Christmas Movie Review: Gremlins (1984)

"Turn on all the lights, check all the closets and cupboards, look under all the beds..." and check out our review of Gremlins. You might be thinking that Gremlins would be more appropriate as an entry in our Halloween movie fest as a horror movie, which it is. However, in addition to being a horror movie and a comedy movie, Gremlins is totally a Christmas movie.




The movie begins with a struggling inventor who purchases a cute, cuddly and highly unique pet called a Mogwai as an early Christmas gift for his young-adult son, Billy. Billy is given the Mogwai and told that there are three very important rules to care for this pet. Obviously Billy ends up breaking each of the three rules, but we will get to that in a moment. First let's meet the Mogwai.



Aw, how cute! Well don't get too attached because as we mentioned earlier, these little critters require an important set of rules for proper care. As Billy quickly discovers, bright light can hurt or kill them, getting them wet causes them to multiply and feeding them after midnight causes them to turn into little green reptilian monsters called Kardashians, uh... I mean gremlins.

I saw this movie as a little kid and remember having mixed feelings about it because it was possibly my first experience with a horror-comedy. So I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be scared or not because the gremlins are both terrifying and hilarious. While they do cause a few deaths, they mostly delight in running rampant across town destroying things like a pack of feral children. Some of the funnier scenes of the movie occur when the gremlins are goofing around.



She had it coming.

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