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Gremlins (Special Edition) |
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Gremlins (Special Edition)
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by Warner Home Video
Sales Rank: 23893
Price: $13.49
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A man buys a Mogwai as a Christmas present for his son. The young boy is told to keep the pet away from water, out of the light and never to feed it after midnight. Inadvertently, the creature is dampened and almost instantly, produces half a dozen furry replicas of itself --which continue to multiply and turn the small town upside-down.<P><b>DVD Features:</b>
<b>Audio Commentary</b>
<b>Deleted Scenes</b>
<b>Documentary</b>
<b>Photo gallery</b>
<b>Storyboards</b>
<b>Theatrical Trailer</b>
</p>
Viewer Reviews
Don't expose them to sunlight. Don't let them get wet. And under no circumstances feed them after midnight.
Those are the rules for the now-legendary mogwai, adorable little fuzzballs who transform if you break the last rule. And "Gremlins" is a gloriously unconventional Christmas movie -- a postcard-pretty view of suburban middle-America, splattered with gore, nasty little gremlins and a truly wicked sense of humour (expressed often in movie send-ups).
Randall (Hoyt Axton) spots a tiny adorable creature -- a mogwai -- in a small Chinatown shop, and wants to buy it as a Christmas present for his son. The owner refuses, but his grandson secretly sells it to Randall.
Randall's son Billy (Zach Galligan) is delighted by the fuzzy lightphobic mogwai, whom he names Gizmo. But it soon becomes clear that Gizmo is full of surprises: when water is accidentally splashed on him, he spontaneously generates a litter of NEW mogwai. The ringleader "Stripe" tricks Billy into feeding them after midnight, transforming them into scaly, dangerous "gremlins.
And after a gremlin tumbles into a pool, Billy realizes that the town is about to be swarmed with them -- attacking vicious old Mrs. Deagle, ramming snowplows, murdering kindly teachers, and trashing a tavern with Billy's love interest Kate (Phoebe Cates). As the town descends into gremlinized chaos, the two humans (and Gizmo) must find a way to wipe out the horde... and if they miss only one, it'll start all over again.
Personally I find most Christmas movies a little too sappy and sentimental. So for people who feel that way, a Yuletide horror/comedy is simply ideal -- it's sort of a mad hybrid of early Peter Jackson splattergore, Frank Capra snow-sprinkled Christmastime, and a bunch of sly movie homages and send-ups ("Forbidden Planet," "Wizard of Oz" and "Snow White" amongst others).
But the real fun is in watching the movie's balance between nasty and cuddly -- Joe Dante happily veers between sweet moments and grotesquely funny violence (such as Billy's mom messily killing gremlins with a variety of kitchen implements), with the best example being the malevolent Mrs. Deagle being flung out an upstairs window by fa-la-la-la-LAing gremlins. Completely sick, and gutsplittingly funn.
And Dante sprinkles it with more G-rated comedy that borders on cartoonish without quite crossing, such as the kid in the Christmas tree costume ("Don't ask!") and the gremlins destroying a local pub when they aren't watching Disney movies (is this a message about Disney?). It all climaxes in some literally explosive showdowns with the gremlins -- and particularly with Stripe, their ghastly little leader.
Galligan and Cates are thoroughly solid as the teenage heroes, especially when Cates gives her heartbreaking speech about the horrible experience that made her hate Christmas. In fact, all the actors do a solid job -- the evil old landlady who serves as a sort of Wicked Witch of the West/Scrooge hybrid, the cranky old veteran, the crackpot inventor and the wise old Chinese guy.
But the showstopper is Gizmo -- tiny, round, fuzzy and wide-eyed, with a babyish squeaky voice and a liking for toy cars and 3-D glasses. Rarely has a puppet been so bloody cute and endearing. His complete opposite is Stripe, a gremlin amongst gremlins -- malevolent and gleefully sadistic, he seems smart enough to revel in the idea of destroying the town.
"Gremlins" is a brilliant horror/comedy that infuses a perfect American town with a little mayhem and gore, as well as some wickedly funny little nasties. Definitely a must-see.
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