Gremlins

Summary

“I’m sorry. Mogwai not for sale.”

In 2009, Warner Bros released the classic Joe Dante fantasy film Gremlins on Blu-ray. The release satisfied the needs of rabid fans who wanted the film in HD, but it was never an exemplary release by any standard. That said, I have watched my beat up copy numerous times with my two boys. There was a deluxe version of the Blu-ray released in 2014 with some excellent supplements, but they were on a second disk. The same exact transfer from the 2009 version – the same disc- was the first disc in the two disc set. It took a decade but we finally have all the features of the Luxe version paired with an attractive 4K remastering of the film. Fans of the film can finally rejoice. The only bad news is that the only way to access the Luxe features is through the digital copy of the film on the Movies Anywhere application. This is an unfortunate mistake from Warner, but if you consider the whole package it is still for the most part what I shelled out money for.

I am a huge fan of Joe Dante’s films, having grown up watching Matinee and The ‘Burbs countless times. Joe Dante, for film collectors like myself who grew up in the Eighties and Nineties, holds a special place in our hearts. Some background information about Gremlins – the film was released on June 8th, 1984, which is odd considering that the film definitely can be considered a Christmas movie. My big bother Tommy went to see the film in the theaters with my mom and he was very young. The cute picture of Gizmo on the poster did not allude to the violence in the film. When a certain scene involving a microwave occurred, my mom was mortified. She dragged him out of the theater completely shocked. That shock cemented the fact that I would not be allowed to watch Gremlins as a child. In fact, Gremlins and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom are largely responsible for the MPAA rating system creating the PG-13 rating. When I finally watched the film, I was fully grown up and had a child of my own. I had honored my mother’s request for roughly thirty years before I sat down and watched it. As I watched the film, I was thrilled to see how clever, ridiculous, and fun the film was. The violence was far less graphic than I had been led to believe and I went on to show it to my oldest son, Holden. When the microwave scene happened he laughed as hard as I did. A true bonding experience between my child and my inner child. I have gone on to show it to my youngest son Dashiell. My only advice to any parents out there would be that when Phoebe Cates begins to describe why she hates Christmas, ask your kids to leave the room for a moment unless they already know that Santa isn’t real.

As the film begins, an inventor (Hoyt Axton) arrives at a small shop in Chinatown. He attempts to sell his gadget – the bathroom buddy. It is basically a Swiss Army knife of bathroom gadgets. The old Chinese man is not sold on the invention as he puffs his pipe. They overhear a creature in the store behind a cloth. The creature is called a mogwai. The mogwai is kept in a box out of the sunlight. It sings a song. The inventor offers a couple hundred bucks for the mogwai to give as a gift to his son for Christmas. The old man refuses to sell the mogwai. His grandson, dismayed that his grandfather would turn down that sum of money, meets the inventor around back and sells him the mogwai. He warns the inventor to keep the mogwai away from water, keep it away from sunlight, and no matter how hard it begs – do not feed it after midnight. In the small town of Kingston Falls, as the town prepares to celebrate Christmas, a young cartoonist named Billy Peltzer (Zach Galligan) works for a bank instead of following his passion for drawing comic strips. At the bank he works with the politically active and beautiful Kate Beringer (Phoebe Cates.) The despicable grouch Mrs. Deedle frequents the bank which she essentially controls with her deposits. Mrs. Deedle makes a scene at the bank regarding Billy’s dog, Barnie. Billy loses his job at the bank when the dog lurches at her from below Billy’s desk. Coming home, Billy’s dad, the inventor from before, arrives with his gift. Billy meets the tiny creature that has been dubbed Gizmo. Gizmo and Billy immediately bond. When a local kid comes over named Pete (Corey Feldman,) they accidentally spill some water on Gizmo. This causes Gizmo to multiply. Soon there are numerous mogwais but they are not as kind spirited as Gizmo. When the rules are all broken on accident, the mogwai mutate into evil gremlins that wreak havoc on the small town. They are led by an evil gremlin named Spike with a white stripe in his hair. Hilarity and chaos ensue as Billy and Kate band together to save the townspeople from the devious creatures as they run amok.

The film was written by Chris Columbus. This was his breakout script that he followed up with The Goonies. I can’t imagine writing two seminal films in my lifetime, but Chris Columbus had these movies produced within a year of each other.  He went on to become a successful director in his own right – directing Home Alone (which was my favorite film as a six year old) and Mrs. Doubtfire. Gremlins has an incredibly inventive script. The main characters are lovable and when the town is completely overrun with the evil gremlins, the film becomes a madcap extravaganza of sight gags. The love that Joe Dante feels for the old Looney Tunes cartoons comes across in every frame of the picture in the final half. Very few movies make me laugh out loud from a visual gag. Gremlins consistently made me laugh with the situational comedy that the puppets enact. This film has everything: Drunk cops, character actor Dick Hill in one of his best small roles, hilarious puppets drinking alcohol, shooting guns, and smoking cigars. If you don’t laugh hysterically at a stairlift chair flying out of a window at high speed then you are not the core demographic for this film. The creature designs by Chris Walas are fantastic.

The central performances in the film are nicely done. Zach Galligan went on to star in the fun Waxwork film series which is a great B-movie series. He always played the underdog pretty well. Phoebe Cates is always nice to watch onscreen. The film showcases her girl-next-door appeal that had won over boy’s hearts in films like Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Private School. There are some great supporting cast in the film also. Corey Feldman and Hoyt Aston do well in the film. I already mentioned Dick Hill, but there is also a fun cameo by Judge Reinhold. Everybody approaches the material correctly and it all feels right.

Gremlins remains a blast. The film has a devoted following thirty five years since it was released for a reason. I consider it to be one of the funniest family films to ever be released and fans of Joe Dante will adore it. There are not that many family films that I rewatch every year, but this film makes the cut.

Video

This is one UHD presentation that I had been extremely excited about since it was announce. There are very noticeable improvements over the outdated Blu-ray from 2009. Fine detail shows vast improvement. Keep in mind that the film is visually fairly reserved with brown, grey, and muted colors for the most part. For collectors like myself, the old disc will become a frisbee. That said – is this UHD impressive on par with the amazing presentations we have seen on newer films or Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Not so much. Part of the reason that this film can not reach those heights is that cinematography John Hora used a hazy  filter that causes the film to lose some fine detail. Fans of the film are going to be excited to finally have a truly quality release of this classic film.

Audio

Warner has provided a DTS-HD MA 5.1 track that replaced the Dolby True HD track from the 2009 Blu-ray. To my ears the track sounds great, but it is not a substantial improvement over the prior track. The fantastic score by Jerry Goldsmith shines on the track and as the mayhem ramps up in the second half of the film, the track ramps up with it. Fans will be pleased.

Supplements:

This is an interesting deal – the supplemental features are fantastic, but you will need to hold on to your digital copy if you want to access many of them. On the UHD disc, the only supplements included are the two audio commentaries. The fantastic supplements are only accessible through your Movies Anywhere account. I am judging the supplements based on the whole package.

• Audio Commentary with Joe Dante, producer Michael Finnell, and creature creator Chris Walas
• Audio Commentary with Joe Dante, Phoebe Cates, Zach Galligan, Dick Miller, and Howie Mandel
• Making Of – this archival feature showcases director Joe Dante, producer Steven Spielberg, and actors Hoyt Aston, Phoebe Cates, and Zach Galligan. This is a fun and short piece.
• Cute. Clever. Mischievous. Intelligent. Dangerous.- Making Gremlins – this extensive piece is a great retrospective on the film. 
• Hanging with Hoyt on the set of Gremlins – a few minutes of Hoyt messing around on camera while they were filming the EPK.
• From Gizmo to Gremlins: Creating the Creatures – Chris Columbus discusses how he drew the gremlins
• Motion Comics: Gremlins – The Gift of the Mogwai – and Gremlins – The Last Gremlin- these two motion comics recap the film.
• Additional Scenes- a little over ten minutes of cut scenes from the film. There is an optional commentary by director Joe Dante.
• Trailer 

Overall Scores:

Video – 4/5

Audio – 4.5/5

Supplements – 4.5/5

Overall – 5/5

Gremlins is one of my favorite films from the Eighties. It has stood the test of time and really just makes me laugh. It also is a fun Christmas movie to throw into the mix. My boys and I love it and I was so excited to finally upgrade my Blu-ray copy. This UHD disc features a far superior 4K transfer that substantially improves from the dated 2009 Blu-ray. Make sure you hold onto the digital code because it is the only way to access the exceptional supplements from the Luxe Blu-ray edition that was released in 2014. For my family, this was an essential purchase for our UHD collection. Missed opportunities aside, this release delivered everything that I wanted overall.

Portions of this review originally appeared on Blu-ray Authority.