Cute Creatures Make the Movie

Rating: Null/10 (3 October 2011)

Gremlins (1984)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Cute Steven Spielberg-produced horror-comedy about a teen (Zach Galligan) whose given a "creature" for Christmas but there are three rules that you must follow. He breaks one of the rule by putting water on it, which makes more of the creatures pop up. He breaks the most important rule by feeding them after midnight and soon some ugly, green and slimy gremlins come to cause trouble. As with many of Joe Dante's early pictures, this one here is not only an homage to earlier monster movies but it's also quite clever in how it shows this affection towards older movies while at the same time trying to take the material to the next level. With a screenplay by Chris Columbus, direction by Dante and someone like Spielberg as a producer I must admit that I was expecting a lot more out of this blockbuster. There's no question that there are many good things going in this film but I thought that way too much detail was paid to the human characters and this meant that whenever the monsters weren't on the screen then things just slowed down to the point where the entire film crashes. There's no doubt that the main attraction are going to be the cute hairy creatures and the ugly monsters. You can tell that the screenplay really wanted to build up these creatures and especially when you consider how much screen time the furry guys get in the first half of the movie. The best moments of the movie happen early on as we're introduced to small town America and get to witness a part of their lives, which I'm sure most viewers can relate to. This includes the always suspicious neighbor (played by Dick Miller) and the rich old woman who hates everyone but herself. Some of the best moments happen early on when we see a few of the directions these two characters take. The problem is that our main guy, his girl (Phoebe Cates) and everyone are rather underwritten and don't come off nearly as charming as the creatures. The screenplay is also rather basic in terms of any type of story as we meet the creatures, they grow, they attack and then its over. The story mainly goes for silly jokes that really weren't that well-written and this includes a rather silly sequence where the gremlins take over a bar and go crazy. I'm still curious where the gremlins got their clothes and weapons but that's another story. I thought Galligan was pretty good in his role and there's no question that Cates can bring some energy to the screen. Seeing Miller is always fun and we also get other familiar faces like Corey Feldman, Harry Carey, Jr. and Keye Luke. GREMLINS is certainly cute enough for what it is but I'd stop a little short of calling it an actual good movie.