9 / 10
Gremlins is a Christmas horror comedy disguised as a family film. Joe Dante directed it. Steven Spielberg produced it through Amblin Entertainment. Chris Columbus wrote the screenplay. Zach Galligan plays Billy Peltzer, a young bank teller in a small American town who is given an unusual pet by his father for Christmas. Phoebe Cates plays Kate, Billy’s coworker. Hoyt Axton plays Billy’s inventor father. Howie Mandel voices Gizmo, the original gentle creature. Frank Welker voices Stripe, the leader of the gremlins after the transformation. Things go badly for the town.
The film made approximately one hundred and fifty-three million dollars worldwide on an eleven million dollar budget. It was the fourth-highest-grossing film of 1984. The MPAA rating system created the PG-13 rating in response to Gremlins and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, both of which were rated PG but contained material that parents objected to. The PG-13 rating took effect in July 1984, one month after Gremlins was released, and is one of the lasting consequences of the film’s commercial success and its specific commitment to being scarier than its marketing suggested.
The Tone Problem That Is Actually Strength
Gremlins is the rare film that genuinely cannot decide what tone it wants to be in. The opening is a Spielberg-Amblin Christmas movie about a boy and his magical pet. The middle is a creature feature with significant body-horror elements. The third act includes a sequence where the gremlins watch Snow White in a movie theater while being killed in a fire that Billy starts. Phoebe Cates delivers a monologue about why she does not like Christmas that involves her father dying inside their chimney while dressed as Santa Claus. None of this should work in the same film. It does.
The tonal whiplash is the film’s identity. Joe Dante directed Gremlins as a horror comedy that uses Christmas as its setting because Christmas amplifies the contrast. Every scene of cheerful small-town life is followed by a scene of practical-effect monsters terrorizing the same locations. The film never settles into either register. The audience cannot relax.
For Writers
Tonal instability can be a feature rather than a flaw if the writer commits to it. Gremlins does not modulate. It oscillates. The horror is real horror. The comedy is real comedy. The film does not soften either side to accommodate the other. The lesson is that genre mixing works best when each genre is taken seriously on its own terms. If you blend horror and comedy by softening both, you get nothing. If you commit to both at full strength, the contrast produces something neither could produce alone.
The Three Rules
The three rules for caring for a mogwai are the film’s structural engine. No bright light, especially sunlight. Do not get him wet. Never, ever feed him after midnight. The audience knows from the moment the rules are explained that all three will be broken. The pleasure is in watching how the breaking happens and what the consequences are.
The first rule break is accidental. Billy’s idiot brother sprays Gizmo with water. New mogwai erupt from his back. The second rule break is also accidental. The new mogwai trick Billy into feeding them after midnight. They cocoon and emerge transformed. The third rule, sunlight, becomes the third-act resolution. Billy uses sunlight to kill Stripe. The setup is laid in the first ten minutes and pays off across the runtime with the kind of patient construction most genre films do not bother with.
For Writers
Establishing rules that the story will break is one of the most reliable structural moves available. The audience commits to watching how the rules get broken. Gremlins states the three rules in the first reel and spends the rest of the film paying them off. The lesson is that explicit constraints create reader engagement. The audience is not waiting for the unexpected. They are waiting for the expected to arrive in unexpected ways. Give them rules. Then break them.
The Practical Effects
Chris Walas designed the creatures. The gremlins are puppets with cable-operated facial expressions and operated by puppeteers under, behind, and around the set. The film contains hundreds of individual gremlin shots, each requiring complex puppetry coordination. The bar sequence, in which dozens of gremlins are drinking, dancing, smoking, and breaking things, was one of the most logistically complicated practical-effect sequences attempted in a major studio film up to that point.
The practical effects have aged well. The gremlins look like the puppets they are, but they look like puppets the way the audience of 1984 was willing to accept. They have weight. They occupy space. The actors are reacting to physical objects. Modern CGI gremlins would look smoother and would mean less.
For Writers
Visible craft can be part of what the audience enjoys. The Gremlins puppets are clearly puppets and that is part of why they work. The audience can tell that real people built the things on screen. The lesson is that perfection is not always the right goal. Sometimes the seams of construction add value. Audiences accept and even enjoy work that does not pretend to be magic. Hide the work less than your instincts suggest.
Craft Note
Joe Dante directed. Chris Columbus wrote (his first major produced screenplay). Steven Spielberg executive produced through Amblin. Zach Galligan as Billy Peltzer. Phoebe Cates as Kate Beringer. Hoyt Axton as Randall Peltzer. Howie Mandel voiced Gizmo. Frank Welker voiced Stripe. Chris Walas designed the creature effects. Jerry Goldsmith composed the score. Released June 1984. Approximately eleven million dollar budget. One hundred and fifty-three million worldwide gross. Directly responsible for the creation of the PG-13 rating in July 1984.
The Verdict
9/10. A horror comedy that does not flinch from either genre. Tonally daring. Practically constructed. Gizmo is one of the great creature designs of any decade. The sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) is even stranger and almost as good. Watch this one first.
FAQ
Is it a Christmas movie?
Yes. The film is set during Christmas. The third act includes a Christmas tree sequence that has become one of the genre’s iconic moments. Watch it in December.
Why did the PG-13 rating come from this film?
Gremlins was rated PG but contained substantial horror content including a gremlin being killed in a microwave and Phoebe Cates’s traumatic Christmas monologue. Parents complained. The MPAA created PG-13 in response to this film and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
What’s the Phoebe Cates Christmas monologue?
Kate explains why she does not celebrate Christmas. Her father had attempted to surprise her family by climbing down the chimney dressed as Santa. He broke his neck and died inside the chimney. The family discovered him days later. The monologue is delivered straight, with no comic deflation.
Are Gizmo and Stripe the same kind of creature?
Yes. Stripe is a Mogwai who became a gremlin after being fed after midnight. Gizmo is a Mogwai who has not been transformed. The transformation is what makes them dangerous.
How does the sequel compare?
Gremlins 2 (1990) is stranger, more meta, and arguably more interesting. Some viewers prefer the sequel. The original is more emotionally coherent.
Is it appropriate for children?
PG-13 was created in response to this film. Younger children may find the horror sequences upsetting. Older children can handle it.
Should I watch this?
Yes. Christmas viewing for the whole family with appropriate calibration.