I’m not generally a great fan of black comedy, but the first Gremlins film was hilarious. Zach Galligan stars as Billy Peltzer, a young man with big dreams but small realisations, targeted by the town witch in particular (though he shouldn’t feel too special because she hates everyone). His father, Randy Peltzer (Hoyt Axton) is a well-meaning man, an inventor of original products that somehow never seem to work for more than a few minutes. One day Randy brings home a unique present for Billy; a Mogwai, bought from a Chinese curiosity shop. The cute little critter instantly wins everyone’s heart, but carries with him a great responsibility. The owner must follow 3 golden rules: keep it out of sunlight, never feed it after midnight, and never get it wet.

When the obvious happens and those 3 rules get broken, the town finds itself infested with very nasty little critters called gremlins. Murray Futternman (Dick Miller) remembers these creatures from his war days, but of course everyone thinks he’s crazy. The chaos that ensues goes from bad to worse, but it appears that the gremlins do have a softer side – they love watching “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”! (Seeing and hearing them singing along to the “Hi-Ho” song is still one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in a movie!) Naturally enough it falls upon Billy and his girlfriend Kate (played by the lovely Phoebe Cates) to save the town. There are a few gory moments which earned it a 15 rating in the UK (only PG in the USA), but on the whole it might only be scary for younger children. Chris Columbus’ script is a perfect mixture of comedy and suspense, and Joe Dante’s Direction makes the most of it. The creature models still look great even though the film was released back in 1984. Jerry Goldsmith’s musical score for the film was just about perfect. A real 5-star film.

Then 6 years later, the sequel came out. With mostly the same cast and crew, this wasn’t as good as the original (somehow that line sounds familiar…), but it worked very well because it didn’t try to be the same sort of film as the first. While Gremlins was a horror-comedy, this was an out-and-out comedy with a vaguely horror theme. The creatures were more the star of the show this time, as due to genetic mutation there were many different types of gremlin around. As they try to take over New York (such an ill-fated city, don’t you think!?!?), variations of the gremlins in the form of spider, bat, and even fruit (and, believe it or not, Miss Piggy!) mutations arrive on the scene. There’s even a brainy gremlin, who has my favourite scene of the film (see below). Once again Billy and Kate are in the midst of it, she working at the huge department store where the Gremlins are hatching from. While the first film had a social commentary subtext in the very last scene of the film, this one is quite obviously spoofing or deriding large corporations right from the start. There is a Donald Trump-like character called Daniel Clamp, played by John Glover, who has many of the funniest moments of the film. Sometimes the comedy doesn’t completely work because it just seems a little too over the top in places, but overall it’s still a very funny film if you don’t take it too seriously (or expect the same sort of film as the original). It does parody the original quite a lot and this is sometimes funny, sometimes tired. The creature crew had even more fun with this than the first one, and of course the gremlins manage to watch snow white again and sing the hi-ho song (and yes, it’s still funny!) It’s not as gory as the first movie but is even more slimey…

This 2-DVD set comes in a slightly less than robust box showing Gizmo (the original Mogwai) on the cover. The overall rating of the set in the UK is 15, due to the rating of the first film (the second was PG in both the States and over here). I’m assuming that the box set would be PG over the pond. The extras are as usual somewhat disappointing, consisting of a commentary by Joe Dante and Producer, Michael Finnell, gag reel which isn’t nearly as funny as the films, the trailer (just what is the point of having the trailer when you already have the whole film?!), deleted scenes which, on the whole, you can quite understand why they were deleted; and the one really worthwhile bit, a “behind the scenes” documentary. This is quite fun because it’s done from the perspective of the gremlins taking over the film (this does get a bit tiresome after a while admittedly but is initially a nice change from the normal “oh we are wonderful for making this fantastic film” type documentary), and is particularly interesting when it shows you how certain scenes were shot. In particular watching someone flap a pair of wooden bat wings at Dick Miller in preparation for the bat-gremlin being superimposed onto the shot.

Since I’m not particularly bothered about the extras as I rarely watch them at all unless I’m going to review the DVD set rather than just the film, I’m going to give this 5 stars. The second film isn’t quite good enough on its own for 5 stars but for the price (£7.99 along with the Ghostbusters 1 & 2 DVD set) it’s great value, and two very funny films.

Quotes or Memorable Scenes

Gremlins

Kate: Will you sign this petition? They're trying to close Dorie's Tavern.
Billy Peltzer: Sure. That's where my dad proposed to my mom, you know.
Kate: That's where everyone's dad proposed to their mom.

Randall Peltzer: Rand Peltzer, Fantastic ideas for a Fantastic World, I make the illogical logical.

Chinese man: You do with mogwai what your society... has done with all of nature's gifts. You do not understand.
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Gremlins 2

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Dr. Catheter: All they have to do is to eat three or four children and there'd be the most appalling publicity.

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The bit below is my favourite scene of the film… probably doesn’t translate too well to the written word though! Grandpa Fred is interviewing the brainy gremlin… The brainy gremlin sounds like Tony Randall… because that’s who voices him…

Grandpa Fred: Creature, what is it that you want?
Brain Gremlin: Fred, what we want is, I think, what everyone wants, and what you and your viewers have: civilization.
Grandpa Fred: Yes, but what sort of civilization are you speaking of?
Brain Gremlin: The niceties, Fred. The fine points: diplomacy, compassion, standards, manners, tradition... that's what we're reaching toward. Oh, we may stumble along the way, but civilization, yes. The Geneva Convention, chamber music, Susan Sontag. Everything your society has worked so hard to accomplish over the centuries, that's what we aspire to; we want to be civilized.
[a Gremlin with a beanie cap acts goofy next to Brain]
Brain Gremlin: You take a look at this fellow here.

[Brain shoots the Gremlin in the head. The Gremlins in the bar laugh.]

Brain Gremlin: Now, was that civilized? No, clearly not. Fun, but in no sense civilized. Now, bear in mind, none of us has been in New York before. There are the Broadway shows - we'll have to find out how to get tickets. There's also a lot of street crime, but I believe we can watch that for free. We want the essentials. Dinettes. Complete bedroom groups. Convenient credit, even though we've been turned down in the past.

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Building Announcement: Because of the end of civilization, the Clamp Cable Network now leaves the air. We hope you've enjoyed our programming, but more importantly, we hope you've enjoyed... life.

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See also: Top Ten Comedies





Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD