Entertaining mess

Rating: 8/10 (25 March 2012)

"Gremlins" is one of the wildest, most incoherent films ever to become a hit, but the style that sometimes makes the movie difficult to follow fits the subject--we in the audience literally don't know what to expect once the title gremlins are spawned and get loose (as we know they will). The beginning of the film cleverly sets up a super-bland Typical American Town out of Frank Capra; we get to know the local eccentrics (Hopeless Inventor, Spunky Housewife, Dense Sheriff, Miserable Old Rich Bitch) and the generic teenage dreamer Billy, who is presented on his birthday with Gizmo, an ultra-cute Furby-like creature who communicates in monosyllabic squeaks. Gizmo has a dark side, though; he accidentally spawns a breed of evil lizard-like monsters who invade the town on Christmas Eve and subject it to a destructive jamboree, like a miniature street gang on a sugar high. They're cartoon characters run wild--the movie shows how nightmarish it would be if animated cartoons turned evil and invaded the real world. Classic sequences abound; Billy's mother (Frances Lee McCain) battling the demons in her kitchen with the aid of a blender and a microwave; town harpy Mrs. Deagle (Polly Holliday) getting hers via a malfunctioning stair climber; Phoebe Cates' anti-Santa speech (I wonder if actresses ever used that monologue in auditions?) and a climactic battle scene set in a movie theatre playing "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." The movie gives the impression of a brainstorm, or a jazz session--not all of the ideas work, but there's so much going on it is impossible to be bored for a second.