"I rarely use it myself sir, it promotes rust." Entertaining family orientated fantasy horror.

Rating: 7/10 (2 November 2005)

Gremlins starts with an inventor named Randall Peltzer (Hoyt Axton) being lead into a shop by a young Chinese boy (John Louie) & introduces Randall to his Grandfather (Keye Luke). Randall is looking for a Christmas present for his son Billy (Zach Galligan) & finds a cage in the corner of the shop with a cute little creature inside called a Mogwai & buys it, however there are three rules which must never be broken, don't get him wet, expose him to sunlight & most importantly never feed him after midnight. Back home in the small American town of Kingston Falls & Randall gives Billy the Mogwai who he calls Gizmo, unfortunately one of Billy's friends Pete (Cory Feldman) spills water on Gizmo which make him reproduce as little Mogwai's pop out of his back. These ones are different to Gizmo, they are mischievous & trick Billy into feeding them after midnight. The next morning & Billy's room is full of slimy green cocoons which eventually hatch & let loose green scaly monsters with big ears & sharp teeth. It's not long before one of them has jumped into the local swimming pool for reproduction purposes & before anyone knows it the entire town is overrun with Gremlins intent on death & destruction. It's up to Billy & his girlfriend Kate (Phoebe Cates) to try & save the day as the local authorities have a hard time believing their story...
Directed by Joe Dante Gremlins is a big budget family orientated horror fantasy film with a strong comedy element & for what it is it isn't too bad at all. The script by Chris Columbus takes a little while to get going as there isn't a green slimy Gremlin until past the 45 minute mark which is a bit long really. When they do show up most of what they get up to is of moral questionalbility with beer drinking, smoking cigarette's, attacking people, causing crashes & playing poker rather than all out blood & gore, in fact not that many people actually die in Gremlins. In a way I'm not sure quite what Gremlins set out to be, a scary horror film with monsters on the rampage or a more family fantasy type film with the sentimental Father Son stuff, the lovable inventor whose inventions never quite work, the highly intelligent family dog who can seemingly understand English, the way the Mogwai's are so cute & in the end Gremlins is half & half with neither element particularly dominating. The gore & violence is relatively restrained & mostly aimed at the Gremlins themselves with a one being sliced up in a meat mincer, one explodes in a microwave, one is decapitated & it's head lands on a fire & there is a cool melting Gremlin at the end. The character's are likable even if their a little overblown & overly comical. With a budget of about $11,000,000 Gremlins is technically very good with that Hollywood polish to it. The special effects are generally very good although don't forget that Gremlins was made way before the advent of CGI so expect lots of puppets & animatronics rather than flashy computer effects. The cinematography, music & production values are great & it is well made throughout. The acting is OK but nothing spectacular. Gremlins is one of those somewhat predictable 'feel good' films made by big studios & at what it sets out to be Gremlins succeeds & is a very good film in it's own right. The slightly slow first half & it's indecision on what it wants to be stops it from obtaining classic status in my eyes but Gremlins is still a fine film & well worth a watch.