Director: Joe Dante
Starring: Hoyt Axton, Corey Feldman, Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates
31 Days of Horror continues with this review by Robert Nijman. Send me your horror reviews.
‘Keep him out of the light. It’ll kill him. And keep him away from water, don’t get him wet. But the most important rule, the rule you can never forget, no matter how much he cries or begs, you must never, ever feed him after midnight.’
WARNING: THIS HALLOWEEN SPECIAL IS FRIGHTENINGLY ENTHUSIASTIC. READ WITH CARE.
Every once in a while, a sequel is not so much a separate, cash-grabbing part two as it is a natural follow-up to the original story. The well-known formula of bigger, better and uncut is neatly done away with by an epilogue that just needs to be told – although it is of course bigger, better and uncut. Because you can’t introduce the fairytale town of Kingston Falls, an American Dream couple like Billy and Kate, and the epic cuteness that is Gizmo without returning to them a few years later, just to find out what has become. And what’s more, find out what happens when you up the ante and re-release Gizmo’s multiple evil twins into a larger scale setting. Although director Joe Dante once went on record stating that the success of part two has been hurt by waiting too long to capitalize on the original’s surprise success, the fact the principal cast had a chance to age properly gave us the very window into the next instalment of their lives. I’m talking, of course, about both Gremlins and Gremlins 2, The New Batch. A diptych so flawlessly awesome I’m going to pretend everyone has already seen it just so I can ignore the reviewing part of this article and focus completely on celebrating the most entertaining bunch of bad guys you’ll ever meet – all the while neatly avoiding spoilers.
When Gremlins hit the big screen in the summer of 1984, it was widely recognized as the best thing to happen to the horror genre since Jim Carpenter’s The Thing (citation needed). And that was based on the posters alone. Even though it was originally scheduled for the holidays, it was pulled into the summer theatres to compete with such major studio releases as Ghostbusters and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. And with good reason: if Warners was to come up with a hit big enough to survive the box office slam of these instant classics, it was Joe Dante’s Gremlins. Well, that, and producer Steven Spielberg, who might have had something to do with it..
The opening shots of part one take us into a small neighbourhood store in a mysterious and smoky quarter of Chinatown, immediately spurring us into the giddy, adventurous state of mind usually only reserved for the likes of The Goonies, and perhaps Indiana Jones – and dammit if the store owning Chinaman’s grandson doesn’t look just like Short Round. The tone is set alright, and for a movie nonchalantly juggling genre labels as diverse as comedy, fantasy and horror like it’s all an act of defiance towards movies who can’t get so much as a single genre straight, we’re well intrigued. Especially when we meet the little Mogwai we’ll come to know as Gizmo and the grandson goes on to entrust his wisdom upon the Christmas gift shopping stopper-by. ‘Listen mister, there’s three rules you need to follow..’
The store visitor is of course Randall Peltzer (Hoyt Axton), the all-around awesome inventor who came to New York to market such gadgets as the Bathroom Buddy and reversible toilet paper, as well as to find a proper holiday present for his son Billy (played innocently to a fault by Zach Galligan). Billy, who lives the quiet George Bailey life in a part of small-town America called Kingston Falls. A place usually only found on postcards marked ‘nowhere’ and stamped in the 1920’s. A town so sleepy you would have to invent the Bedroom Buddy just to shake things up a bit. Or better yet, where the one bad apple in the entire barrel can be portrayed by the otherwise tempestuously kind and jovial Judge Reinhold.
Yes. This Guy
That is, of course, notwithstanding old Mrs. Deagle and the cats she named for international currency, who reigns supreme in Kingston Falls when it comes to being cartoonishly evil. Because yes, it’s also that kind of place. Where a stingy, one-dimensional witch can be the terror of the town, and dogs understand when they’re being threatened by said witch in much the same way Dalmatians quiver at the sight and sound of Cruella de Vil. It’s a town so spawned by Frank Capra’s imagination that It’s A Wonderful Life instantly appears on television sets nearby.
Then again, it is Christmas. And much like in the sagas of John McClane, Christmas is when things start going wrong. As is to be expected, in a universe for which Spielberg literally had to invent the PG-13 rating – talk about juggling genres. The creatures don’t start carolling before one or two of the cardinal rules are broken though.. [Enter Corey Feldman]. When Feldman’s character visits Gizmo and Billy in the latter’s attic, he doesn’t waste time spilling the water, thereby spawning new Mogwai all around and slowly but surely spiralling the quaint little town into several dimensions of merry madness. However, it’s not until Billy accidentally feeds them after midnight that they start cocooning and we really need to worry. Cocoons, apparently, do the same for the furry little Peltzer Pets as, well, Cocoon did for Ron Howard: take ‘em out of the happy days and into the big league (citation needed). Not since (XX) have both a small town and big movie going audiences the world over been thus treated to the ridiculous and effortlessly entertaining mayhem that ensues when a few Mogwai have their late night chicken.
The second and third part of the movie then, is something you just have to see for yourself. You can’t witness these accounts and then relate them to others expecting they will understand so much as half of what Dante and his production crew, special effect artists and, perhaps even more so, Foley department have tried to convey in an adventure that is so jam-packed with goodness and still doesn’t cross the one hundred minute mark. Or, conversely, hopelessly fall short when trying to do the very same for people who indeed have seen it. Suffice it to say the Universal back lot that hosted the Kingston Falls extravaganza (and will later go on to double as the Hill Valley town square for Back To The Future) will never be the same. As with all proper story lines then, it ends in a toy store, and there are little electric cars involved, with little electric car horns. Which is as good a place as any for me to end as well.
Part 2 will follow.
