Director: Joe Dante
Starring: Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, John Glover, Robert Prosky, Haviland Morris, Dick Miller, Jackie Joseph, Robert Picardo and Christopher Lee
31 Days of Horror continues with this review by Robert Nijman. Check out his review of the first Gremlins movie. Send me your horror reviews.
Five years after the world met Gizmo, he came back for his tour de force. In this half-decade long hiatus where we were without gremlin awesomeness, many a potential stomping ground for the Christmas critters to wreak havoc upon came and went, and it wasn’t until Joe Dante took back the reins that the location for the second and final chapter was ultimately settled upon: not Mars, nor Las Vegas, as Warners had well intended, but New York was to be the setting for Gizmo’s final stand. Specifically, Clamp Towers. The epitome of economic wealth, the zenith of technologic progress and the very pinnacle of sequel exaggeration. And, with that, the anti Kingston Falls. If Vegas is the devil’s playground, Clamp Towers is the Gremlin Grotto. With this enlargement of elements, there’s no end to the possibilities that lay before the Mogwai siblings to fuss, dither and generally run amuck. And this time, there’s little time wasted cocooning. With a new batch of gremlins then, comes a new batch of goodness.
We meet back up with the old Chinaman who kicked off part one (and closed it off as well, by stating how mankind is so ill-equipped to care for other beings and, indeed, nature as a whole), and now finds himself in a spot of bother. Daniel Clamp (John Glover), the real estate mogul known for expanding both horizontally and vertically – the latter so subtly epitomized by the very tower that bears his name – has his eyes set on the old guy’s corner of town, and wants to buy him out. In a smart move by either Dante or Spielberg to alleviate Clamp’s evilness, however, he sends in his right hand man Forster (Robert Picardo), who goes on to claim the affable store owner is so old, they can afford to wait him out.
Forster turns out to be right. The old man is sick, and will soon leave for the spirit world on his power animal. A dragon, probably. With no one to take care of him, Gizmo flees into the streets of Manhattan, where he is soon picked up by a doctor in biology, or genetics, or something that will give Christopher Lee his leitmotiv in his smarmily evil turn as lab scientist dr. Catheter (thou shalt not temper with genetic engineering). And guess where his offices and laboratories are held. Or who else works in that building. Indeed, when Gizmo is brought in for all kinds of random tests and scary probing, we hook up with Billy and Kate (and rekindle the so very missed affections for Phoebe Cates), now soon-to-be newlyweds working as architect and Clamp Towers tour guide respectively. It’s also our first proper introduction to the densely populated high-rise, where madness and mayhem will soon have their way with logic, reason, general laws of physics and anything held dear by the exact kind of people who could never enjoy such a movie. It is here where it first becomes apparent Part Two warrants repeated repeated viewings, as the Gremlin universe is once again a feast for those who can either catch every detail onscreen, or can’t wait to rewind their tapes and find out what the hell they just missed. The sequel indeed brings the kind of ridiculous background funneh only rivalled by – say – Monty Python, The Naked Gun, or Mel Brooks on a good day. And Clamp Towers is just the setting for it. Take the building infrastructure for instance, which might very well be based on the Heart of Gold as perceived by Douglas Adams, with toilets welcoming you in and elevators admitting what a great pleasure it has been. Or, the kicker, a message that quietly yet upbeatly tells you the following when the alarm is rung: ‘Fire. The untamed element. Giver of warmth, destroyer of forests – right now, this building is on fire.’
Location: check. Main characters: check. Rich anticipation: check. Time to throw some water on that little furball and find out what happens when the puppet masters behind the scenes can really have all the leeway they want. As with the original then, it’s just too much to write about. Too much fun, too much guilty pleasures, too much bat shit crazy chaos to account for. The freedom the puppeteers had in creating new species of gremlin, including flying, talking and electrical (!) versions, can only by justly appreciated by savouring the actual experience. And when you do, try and catch each and every part of Dante’s visionary vicissitude, as repeated viewings offer new insight into the Gremlin way. Watch as the anarchy ensues within the walls of Dr. Catheter’s Splice of Life laboratories, notice the bottle of acid marked ‘Acid. Do not throw in face’, but make sure you also catch Christopher Lee’s flawless delivery of the line ‘all he has to do is eat three or four children and we’re all in trouble’ when one of these creatures escapes to the great outdoors. Enjoy the overacted part of Robert Prosky as tv-host Grandpa Fred, but don’t miss the self reflective jabs towards Part One (‘I don’t even have a gimmick, no special effects, all I have is a cross-eyed puppet named Igor’). Watch out for cameos and try to collect them all: The Burbs’s Henry Gibson, The Addams Family’s John Astin, movie-critic Leonard Maltin, who is preyed upon midway through his onscreen review of the original – it even has Hulk Hogan in a movie theatre that is showing the exact same movie you’re watching, and has someone in the background yell ‘this is even worse than the first one!’ while the Gremlins incessantly try to run Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. If Kingston Falls was a veritable buffet of easily digestible and uniquely hilarious treats that accustomed us to the not so cuddly creatures and their appetite for mirthful destruction and relentless anarchy, Clamp Towers is the coronation of the Gremlin concept – an adventure that can and must never be topped by adding an instalment that completes an unnecessary trilogy and makes a mockery of the legacy. No Jar-Jars here, please.
