Everything GREAT About Gremlins!

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[_The_Archive_]

Fun Fact: Originally, Stripe and Gizmo were the same character. This changed when executive producer Steven Spielberg insisted one of the Gremlins be a good guy with whom the audience could identify.

[ghastlyghifin]

I love how Lynn goes from "0" to "Time to brutally murder these little mutant Yodas" at the slightest provocation. Most horror film moms would just be out the door or already dead, but she's reaching for the steak knife.

[RichardX]

I showed this movie to my nieces last Christmas. When Billy sees Stripe's footprints leading into an abandoned gym, one of the girls said, "Just blow it up!"

I've never been a prouder uncle than that moment.

[dracodracarys]

this whole fiasco could have been avoided if they just said WHAT would happen if the rules were broken. "oh, he spawns an army of malevolent monsters who bring mayhem and destruction." "oh. guess i'd just get my kid a hamster then"

[FlyingWithSpurts]

This movie was for decades the only thing I could think about when I heard "Do you hear what I hear" That stayed with me HARD.

[karrtoonz]

I love the connections to Aliens throught this entire movie. The cocoons looking like eggs, the characters not understanding what they're up against, the female heroine kicking ass, the exponentially spread of the creatures, and so many more

[jamesmoyner]

Fun fact the man Zach showed his drawing to was legendary animator and Looney Tunes director Chuck Jones!

[laundrybfunky]

Great video as always! Although, I can't believe you missed that when the dad is talking on the phone and we see the Time Machine in the background, it cuts away and then when we return to the dad on the phone, the time machine has vanished! Leaving a trail of smoke and people around it confused. Probably my favourite detail of the whole movie

[trinaq]

Kate's monologue over why she hates Christmas is one of the most memorable scenes in the original movie. It was brilliantly performed by Phoebe Cates, it's a shame that she isn't acting anymore, though she seems to be thriving running her own business, and married to Kevin Kline.

[stevenmcd]

At the end of the movie, when everyone is sitting around the living room, if you listen to the tv reporter, he talks about interviewing Murray Futterman in the hospital after his ordeal. It's right when Mrs. Peltzer is telling Gizmo not to bite the thermometer.

[planguy]

I really love how the movie messes with the expectation of the mom getting got. It's like, nope! She's fighting back. She still gets beat up and it's still a terrifying ordeal for her but she fights back. She has agency. And it's believable. The Gremlins aren't especially physically imposing. Their claws can be dangerous but most adults can physically overcome one or two. They just come in packs.

[GabrielReid-stix]

My favourite part of the Lynn sequence is when she's about to head into the next room, but then goes back and grabs a second knife so she can dual-wield. She gets it.

[bryanegelhoffsanimationtec]

This is still one of my favorite Christmas films, and I would DIE for Gizmo!

[theoneandonlymichaelmccormick]

This movie is probably the film that scarred me the most as a child.

I had seen The Thing on Netflix when I was eight, and felt nothing but GREMLINS absolutely traumatized me.

Specifically I think it was the scene of that one gremlin bursting out of the cabinet in the science teacher’s office. It made me scared to open closets, bathrooms, cabinets, drawers, pantries, or any ROOM without the light on for nearly a decade.

Hell, there was a sticker of Stripe on a vent in my dad’s workshop in the basement, and I had him cover it up when we would work on Pinewood Derby cars because it scared me so much.

[donstuie]

I saw this at the cinema when it first came out. I was 4 years old...and loved it.

The 80s were a VERY different time for kids.

[erikbjelke]

YES! I've been waiting for this EGA for YEARS! Thank you!

Love this movie, even though it traumatized me for life as a kid. It's fantastic, but VERY scary. The Gremlins are just perfect monsters, such a creepy and dangerous-looking design. They're small, and hate bright lights, but that just means they can lurk in any shadowy corner to spring out and attack you. Just terrifying.

But Kate's Christmas Speech is the core of the film. Joe Dante insisted it stay in, even though the studio wanted it cut, to the point of telling Speilberg to cut it, because he and Dante shared final cut. Speilberg wasn't even a fan of it, but but considered this Joe Dante's film, and Dante insisted it be there, Speilberg wasn't going to overrule him. The speech, on the surface, is ridiculous, Kate's dad dying because he was dumb enough to try and literally play Santa. But if another human being is telling you about this painful memory of their childhood, you'd have to empathize with them, feel the tragedy of it, even if it's objectively stupid. That, according to Dante, is the whole crux of the film. The Gremlins are vicious terrifying monsters. . . but also gleeful live-action cartoons causing hilarious mayhem, except the victims of the mayhem don't have cartoon powers to survive it.

[NobodyC]

The original script for Gremlins was much darker. Gizmo was originally going to be the lead gremlin before Steven Spielberg nixed it. Billy was going to come home to find his Mom's freshly decapitated head falling down the stairs after the gremlins hatched. There was a gag of Billy and Kate taking shelter in an empty McDonald's, which is littered with abandoned items like clothes, shoes, purses, even strollers but the burgers remained untouched; implying the gremlins ate the customers.
I also don't know if this was in the script but this was expanded in the novelization as there's a darker implication to Mrs. Deagle threatening to foreclose on that single mother and her two kids on Christmas. She's been doing that to many families and people, either buying off their properties or pricing them out of their homes so she can sell it to developers and turn Kingston Falls into an industrialized toxic waste dump. This revelation either led or was discovered after her death, so we shouldn't feel sorry she got what she deserved (she certainly thinks so since she kept muttering "I'm not ready, " after seeing the gremlins).

[destro]

This theme music has been on a constant background loop in my head for 30+ years and Im not mad

[evandipasquale]

Loved this movie as a kid so much that the first dog I bought as an adult just had to be named Gizmo. She always gets compliments when going to the vet and dog park, it was an easy win.

[ookamikazekun]

I remember watching this movie in theaters when I was five and getting my first real coherent nightmare because of it. Despite that, it still remained my favorite movie up until 93 or so. Even now, it ranks in my top 20 favorite films.