Yes, the Gremlins may not be our stereotypical Christmas film but it's based on Christmas and its usually played near Christmas so therefore it is a Christmas film, the logics there somewhere (even Santa is attacked in this film)
I absolutely love this film, personally its my favourite "Christmas" film because its a lot of fun, it makes me laugh and its not your typical Christmas flick because there's no heart warming message or the use of Christmas spirit which I think may make it a very obscure Christmas film, people may not consider it a festive film but for me its one of the best.
Billy Peltzer is given a very special Christmas present from his father, Randall receives a small furry creature known as a Mogwai which he found at an old antique store. The owner refusing to sell it is later persuaded by his grandson to sell it because they need the money but he is given 3 simple yet strict rules!
1) never get him wet
2) never feed him after midnight
3) never expose him to bright light
Billy names the cute little fur ball Gizmo and takes him in as his pet. Obviously rules are meant to be broken and a glass of water spill on Gizmo causing him to produce different versions of himself and one of them is branded as the leader I think is name is Stripe because he has a mini Mohawk. Later the Mogwai army have broken the 2nd rule, they all feast after midnight and cocoon themselves whilst Gizmo remains harmed but unchanged. The "Gremlins" hatch and are now reptilian monsters with sharp teeth and a sense of humour. Billy with the help of her friend Kate who is haunted by her past must race to prevent these monsters from causing further chaos.
The main reason I love this film is that even after watching over and over it can still make me laugh, there are tonnes of scenes that make me giggle or make me cry and here are a few of them:
The Bar scene- the bar scene is truly a classical moment because its full of drunk gremlins that drink more than they can handle, smoke and play poker which is all just genius but there are certain bits that just make the scene a great hit like the flashing gremlin!
And the Jazz styled dinner table that is ruined by a hilarious puppet show featuring a bee puppet and a butterfly, you can't forget the dancing gremlin who was wearing pretty pink leg warmers and finally the "mugger" who aimed a gun at Kate whilst wearing the typical mugger mask. For some reason I find this scene hilarious because of the human behaviour these monsters show and the over the top nature of the scene, it creates a fun moment in the film and is definitely a highlight because they are literally imitating manly behaviour and to be honest their not far off the reality aspect of getting completely wasted in a bar, yes its over the top but they introduce activities that people understand like the poker game, the collapsing and the excessive smoking.
I could go on about the top moments like the Christmas carollers or the tragic yet quite funny Christmas story given by Kate she told us how her father died which of course is tragic and sad but... when he gets stuck in the chimney dressed as Santa it introduces dark humour which only some of us may find funny... I unfortunately found it very amusing mainly because it was unexpecting and ridiculous and you're probably thinking oh that's sick! your mean! but that was the sole purpose of that story, Joe Dante had to fight to keep it in and it was meant for the slightly twisted audience members (me)
but my favourite moment of the entire film that I HOPE you are all familiar with... Snow white. The classical moment when the cinema is full of gremlins who decide to watch Disney's interpretation of Snow White which is really funny but... they then begin to sing "Heigh Ho" I don't need to say much more but if you haven't seen it. first! shame on you and second the link is below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN16Wgp48MI
my favourite parts of this video include a laughing gremlin holding a bad of popcorn and another Gremlin who wears 2 bags of popcorn on his ears, after writing this segment I've realised I'm easily amused.
The final thing that makes this film great apart from the hilarious slap stick humour is what made Jurassic Park a hit, the use of animatronics which created believable and functional dinosaurs and in Gremlins they were brought to life with the use of detailed puppets that looked amazing, with great movements and realistic details like eye movements, fur and weirdly wet noses like dogs and all these features kinda made them feel a lot more real like you could go to a Chinese antique shop and buy one... I sure would! there were a few flaws with the stop motion aspect of it but it doesn't look terrible for a film made in 1984, considering its date I think it was brilliantly designed and comically executed fantastically, it didn't try to hard to make us laugh and it used simple things that I don't think would be funny with human characters, its the individual personalities the Gremlins are given that make it so good because each of them are different both character wise and looks so I applaud the team for making these creatures and the director for producing a fun and enjoyable film.
I give the Gremlins a 8/10 because its fun to watch, it makes me laugh and its a very enjoyable Christmas film that I hope is on TV this Christmas, last year me and my family sat down with our takeaway and watched it.
thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!
well that's all for today, I hope you all have a nice Christmas, I'm sure I will be back before the new year with "The Rock" and I'm slowly drafting a plan for 2014 and am also considering changing the name of this blog maybe to something Superhero related because it seems to be filled with more superhero posts, I'm not quite sure yet but its something I'm thinking about
Until next time
Merry Christmas!!!!
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