My favourite guilty pleasure

Rating: 10/10 (24 August 2007)

Gremlins benefits a little from the fact that I grew up with it, but mostly I liked the sequel and since then I've realized the original is better. It's a guilty pleasure, but a well-shot, well-told one, owing partly to a classic setting and effective narration by Hoyt Axton.
Gremlins is a black comedy and scores some laughs. However, its story is an inspired mythology in its own right. A young man (Zach Galligan) receives a cute but unknown creature named Gizmo who multiplies, and after the new creatures (mogwai) eat after midnight, they become monsters. Lively, entertaining monsters- connected to the legendary gremlins in the mind of a veteran of World War II (Dick Miller). In one memorable sequence, they are also connected with the urban legend of pets being blown up in microwaves- this movie definitely struck a chord by borrowing from popular mythology. While the gremlins are shown enjoying the destruction they cause, with a bar scene being a highlight of the movie, the original manages to be a simpler product than its sequel, and less is more. Additionally, the original has the paradox of horror on Christmas, which the sequel misses. With cute and passable puppetry and passable performances, Gremlins remains a nice distraction.