Great Gremlins make an otherwise forgettable movie fun

Rating: 7/10 (10 December 2016)

I just watched Gremlins for the first time in maybe 20 years, and while that's admittedly a long time, I'm still surprised by how much I didn't remember. Which is everything except the Gremlins.
Didn't remember the main star was a teen boy, or that there was a nasty rich lady, or Phoebe Cates, but I sure remember those Gremlins.
The movie patterns itself after 50s horror movies, with a pleasant small town overwhelmed by one or more monsters. And like most of those movies, the characters in that small town are bland and generic, with only Hoyt Axton seeming like a character you'd actually want to know better.
So at first the movie is pretty much a watchable, vaguely comedic movie about some kid who works in a bank and gets a weird pet. But once things get crazy, the movie becomes a twisted horror-comedy that is terrific fun.
This movie is very much one of those film-buff-boy films of the eighties. The movie is constantly referencing other movies, both specifically, as when someone is watching Invasion of the Body Snatchers on TV, and implicitly, as with the doesn't-she-seem-like- Margaret-Hamilton-in-the-Wizard-of-Oz character. This is perhaps why it's a bit more of a horror parody than an actual horror movie - more funny than scary.
Anyway, it's not the world's greatest movie, but it is an 80s classic of sorts, and a good Christmas movie if you want something a bit non- traditional.