's only two questions I have after catching this flick the other night, the first one being kind of facetious. Isn't it always 'after midnight' once the clock strikes twelve? But maybe even more importantly for this fan of classic movies and TV programs - where was William Shatner for this one?

dee.reid 1984's "Gremlins" is really one of the best-known of holiday-themed horror and fantasy films that also double as darkly-humored comedies. That's what "Gremlins" is, essentially: a Christmas-themed horror-/fantasy-comedy. In that regard, the film has become a perennial Christmas-holiday classic, along the lines of "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (1993) and the more-recent "Krampus" (2015)."Gremlins" is a movie that I grew up watching throughout my childhood, but I don't think that I've ever really sat down and watched the whole thing in its entirety. But I do know that I've always liked this movie and gotten a real kick out of it.Executively produced by master cinematic craftsman Steven Spielberg, expertly directed by Joe Dante ("The Howling") and written by future Hollywood hot-shot Chris Columbus ("Home Alone," "Mrs. Doubtfire"), "Gremlins" is set a few days before Christmas in the fictional Midwestern town of Kingston Falls. As an early Christmas present, Billy (Zach Galligan) receives a mysterious, cute little creature known only as a "mogwai" from his inventor father to keep as a pet; Billy names the adorable critter "Gizmo." But taking care of a mogwai is a huge responsibility, we learn, and come with three rules that must be obeyed at all times: keep them away from sunlight, don't let get them wet, and don't let them eat anything after midnight. Seems simple, right?Wrong.Gizmo accidentally gets wet, and he spawns five more mogwai creatures, but these are different from Gizmo. These newly-spawned mogwai are curiously more malevolent and voracious than Gizmo is, and a series of plot machinations result in them transforming into the true "Gremlins" of the film's title, and soon the small Midwestern town of Kingston Falls is overrun with little, reptilian-looking, mischief-making Gremlins. It's up to Billy and his new crush Kate (Phoebe Cates) to put a stop to these creatures before they have a chance to spread beyond Kingston Falls' borders."Gremlins" was one of several films released in 1984 that led the MPAA to revise its rating system because the film may not have been suitable for small children - despite its "PG" rating. It might have been too scary for some young tastes, according to parental groups who complained about the film's violent content. This led to the "PG-13" rating, which is now the go-to rating for most big-budget Hollywood films released today. If "Gremlins" were released in 2016, there's no question it would get a "PG-13" rating from the MPAA.But nonetheless, "Gremlins" is a thrilling, cackling funny little holiday-themed fantasy-comedy film. The creatures in the film, designed by future Oscar-winner Chris Walas (who won an Oscar for David Cronenberg's "The Fly" in 1986), are wonderful special effects creations - brought to life by a combination of state-of-the-art animatronics, puppetry, miniatures, and stop-motion effects. Gizmo, as the only "good" Gremlin, is adorable - but we see what he can become, after witnessing the transformation of his brethren and the havoc they're capable of causing around town. They're dangerous and cause a lot of epic property damage, but Dante and Walas are able to get some incredible laughs out of them later on in the film."Gremlins" is a delightful little holiday hoot that you won't see anything like for a very, very long time.10/10

MisterWhiplash Seeing this again in a theater today on 35mm, and it strikes me how much this is a product of the 1980's even as it holds up (that is if you are one of those few brave souls who love the hell out of practical effects and creatures that have to be built - so many of these things have great individual personalities and designs, even as they're all either gremlins or mogwais). Dick Miller as Mr. Futterman, for example, plays the sort of borderline-adorable xenophobe - his one character trait here is that he doesn't trust a single thing that comes from another country - that today in America is not so adorable anymore (a Nixon frame on his wall seems quaint by today's standards). And the gremlins themselves can be seen as the sort of "other" or "outsider" threat that's coming to get us if we're not careful; it's not that we can't or shouldn't have in these foreign critters, but the responsibility is on us, perhaps, to make sure we don't turn them into hideous terrorists....I may be reading a bit much into this. But it's still a piece of Spielberg Americana, a small suburban town (maybe less suburban than ET but close enough) where everyone seems to know everyone, but given Joe Dante and Chris Columbus's extra-dose of love for B movies and Loony Tunes. It also is wonderful as an homage to the sort of small town one saw in It's a Wonderful Life (which we see on a TV here) and gets sort of featured with the one cantankerous woman who practically runs the bank (her storyline gets put by the wayside for one reason or another).Not unlike with the Evil Dead series, the first movie is more of a horror movie than a comedy, and I think it takes a little while for the comedy to find its footing - as a kid I found Billy's dad, played by Hoyt Axton, to be amusing, though now as an adult he doesn't hold up as well with the running gags of his mishap inventions (it's kind of cute, at first, but runs out of steam). But once the bad mogwais and especially the plethora of gremlins take over the town, it is an amazing pop-comedy spectacle. If nothing else it's worthwhile for the set pieces in the second half: that bar scene with Phoebe Cates at the mercy of all these damn creatures (the highlight of this movie for me is the jazzy, Tom Waits-like gremlin accosted by the one with the hand-puppets); all of them watching Snow White; the finale with 'Stripe' and how it's an actually effective suspense sequence, with maybe one too many false endings.And in the middle is little Gizmo, like the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi built for no other purpose except to be sickeningly cute and... who wouldn't want a Gizmo, long as one is responsible for the little guy? It may take a little while for him to become notable to the plot, but when he does it's also a great deal of fun in that finale. So, there is a lot of nostalgia in this for me, as this was one of the first movies I can remember seeing as a little kid. How I respond to it today isn't too different, though I do recognize some of its flaws. Perfect ending.