Gremlins
★★★ 1/2
With Gremlins 3 officially heading into production, I figured it was the perfect time to finally revisit, or really visit for the first time, the original Gremlins from 1984.
Full disclosure: I started watching it on Halloween and didn’t finish until a few days later, which turned out to be perfect timing. Gremlins might just be the ultimate crossover film, a little bit Christmas, a little bit Halloween, and completely 1980s in all the best ways.
Here’s the surprising part: I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen this movie from start to finish before. Some scenes looked familiar, but I must have either been too scared as a kid to stick it out or maybe my parents wisely decided a horror comedy about mischievous monsters wasn’t great bedtime viewing.
From the jump, Gremlins is a wild ride of tones. I was immediately drawn in by the practical effects. The puppetry work on Gizmo and the gremlins is so good that it makes me miss the tactile feel of 1980s filmmaking. CGI just couldn’t replicate that same sense of dread and weight. Gizmo is impossibly adorable, which makes the grotesque transformation into full-blown gremlins even more unsettling.
The first half of the movie plays almost like a family fantasy gone wrong, but once the chaos starts, it’s pure anarchy and that’s where the movie truly shines. The scene where Billy’s mom defends herself in the kitchen is straight-up horror brilliance, but then moments later, we’re watching a cranky elderly woman fly out a window on a stair lift. It’s terrifying and hilarious all at once.
And then there’s Phoebe Cates’ infamous “dead Santa dad” monologue, an absolutely bonkers moment that made me realize the filmmakers knew exactly what kind of movie they were making. It’s dark, weird and completely self-aware.
By the time the gremlins are watching Snow White in a movie theater and loving it, I was all in. This isn’t just a horror comedy. It’s a campfire ghost story dressed up in Christmas lights. The closing narration about checking under the bed and in the cabinets for gremlins seals that idea perfectly.
While Gremlins doesn’t hit me with the same nostalgic rush as something like The Goonies, I completely understand why people who grew up with it hold it so close. It’s creepy without being too scary, funny without being too goofy, and packed with that Spielberg era sense of mischief.
Watching it now, I can see exactly how much shows like Stranger Things owe to it. That blend of childlike wonder and creeping horror? Gremlins did it first.
Now I’m genuinely curious to check out Gremlins 2, not for the plot but to see how the practical effects evolved, and even more curious about what Gremlins 3 might bring. I just hope they keep the puppets. Some things are better left analog.
