Friday, February 28, 2020

Gremlins (1984)


A boy inadvertently breaks three important rules concerning his new pet and unleashes a horde of malevolently mischievous monsters on a small town.

Quite original, over-the-top horror spoof  is lively and entertaining, over-abundant with in-joke details, but its black humor is childish most of the time.

Halliwell*: "Juvenile horror comic, a kind of deliberate inversion of E.T. Slow to start, and a little too knowingly nasty, with variable special effects; but a pretty hot commercial success."

Maltin**: "Comic nightmare is a cross between Capra's IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE and THE BLOB; full of film-buff in-jokes, but negated by too-vivid violence and mayhem."

No comments: