Gremlins Review

Gremlins
Billy's (Galligan) Dad brings him a gift from a business trip - a Mogwai. There are three rules to keeping the pet - never get it wet, never feed it after midnight, and never expose it to sunlight. Of course it's not ten minutes before they're broken, and all hell breaks loose in suburbia.

by Caroline Westbrook |
Published on
Release Date:

07 Dec 2012

Running Time:

106 minutes

Certificate:

15

Original Title:

Gremlins

Joe Dante's hilariously overblown comedy horror cheerfully pits man against beast in a cosy suburban setting. Zach Galligan is the hapless teenager who receives the oh-so-loveable Mogwai, Gizmo, for Christmas, completely disregards the instructions not to get it wet or feed it after midnight, and watches, along with his girlfriend Phoebe Cates, the mayhem unfold when the goggle-eyed cutie starts birthing evil sprites as a result. Played almost totally for laughs (even Cates' monologue on how she found out there's no Santa Claus has a vein of pitch black humour in it), this serves as a delightfully offbeat reminder of how inventive and witty blockbusters seemed when you were a kid.

Dante’s critters-run-amok-in-snowbound-Spielberg-suburbia satire takes the Christmas milieu of It’s A Wonderful Life and splatters it with cartoony carnage, anarchic comedy and a stripe of gleeful subversion a mile wide.
Just so you know, we may receive a commission or other compensation from the links on this website - read why you should trust us