I’ve not really got into the Christmas spirit yet this year. So far we’ve sent 6 cards, I’ve bought all my presents but they are sitting in a heap waiting to be wrapped. It’s so bad that I haven’t even watched The Muppet Christmas Carol yet – maybe that’s why I’m not in the festive mood. If you’re getting DVD box-sets as Christmas presents then you should make one of them a Christmas themed collection. Nothing says Christmas more than evil little green monsters terrorising a sleepy little all-American town – my final suggestion this week is Gremlins
Gremlins
Released: 1984
Director: Joe Dante
Starring: Zach Galligan, Pheobe Cates
Unsuccessful inventor Randy Peltzer buys his son Billy a cute new pet for Christmas. There are only three rules for owning a Mogwai – keep him out of sunlight, don’t get him wet and never EVER feed him after midnight. Naturally the important rules are broken and the small town of Kingston Falls is over-run with evil lizard like monsters who are wreaking havoc everywhere and killing the residents under the leadership of vicious alpha-Gremlin Stripe.
This is a glorious horror-comedy which manages to balance both elements pretty well. Some humourless critics have condemned Gremlins for having too much violence but without it the film wouldn’t work quite so well, moments such as Billy’s mum’s face-off against multiple Gremlins in the kitchen add to the fun of the film.
Director Joe Dante has been influenced by classic American films such as It’s A Wonderful Life and The Wizard of Oz. Kingston Falls bears an uncanny resemblance to Bedford Falls and Mrs Deagle is a nasty mixture of The Wizard of Oz’s Miss Gulch and It’s A Wonderful Life’s Henry Potter. It’s no loss when she falls foul of Stripe and his gang.
There are almost too many lovely moments in Gremlins to mention including the flasher in the bar, the 80s breakdancer in legwarmers and the stairlift flying through a window. A cinema full of Gremlins watching Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is a sight that will stay with you for a long time – although their behaviour isn’t much worse than that of the average British multiplex audience!
Gremlins is a real Christmas classic and no house is complete without it. A word of warning from my own experience – I cannot hear “Do You Hear What I Hear” without being terrified to my very soul. Keep it away from very impressionable youngsters!
Gremlins 2: The New Batch
Released: 1990
Director: Joe Dante
Starring: Zach Galligan, Pheobe Cates
Seven years on from that Christmas Eve in Kingston Falls Billy and Kate are now working for Cliché – sorry – Clamp Enterprises, a large corporation inhabited by the kind of employees that exist only in films from the late 80s/early 90s. Gizmo has fallen into the hands of Clamp Enterprises and despite Billy’s best efforts to prevent the rules being broken Gremlins have infested a skyscraper in the middle of New York City. Billy and Kate have only a few hours to defeat the Gremlins – come nightfall they’ll leave the building and the whole city will be at their mercy.
Whereas the original was classified a 15 the sequel was granted a 12 certificate and there is a big difference. Gremlins has a nasty, vicious streak with mean looking creatures. Gremlins 2 is much more comedy focussed, no-one is killed and the appearance of the Gremlins is much more (for want of a better word) rubbery. Gremlins is a well-judged horror comedy, Gremlins 2 is a comedy with a few squeals thrown in. That’s not a bad thing, but I’d have preferred a sequel that built on the scares and horror from the first film.
Gremlins 2 manages to have some fun at its own expense which is always very appealing. There’s a nice breaking down of the ‘fourth wall’ when the creatures hijack a cinema in the Clamp Building which is showing Gremlins 2. They interrupt the film at a particularly uninteresting point in order to watch Snow White and the Seven Dwarves instead. This anarchic disruption of the movie is brought to an end by Hulk Hogan, a member of the cinema audience and we’re all returned to the original feature. The Gremlins singing New York, New York is also nice moment and one of the Gremlins death-cry of “I’m melting” neatly harks back to The Wizard of Oz references in the first film.
Gremlins is a true 80s classic which will bring the true meaning of Christmas to the homes of anyone who owns it – they’ll love you for bringing it into their lives.