"Get Out Of My Kitchen!"

Rating: 8/10 (25 March 2014)

The star of ''Gremlins'' is none other than the "mogwai", a small, furry, fictitious creature that looks something like a cuddly teddy bear with the ears of a rabbit, a Bambilike nose, eyes as round and deep and dark as glass buttons, a sweet disposition and a physical nature more unstable than hydrogen gas.
At the beginning of the film, when the "mogwai" is introduced, there are the three warnings that come with it: keep the creature away from direct light, never to allow it to have contact with water and, above all, never feed it after midnight.
The first half of the movie is the best. That's when we meet the little gremlins, which are unbearably cute. They have impossibly big eyes, they're cuddly and friendly, and they would make ideal pets except for the fact that they hate bright lights, should not be allowed to get wet, and must never be fed after midnight. And in the second half of the movie, after the gremlins have gotten wet, been fed after midnight, etc., they turn into truly hateful creatures that look like the monster.
This is just like a fable: a lesson for kids to learn about responsibility and the issues that comes with owning a new pet, especially one that is uncommon in household society.
The movie exploits every trick in the monster-movie book. We have scenes where monsters pop up in the foreground, and others where they stalk us in the background, and others when they drop into the frame and scare the Shinola out of everybody. And the movie itself turns nasty, especially in a scene involving a monster that gets slammed in a microwave oven.
It's a clever twist in the following aspects of movie-going clichés: Christmas, families, monsters, retail stores, movies, boogeymen. Highly recommendable and fun to enjoy!