Home for the Holidays Gremlin-Style

Rating: 9/10 (26 December 2010)

This movie made a big impact on me as a younger man for I really had not seen anything like it beforehand. Hoyt Axton plays a father who is an inventor cruising through Chinatown in search of just that special gift for his son. He is taken to a small, out-of-the-way "junk" shop where Axton sees this adorable creature who sings, smiles, and is just damned cute. The proprietor, an elderly Chinese man, tells Axton that this creature is not for sale, but the young boy who brought him there sells Axton the creature unbeknownst to Grandpa. Axton is given three rules that must be observed with the creature: 1). No bright light 2). no water 3). never feed the creature after midnight(okay, this rule is loopy). This takes place in the first five minutes or so of the film. The rest of the film is the son getting what he will call Gizmo and what happens when these rules are inevitably broken. The scenic backdrops to the small town are quaint, surrealistic, and nostalgic. Director Joe Dante always infuses his pictures with nostalgic qualities whether it is a scene we may have seen over and over again, character types, and my favorite are the actors of older films that older(or more rehearsed audience members) will quickly identify which will undoubtedly be lost on younger viewers and certainly viewers of today by large part. We get Key Luke as the Chinese shop owner. He was most famous for his roles as Number 1 Son in the old Charlie Chan films. How about Dick Miller as Mr. Futterman - a staple in Roger Corman films. Miller's costar in Little Shop of Horrors Jackie Joseph plays his wife in this. Edward Andrews - the old, reliable character actor - plays a bank manager. William Schallert plays a minister. You can also see Polly Holliday(Flo from Alice) play a devilishly wicked Mr. Potter-type. Kenneth Tobey has a cameo as does Chuck Jones and several others. The lead actors are young but entertaining. Zach Galligan was 19 when he made this - his first feature. He does a decent job. Phoebe Cates is also rather good and very lovely. The real star though is the puppet Gizmo and the gremlins themselves. Dante did all this in an old-school manner. No CGI here - thankfully. This is real filmmaking the way real filmmaking used be done. It was labor and time intensive and rather costly but Dante does a lot here with a spartan budget. Produced by Steven Spielberg Gremlins shows what some intelligent-minded people can put together with creativity and vision. There are so many scenes that stick out with me: the movie theater, the battle with the Christmas tree, the microwave scene, and many others including Mrs. Deagle's spiraling exit. All are outstanding. In the end, however; it is the little moments that I like best like the small character parts, Dick Miller going on about foreign products, and Gizmo playing a small piano-like instrument. Gremlins is now 20 years old - I saw it in the movie theater when it came out - and it has withstood the test of time rather well. I believe in another 20 years it will still be able to say the same thing. By the way who doesn't love that music?