Talk about a "sunburn"...
This is the other PG-rated Spielberg production from 1984 that inspired the PG-13 rating, the one that doesn’t involve hearts being ripped out. But Gremlins is a surprisingly frightening and gruesome affair in its own right.- For starters, there's Stripe, the most sociopathic of the Gremlins, especially in the climax when he goes Ax-Crazy trying to kill Billy and Gizmo with a chainsaw initially showing completely white eyes, which make it look even creepier than its usual red-eyed look. Even as a Mogwai, he had a sinister look about him, not to mention how he gets the dog hung up with Christmas lights while playing dumb and smirking at his accomplishment- he did it while still in his infantile stage, thus was evil from the very beginning and the transformation that would amplify his maliciousness that was already there- rather than the transformation bringing up the aggressive traits. Then there's his Family-Unfriendly Death, when he essentially decomposes at an alarming speed and then pulls a Jump Scare one last time with his skeleton. Even pre-pupa, Stripe constantly wears a sadistic grin on his face, when planning to hurt you or orchestrating horrible things, and got much worse when he metamorphosed into his Gremlin form, leading his children killing almost an entire town's populace in inventively cruel ways, causing anarchy over the town and killing his kin for cheating at cards. When he wasn't letting them all watch Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
- Gremlin birth. 1) Mogwai -> mogwai. Gizmo-screaming as puffballs explode from his back and form into additional, but malign versions of himself that willingly cause harm onto others and actively manipulate others into reaching their matured state- aware of the chaos they'll cause. 2) Pupa -> gremlin. The fluffy Gremlins encase themselves into grotesque, Xenomorph like cocoons as they start cracking open while Gizmo hides in the motorcycle helmet as they emit creepy smoke. 3) Gremlin-> gremlin- red-eyed big-eared, scaly, demonic looking monsters with matured, but murderously insane personalities that use their gremlin technical know-how to cause untold destruction by causing car collisions, driving a car into a couple, etc. A surprisingly dark reproduction cycle from what was seemingly an odd looking yet harmless creature.
- "And that's how I found out there was no Santa Claus." This is the climax of the speech Kate gives explaining why she doesn't believe in Santa and/or hates Christmas: when she was a little girl, her father disappeared without a trace on Christmas night. They never saw him until days later, when the house started to stink. It turned out he had wanted to surprise his little girl by playing Santa Claus, to the extent of trying to come down the chimney for her... instead, he slipped and broke his neck and got wedged in the chimney. And Kate was there when the fire department hauled his decaying body out of the chimney.
- What's worse is that it has nothing to do with the supernatural Gremlin element and cases like that in real life, have happened over the years- with accidental deaths and families wondering where they were until it's revealed to them that they were already long dead.
- Billy calls his mom Lynn to warn her that the gremlins have hatched and to get out of the house. The stereo suddenly begins playing Christmas music seemingly by itself, which unnerves Lynn because she thought she was home alone. After shutting it off, she finds herself fighting for her life against Stripe and his gang. She shreds one in a dough mixer, stabs a second to death, and blows up a third in the microwave -- and two of these three deaths are shown in full, gory detail. A fourth one pins her under the Christmas tree, but Billy arrives home just in time to grab a sword and decapitate it, sending its head into the blazing fireplace for good measure. The moral: do not mess with the Peltzer clan.
- The Cat Scare where she slashes at something moving inside Billy's stocking, sighing in relief that it turns out to be a wind-up toy robot... then immediately discovers those two red lights in the tree behind her aren't Christmas decorations.
- In the original draft of the script, Billy's Mother was going to be killed by the Gremlins... and Billy would’ve come home just in time to see her severed head roll down the stairs.
- Even in the finished film, the Gremlin that ambushed Lynn was in the middle of strangling her to death when Billy pulls off his Big Damn Heroes moment and chops off its head. For as Laughably Evil as they usually are, if Gremlins see you as a genuine threat they will cut the crap and just kill you.
- The fact that we still have no idea what happened to many of the people in Kingston Falls; indeed, it's quite possible many of them died.
- The Gremlins themselves are pure nightmare fuel once they mature from their fuzzy, infantile forms. To start, they look like they stepped right out of a nightmare, with mouths packed with needle teeth, long arms with long fingers and long claws, and wrapped in scaly armor—more resembling big-eared demons from hell that became too violent than the alien experiments and intended creations as pets they're described as. While their aversion to bright light may come across as a Weaksauce Weakness, it also means they gravitate towards dark areas, and they're only about two and a half feet tall. Think about all the times you enter areas that are dimly lit or pitch black, or even just as dim as the areas shown in the films. Now think about all the places in those areas a two and a half foot demonic goblin could be hiding, ready to spring...
- And they're not even safe from each other. The Gremlins will off their own kind for cheating, being annoying, or just because it'll be funny.
- In the final film, the gremlins are pretty much Laughably Evil. In the original draft, they were going to be far worse, being utterly violent, ferocious monstrosities that could eat people.
- Billy and Kate accidentally catch the attention of a theater auditorium packed with gremlins while trying to sneakily rig the building to explode with them inside. We're treated to the striking and terrifying image of dozens of the vicious little bastards cast in silhouette as they quickly gather against the theater screen and start clawing their way through it.
- Even as Mogwai, the Gremlins are just as creepy with the Mogwai's more expressive vaguely human-like features like large disproportionate eyes when acting or doing horrible things unlike Gizmo, give them an eerily wrong feeling to them long before they become Gremlins.
- ''Mega Madness''
, which plays when the previously comedic bar scene with the Gremlins gets intense. In context, it's dance training music, especially with one of the Gremlins dancing in 80s dancing gear. However, the energetic song itself has a darker meaning to its actually disturbing lyrics in the overall context of the bar scene- being giving into insanity and chaotic impulses- especially in the extended edition, which is accompanied by warped laughing, the guitar solo that distorts into distorted synths, getting more intense with the repetition of Mega- fitting the seemingly fun, but truly violent nature of the Gremlins. - The heart-stoppingly terrifying scene of Stripe jumping into the pool while being pursued by Billy. Easily the best example of "Oh shit" in the entire movie. This is after we've already seen that just a single drop of water is enough to spawn another Mogwai or Gremlin.
- The sequence where Stripe meets his end. He reaches the fountain in the Montgomery Ward garden department and sticks a finger in the water, but Gizmo opens an overhead tarp to hit him with sunlight before he can start multiplying. Stripe convulses, sizzles, and melts, falling into the fountain — and then after a long, silent moment, his skeleton lunges out in a final strike before disintegrating into a puddle of revolting green slime on the floor. It's so nasty, even Barney the dog wants nothing to do with it.
- The ending to the film is largely wistful and touching, with Gizmo's theme softly playing as he taken back home, though as Rand's narration comes in warning the viewers to heed of Gremlins, the music gradually becomes more ominous, with a abrupt jump cut to the credits as the chaotic Gremlins Rag starts to blast in.Rand: Well, that's the story. So if your air conditioner goes on the fritz, or your washing machine blows up, or your video recorder conks out — before you call the repairman, turn on all the lights, check all the closets and cupboards, look under all the beds, 'cause you never can tell. There just might be a gremlin in your house.
