One evergreen 80s horror comedy classic that will always be good as gold!

Rating: 10/10 (27 December 2017)

I believe I must have loved this right from the first time I ever saw it, how could I not - it's simply a magical movie that greatly captures the imagination, and to me is still perfectly great and special today. I loved the character of Gizmo so much that I once had a dog who I named after him because they had the exact same adorable fox ears! So anyway, something that I love about this movie is that as well as being a damn good thrilling and occasionally mystifying horror comedy with some very effective dark comedic moments and some lightly scary but effective horror thrown in, it's also a very solid Christmas movie at the same time, and the two genres kind of gradually converge over the course of the story, it amazingly blurs the line between family friendly and dark and edgy like no other picture I've ever seen. At the beginning it's so positively aglow with all of the classic cosy surroundings of the season and is so visually heartwarming, and then they start to toy around with that ambiance and atmosphere as things subtly start to become more darker and chaotic, it's practically a Christmas tree itself that attacks and almost strangles a woman with its lights, Santa is swarmed by vicious little toothy monsters, what should be a beautifully decorated snowy Main Street lies devastated and eerily abandoned... It's also a bit of an anti-Christmas movie, the sweetness of the holiday is turned on its head and made into something ugly and violent, like the mischievous corruption that spawns from the innocence of Gizmo, it goes from happy to dark to silly and comedic as the gremlins multiply, and them scary again when it gets to the final act. The music is fantastic, I love how it so perfectly sets the tone of every different kind of situation, be it sad spooky or even the odd goofy theme that accompanies mean old Mrs. Deagle as she stomps her way through town carrying that ornamental snowman head! They set up Polly Holiday so perfectly as an utterly heartless old cat-loving battleaxe that by the time she's sent flying to her doom on a rocket-powered stairlift, you can't help but laugh your head off! I like the way that she's actually aware of what a horrible person she is, as she thinks the gremlin carollers are demons from hell come to get her at last! There are some sequences that are legit tense like when the mother goes upstairs to investigate the strange noises, but I'm the most creeped-out by the twisted more devious-looking mogwai that pop out of Gizmo, they hang the poor dog and leave him outside to freeze! That dog was so awesome, he really came across as a character more than just an animal, and I also loved him in Pumpkinhead! The puppetry is still pretty terrific, particularly in the climactic showdown between Billy and the chainsaw-wielding, then gun-toting Stripe in the department store. There are moments where you do see the age of the techniques, but so what? Some things are more important than perfect special effects, it's good old-fashioned animatronics and puppetry, you can't beat that, the magic of the practical effect can't ever be replicated! The gremlins are so cool and entertaining to watch, all they want to do is live it up like crazy and consume and wreck everything in sight all at the cost of sweet humanity, and lord help you if you get in the way of or become a part of their warped concept of fun! They may presumably kill a lot of people offscreen, but the deaths of the gremlins themselves are by far the most gruesome, especially how Stripe ends up! The movie was such an incredible hit that it spawned it's own horror subgenre, with my favourites of the bunch being Critters, Ghoulies, and Puppet Master, although that one could be debatable.. Gremlins is still such a wonderful movie and to me is undoubtably Dante's best work, there ain't no other movie like it, Gremlins is always very welcome in my house! X