Review of Gremlins (1984) by Grayson W — 03 Jan 2017

Here is my stream of consciousness review. A perfect movie during Christmas or any other time. The universal back lot town is obvious and recognizable but adds to the charm. The co star female is the red bikini girl from Fast Times, which I read was a controversial move at the time because of her fast times scene, which is interesting.

Gizmo is adorable but I worry people are too care free when bringing home a pet of an unknown species, I would have freaked out over its very basic needs, much less the problems that later arise. The gremlins are awesome characters from the era of practical fx and any screen time they get is amazing.

And their presence isn't just implied like in many monster movies that show just seconds of the monster at a time; no they spent a ton of time and money putting these dudes on screen. The introductory bar scene could have been half a minute of gags but the wild gremlin bar antics go on for what feels like ten minutes! It must have taken days to film that scene.

And if that wasn't enough, later they have a packed theater full of fully animated gremlins all with even more crazy antics! It's a pretty dark and somewhat violent movie for a kids film but I think it came out a bit before Temple of Doom etc so PG 13 hadn't become a thing yet.

Though he has several good movies under his belt, Gremlins is truly the masterpiece of Joe Dante.