Gremlins ***** (1984, Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, Corey Feldman, Hoyt Axton, Keye Luke, Dick Miller, Harry Carey Jr) – Classic Movie Review 64

Brilliantly on-form director Joe Dante and writer Chris Columbus deliver a perfectly delightful and deliciously cynical horror comedy in Gremlins in 1984. It is great vicious fun throughout and now a treasured, minor little classic and beloved icon of its mid-Eighties era. With the mayhem set at Christmas time, it’s an ideal treat for seeing at holiday time.

Zach Galligan (aged 20 in 1984) stars as nice all-American teenager Billy Peltzer, who gets into a lot of trouble after his eccentric and none-too clever inventor dad Randall Peltzer (Hoyt Axton) visits old Mr Wing’s (Keye Luke) Chinatown store and offers to buy the cute mogwai furry pet called Gizmo (voice of Howie Mandel) he sees there. Mr Wing won’t sell it, but the Chinese boy (John Louie) who took him there does, telling him there are three all-important rules: 1. Don’t get it wet. 2. Don’t let it in sunlight or bright light. 3. Don’t feed it after midnight.

Mr Peltzer gives the mogwai to his delighted son Billy, who is naturally thrilled with his new pet and pal. But soon enough, of course, it accidentally gets wet and gives birth to nasty little creatures, which promptly and hilariously go on the rampage.

Galligan proves a charming, likeable young hero, Axton is fun as dad, and scoring impressively well in support are Phoebe Cates (as Billy’s gal Kate Beringer), Frances Lee McCain (as his mom) and Corey Feldman (as his young pal Pete).

Steven Spielberg executive produces in a gleefully anarchic spirit the kind of film you don’t much associate with him. Dante turns in a very good-looking, well-crafted film. There is notable work on the score by Jerry Goldsmith and camera by John Hora, plus charming special effects by Chris Walas.

Setting the mayhem at Christmas time, with Billy’s mom mincing a gremlin in the blender and chucking another in the microwave, it is certainly intended as a zany crowd-pleaser for older teens and adults – and delivers the laughs and thrills big time.

Children’s author Roald Dahl invented the word Gremlins (midgets who lived in fighter planes causing them to fail) in WW2: he appears in a cameo in the 1990 sequel, Gremlins 2: The New Batch. US film critic Leonard Maltin makes a cameo in Gremlins 2: The New Batch to repeat his misguided condemnation of Part 1 before receiving his due comeuppance.

RIP legendary character actor Dick Miller, who died on 30  January 2019, aged 90. He is fondly remembered as Murray Futterman in Gremlins, and also for The Terminator, The Howling, The ‘Burbs and many films of Roger Corman, who discovered him.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 64

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