Film

Gremlins (1984)

Director: Joe Dante

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

With a characteristic mix of narrative anarchy, cinephile allusion, cartoon-style slapstick and black-tinged comedy, Dante gleefully sinks his teeth into the kind of fluffy, sugary, sickly small town fantasy beloved of his pal and sometime producer Spielberg. It starts with a Christmas gift - a cute, cuddly little 'mogwai' - but the time of goodwill soon turns hellish when, splashed with water, the creature starts sprouting the titular monsters, whose sense of mischief extends to the murderous and beyond. As the all-American township falls prey to the little demons' destructive urges, Dante lets rip with fabulous special effects, hilariously sadistic set-pieces (most memorably the monsters wreaking havoc at a screening of Disney's Snow White) and in-jokes galore, all delivered at such a heady pace that the trashing of traditional American values and consumer goods even feels quite liberating.

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