With Mogwai Comes Great Responsibility

Rating: 6/10 (20 December 2015)

This certainly isn't your typical Christmas movie. Obviously it's nowhere near as dark as "Black Christmas," but it sure ain't "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" either. It's horror, it's comedy, it's Christmas, it's even philosophical at times. "Gizmo" is a mogwai - a cute and intelligent little pet of sorts, found by inventor Randall Peltzer (Hoyt Axton) in a basement shop run by a little old Chinese man (Keye Luke). Randall buys (well, acquires really) Gizmo as a Christmas gift for his son Billy (Zach Galligan.) But there are rules that go along with having a mogwai: don't expose them to bright light, don't give them water, and don't ever feed them after midnight. Well, poor Gizmo gets water spilled on him, and the chaos begins. Water causes Gizmo to reproduce in some way, and Gizmo's offspring aren't the cute little creatures Gizmo is. They start out as more or less mischievous, then become destructive and ultimately violent. They pretty much take over the little town of Kingston Falls on Christmas Eve, wreaking havoc everywhere.
It's hard to figure out who the intended audience is for this. It's too dark to be a kids movie, but the basic story isn't mature enough to be looked at as an adult comedy. And yet - in a strange sort of way - it works. It's a fun movie, with a great musical score and even as the town is wrecked and even as people die you find yourself laughing about it. How can you not laugh when Mrs. Deagle (Polly Holliday) goes flying out the upper floor window of her house!
It pays tribute to a few other movies. There's a touch of "It's A Wonderful Life" here, and Mrs. Deagle was clearly patterned after Miss Gulch (aka the Wicked Witch of the West) from "The Wizard Of Oz." And in the midst of the laughs, the mayhem and the violence there's a philosophical basis to this: we should try to avoid messing with things we don't understand. Randall was told that he couldn't have the mogwai. But the Chinese man's grandson manages to secretly sell him to Randall anyway, apparently not really understanding the potential consequences, and Randall and Billy are clearly unprepared for dealing with this cute little creature.
I thought the performances in this were average. Nobody was outstanding, but the story was certainly a creative fantasy, and watching this 30 years later I was struck by some of Randall's inventions. He invented a sort of Keurig machine. He invented a sort of cordless phone. He invented a sort of smokeless ash tray. None of them worked very well - but they all came to pass! Give writer Chris Columbus some points for predicting some of the future. (6/10)