My Review of "Gremlins"

Gremlins is a Christmas horror movie that came out back in 1984. I remember seeing this as a kid and even then it wasn't a very scary movie but it had it's moments. The biggest thing I remember about this movie was that I bonded with my mom of all people over this movie. She thought gizmo was the cutest thing. Looking back at Gizmo now I realize a lot of the "cute" monsters from the 80s weren't so cute.

It all starts out in Chinatown and a guy named Randall. He's what you would call an inventor. This is yet another 80s trope. Everyone wanted to be an "inventor" back in the 80s and we had at least one of them in each movie or show. He's looking around this old Chinese shop and tries to sell his merchandise to the owner. That's when he discovers this little monster in the back called a Mogwai.

Naturally he wanted to buy it so that he could give it to his son as a Christmas gift. The owner doesn't want to sell it to him but the owner's grandson couldn't help but see dollar signs. So Randall gets the little monster and gifts it to his son. The only things they have to remember to do is keep it away from bright lights, keep it away from water and don't feed it after midnight. Of course all of those rules will be broken.

When all of those rules are broken all hell breaks loose in their tiny little township. It's up to Randall's son, Billy along with Billy's female companion Kate to get rid of all the Gremlins causing chaos in their small town.

This movie is purely a product of its time. Everything about it screams 80s and in some ways I love that. It's kind of a more naive and simple movie that was made primarily for entertainment value. Today we wouldn't stand for some of the actions of the characters in this movie but back then these were common things to see in movies.

You also see some pretty heavy-handed stereotypes like the Grinch like lady who some today would consider a Karen cat lady. There is the conspiracy theory neighbor. The small town cop that doesn't believe anything. The list goes on but watching it today it's kind of fun to see this again.

I particularly liked Billy's mom's badass moment where she murders Gremlins messing around in her kitchen. Though seeing this movie again I kind of had more empathy for the Gremlins. These horrible monsters are just pranksters doing bad. They didn't kill everyone in the movie and the ones that they did kill were the ones that were trying to murder them int eh first place with the exception of the conspiracy theory guy.

Some of the more impressive things you see here are the special effects. The character models are definitely very influential. If you know Grogu from The Mandalorian you'll see a lot of similarities to that character model and the Mogwai and Gremlins in this movie. Then again the character model of this one was probably modelled off Yoda from Star Wars. Some of the puppets are pretty crude and can look quite haunting by today's standards. Back then we used to love these things and thought they were quite cute but I guess less is more and back then they did more than less.

They also have a ton of stop motion animation. Everything is done through practical effects and you can see the time and effort that they took to get everything done. It's really quite a feat and still impressive when I watched it now. Yes they can look pretty rough at points but you still have to admire the craftmanship put into this movie.

Overall, I had a fun time watching this. It brought back some fond memories and it's quite an enjoyable Christmas movie if you're tired of the usual stuff that gets regurgitated every year. If you don't have any nostalgia for this movie it can be a bit of a tough sell for you though. Still it's something different and may be worthy of a try. I have to give this movie a 6.5 out of 10. It's fun but not something I would watch every year.