Review of Gremlins (1984) by D M — 03 Dec 2013

A son receives a gift of mysterious creature his dad bought from a real, live Chinamen. It comes with rules: don't get wet, don't feed after midnight, etc. Son disobeys the rules, chaos ensues; you know the story.

I don't much care for the way the film was directed. The whole feel of the story is overly "family-friendly" with the Christmastime atmosphere really being played up. Apparently, it was originally written with more horror.

Scenes including gremlins eating the family dog and gremlins killing mother and rolling her head down the stairs were cut from the original script. Added were lame jokes about the father's bad inventions.

Throughout the film, several movies are referenced indirectly either through background posters, characters viewing films, or other methods including dialogue. The mogwai are cute and there are sure some good moments of humor when the mogwai go rogue all over the small town.