Gremlins (1984)
Country: USA
Production Companies: Warner Brothers/Amblin Entertainment
Executive Producers: Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall
Producer: Michael Finnell
Director: Joe Dante
Screenplay: Chris Columbus
Cinematographer: John Hora (Technicolor)
Editor: Tina Hirsch
Music: Jerry Goldsmith
Production Designer: James H. Spencer
Set Designer: William F Matthews
Creature Design: Chris Walas
Stop Motion Effects: Fantasy II Effects
Special Effects: Robert MacDonald, Bob MacDonald Jr
Matte Paintings: Dreamquest Images
Sound Editor: Richard L. Anderson
Special Sound Effects: Alan Howarth
Costume Designers: Norman A Burza, Linda Matthews
Stunt Coordinator: Mike McGaughy
Length: 106 mins.
Budget: $11 Million
Cast: Zach Galligan (Billy Peltzer), Phoebe Cates (Kate Beringer), Hoyt Axton (Randall Peltzer), Polly Holliday (Ruby Deagle), Frances Lee McCain (Lynn Peltzer), Judge Reinhold (Gerald Hopkins), Dick Miller (Murray Futterman), Glynn Turman (Roy Hanson), Keye Luke (Grandfather), Scott Brady (Sheriff Frank), Corey Feldman (Pete Fountaine), Jonathan Banks (Deputy Brent), Edward Andrews (Mr Corben), Harry Carey Jr. (Mr Anderson), Belinda Balaski (Mrs Harris), John Louie (Chinese Boy), Arnie Moore (Alex), Donald Elson (Man on Street),"The Real" Don Steele (Rockin' Ricky Rialto), Susan Burgess (Little Girl), Daniel Llewelyn (Hungry Harris Child), Lois Foraker (Bank teller), Chuck Jones (Mr Jones), Kenny Davis (Dorry), Nicky Katt (Schoolchild), Tracy Wells (Schoolchild), John C Becher (Dr Molinaro), Gwen Willson (Mrs Molinaro), Jackie Joseph (Sheila Futterman), Joe Brooks (Dave Meyers, Santa), Jim McKrell (Lew Landers, WDHB-TV reporter), Howie Mandel (Gizmo voice), Fred Newman (Stripe voice), Frank Welker, Mark Dodson, Michael Winslow, Peter Cullen, Bob Berger, Michael Sheehan, Bob Holt (Gremlin voices), Mushroom (Barney), Jerry Goldsmith (Man in Telephone Booth, uncredited), Steven Spielberg (Man in Electric Wheelchair, uncredited), Kenneth Tobey (Gas Station Attendant, uncredited).
Synopsis: Inept inventor Randall Peltzer brings a Christmas pet home for his son Billy. The Mogwai, named Gizmo, is an appealing creature, but comes with three rules: don't get him wet, avoid bright light, and don't feed him after midnight. After Billy's friend, Pete, spills some water, Gizmo multiplies, but things get much worse after the new Mogwai trick Billy into feeding them in the middle of the night. Soon, Billy and Kate, a work colleague Billy is attracted to, must save the town when the Mogwai transform from delightful to deadly.
Review: Hot off success of The Howling (1981), Joe Dante was approached by Steven Spielberg with a script from a young New York film school student named Chris Columbus. Spielberg envisaged the film as a low budget horror movie and saw it as the perfect vehicle for Dante's major studio debut and the first production from his own fledgling production house, Amblin Entertainment. Little did they realize that the resulting work would not only create a classic of 80s genre film-making, a holiday perennial that appears near the top of most right-thinking people's Christmas movies list, but also cause the invention of a new certificate better suited to cover the hilariously subversive carnage on show.
The beauty of Dante's movie, typical of his generation of film makers, is that it takes the small town traditions of Capra and Hawks, adds the sweetness and hope of the Holiday movie genre, and reinvents them for a more cynical, post-Watergate generation. The difference here is that while Spielberg, Lucas and Coppola tend to look back on the films of the 1940s and 50s with a rosy glow, Dante wants to blow them all to hell.
Filming on the same Universal Studios town center set seen in It Came from Outer Space (1953) and Tarantula (1955), and would soon host Back to the Future (1985), Kingston Falls is an idyllic location that, like its Capra predecessor in It's a Wonderful Life (1946), hides meanness and corruption under a veneer as thin as the fake snow covering its streets. The Mogwai, are so effectively lovable that we question our taste in finding them so appealing, but when the transformation comes, we cheer on their gleeful destruction of everything the town holds dear, including the trashing of a local cinema showing Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).
Ever the benevolent dictator, Spielberg negotiated a lengthy production schedule - seven months pre-production for creature designer Chris Walas to create and engineer his little monsters, three months of principal photography, followed after a two week break, by two months spent filming the Gremlins. Indeed the film took so long to produce that Dante directed an episode of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) between his hiring and the actual production.
In the two commentary tracks that accompany this Blu-ray release, Dante proves himself to be a wily operator, willing to fight for his convictions - the fur of lead Mogwai, Gizmo, was designed to be the same color as Spielberg's dog to help along the approval process and he twice tells of problems he had with the studio over one of the best scenes, when Phoebe Cates' character explains why she hates Christmas. As Dante explains, it's the heart of the film, a story that, to the viewer, is ludicrous and funny, but utterly tragic for the person to whom it happened. Yet the powers-that-be at Warner Brothers fought to have it removed, even after the prints had been struck.
To his credit, Spielberg supported Dante in that instance but, as he did recently in the case of Paranormal Activity, made other suggestions that altered the course of events, including toning town some of the violence in Columbus's original – we can thank him for the fact that both Billy's Mom and his dog survive intact. Despite this, the MPAA still ruled some of the action - particularly the classic kitchen sequence, where Mrs Peltzer fights of the lizard-like Gremlins with household appliances - unsuitable for a young audience and this, along with the same year's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, was responsible for the inauguration of the PG-13 certificate. In the UK it went out under the 15 banner which had been introduced in 1982 and while the US Blu-ray has dropped to a straight PG, the UK edition maintains its 15 status.
The Blu-ray features a decent, but not remastered, transfer which starts out a little grainy and soft in the Chinatown sequences, but pays off in Kingston Falls and the detail visible in the Mogwai and Gremlin puppets. The audio, in Dolby TrueHD 5.1, is wonderful, with Jerry Goldsmith's score sounding marvelous, particularly the "Gremlin Rag" theme, and the detailed voice work – including future "Deal Or No Deal" host Howie Mandel – and Sound Design, from John Carpenter collaborator Alan Howarth (Halloween II, Escape from New York), reveal new detail.
Extras are the same as on the 2007 Special Edition, and include commentaries from Dante, producer Michael Finnell, and effects man Chris Walas; and a second from Dante and actors Cates, Galligan, Miller and Mandel. A contemporary "Making Of" featurette is nothing special, but the deleted scenes allow us to see various cuts made to Judge Reinhold's part (he simply disappears from the film in the final edit), as well as one excellent scene showing that Dick Miller's character has just been fired by his Asian employers, as he bemoans: "I guess that's the end of my career in noodles". Photos, storyboards and trailers, including one for Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990), round out the set.
As he makes clear in his commentary, Chris Walas had clearly had enough by the end of this production and relinquished control to Rick Baker in the sequel (Baker's $12M effects budget was one million more than the whole of the first film), but we can still enjoy his massively subversive monsters, and dream of a return to form for Joe Dante's new movie The Hole (2009), and hope that it's even half as enjoyable as this bone fide inflammatory classic. Happy Christmas everyone.
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