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Bookmark this pageGremlins (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.Author: GA
User reviews of this film
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- Doug said...
- Posted on May 26 2009 14:49 I've watched this little wonder again and again and it rarely fails to impress. Somehow Dante managed to combine the cute with some menance with outrageous sillyness and still make it very, very watchable. I promised to buy my sister a Mogwai years ago and she still pesters me about it - at 31...
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Cast & crew
Director: Joe Dante
Producer: Michael Finnell
Cast: Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, Hoyt Axton, Polly Holliday, Frances Lee McCain, Dick Miller, Keye Luke, Scott Brady full cast
Genre(s): Fantasy
Duration: 111 mins
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