Gremlins: Critic Reviews

Gremlins is far more interested in showing off its knowledge of movie lore and making random jokes than in providing consistent entertainment.

At the level of Serious Film Criticism, it's a meditation on the myths in our movies: Christmas, families, monsters, retail stores, movies, boogeymen. At the level of Pop Moviegoing, it's a sophisticated, witty B movie.

Dante is perhaps the first filmmaker since Frank Tashlin to base his style on the formal free-for-all of animated cartoons; he is also utterly heartless.

What's confusing yet ultimately illuminating is the way his gremlins function as a free-floating metaphor, suggesting at separate junctures everything from teenagers to blacks to various Freudian suppressions.

The humans are little more than dress-extras for the mechanics.

A comic horror movie classic.

A wholesome Christmas family flick that veers over to the dark side.

There's a mischievous playfulness about Gremlins, and that's its most endearing quality, but I found it grating on me early on and soon turning to mean-spiritedness.

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An unexpectedly successful skit on Spielberg/Disney movie culture -- that itself became something of a franchise.

Yes, Dante gleefully trashes cliches and sentimental Capra-esque notions, but one should not forget this movie was given a "PG" rating and cynically aimed to draw an audience of small children who would no doubt be terrorized by this myth-shattering film.

Taking a second look back at Joe Dante's career, I realize he was actually one of the most interesting American directors working.

Dante gleefully sinks his teeth into the kind of fluffy, sugary, sickly small town fantasy beloved of his pal and sometime producer Spielberg.

Gleefully mischievous and full of dark, magical energy.

Lot's of fun from start to stop, though Cate's creepy Santa story is a downer.

Great fun.