Gremlins (1984) / YMMV

Accidental Aesop:
- Think about the responsibility before you get a pet.
- Billy for all intents and purposes does try to be careful and follow the rules with Gizmo, but outside forces he didn't anticipate keep sabotaging it (eg. the Mogwai intentionally sabotaging his clock). You can do everything right on your level of experience and still not be responsible enough for something you are alien to.
Adorkable: Billy is more than a little awkward when he first asks Kate out, which she clearly finds endearing. It's especially interesting to watch him go from puppy-dog excited to trying to act cool when she says yes.
Angst? What Angst?: When Rand reunites with Billy and Kate at the tail end of the movie's climax, he doesn't react to the fact his son is clearly bleeding and heavily injured at all — his role in the scene literally plays out as if Billy is physically fine. Whilst seeing a gremlin for the first time (while it's melting to death no less) is a pretty eye-catching thing, it's a bit of a stretch for it to override the paternal instincts of a decent middle-class father whose son is visibly injured for reasons he doesn't yet know, nevermind that Rand's lack of reaction persists after the gremlin's (Stripe's) body has fallen out of sight into the fountain.
Applicability: The film has been interpreted as a metaphor for everything from puberty to white suburbia's fear of minorities.
Awesome Music
- Jerry Goldsmith strikes again.
- The question is, which is better? The original Gremlin Rag or the more up-tempo Gremlin Theme from the sequel?
- Peter Gabriel's Out Out, which plays in the bar scene from the first movie.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The whole "Santa Claus" speech comes out of nowhere (it is properly foreshadowed with Kate's dislike of Christmas, but then an hour later she just launches into the story with no prompting from Billy while the two are sheltering in the bank), and isn't mentioned again afterward, leaving it completely without any resolution. It has absolutely no reason to be in the movie other than to be disturbing. The sequel had some fun with this when it turns out Christmas isn’t the only holiday Kate has traumatic memories about, but this time no one cares.
Creepy Awesome: Stripe. He's the vile, nightmarish, sadistic leader of the Gremlin horde, but is so manically cunning and has such commanding personality he's a very enjoyable villain to watch.
Crosses the Line Twice: An old woman having a panic attack because she thinks a group of demons have come to take her to Hell? That's horrifying no matter how much of a Rich Bitch she is. That same woman getting launched out of a window by a sabotaged motorized stair climber while the "demons" sing Christmas carols? Comedic gold.
Evil Is Cool: Stripe, probably the only gremlin in the film who's both totally evil and wickedly smart.
Genius Bonus: According to The Other Wiki, the mogwai of Chinese folklore breed "during mating seasons triggered by the coming of rain." In other words, their reproductive cycles being associated with water isn't an invention of the film.
Heartwarming in Hindsight: During the ending, Mr. Wing notices that Billy, at the very least, may have potential to take care of Gizmo in the future. This is culminated in the second movie where Wing passes away and Billy is reunited with Gizmo again, this time for good.
Hilarious in Hindsight: In their Villains Out Shopping moment, the gremlins are seen watching Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in a movie theater. From 1987 to 1992, Warner Bros. (the film's distributor) would distribute Disney movies in the European Union.
Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Mrs. Deagle is one of the most obnoxious old Rich Bitches ever put to the silver screen, while the eponymous creatures are gleefully Laughably Evil. Hence she ends up an Asshole Victim with her death (caused by the Gremlins themselves) being treated purely as Black Comedy. It's worth noting she's one of the few explicit human fatalities to survive into the produced film, after the majority of the Gremlins' kills from the original script^note were all axed.
Mandela Effect: Stripe's name is often misremembered as "Spike".
Memetic Badass: Billy's Mom, due to having the highest Gremlin kill-count in both movies.
Memetic Mutation:
- Thanks to this film, the word "gremlins" was primarily associated with its characters.^note And the official theme, to the point that many now remember it more than the film itself.
- On that note - "fed after midnight" has attained some popularity as a colorful descriptor of something quickly multiplying, often new series following a popular bandwagon (also a case of Beam Me Up, Scotty!, as feeding after midnight transforms a mogwai into a gremlin, while water is what makes them multiply).
The Problem with Licensed Games: The Atari video game based on the film is rather badly done. Averted by the NES game by Sunsoft.
Retroactive Recognition: Jonathan Banks is Deputy Brent.
Special Effects Failure: There's a few times where one can see the hand of the puppeteer. In particular, the rod in the arm of the plate-throwing gremlin in the kitchen attack is clearly visible during the over-the-shoulder shots and again when Stripe attacks Billy with the chainsaw at the end.
Suspiciously Similar Song: All video games of the franchise use an off key version of the main theme. Subverted with The New Batch for Amiga and Atari ST, which uses genuine arrangements of the film's soundtrack (plus the Gremlin Rag from the first film).
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The first movie bothers to properly introduce several residents of Kingston Falls, even giving them detailed personalities and backstories. Most of them disappear in the second act or end up quick victims of the Gremlims' rampage. It's especially glaring with Gerald (played by Judge Reinhold) who is set up as a jerk deserving of some comeuppance — and is then never seen again after his second scene in the tavern (though he is terrorised in a deleted scene). The sequel seems to go out of its way to avoid the same mistake, even bringing back a handful of the original cast to be utilised more fully.
Unintentional Period Piece: Billy and Stripe's final confrontation takes place inside a Montgomery Ward store. Montgomery Ward went out of business in 1999.
Values Resonance: This film features a family who buys a pet on impulse without considering the responsibility, which leads to disaster. Decades later, exotic pets such as otters, owls, foxes, and lorises have become popular on social media, leading people to impulse-buy these animals which often leads to them being rehomed when the owners discover these animals aren't as fun or easy to care for as the videos make them look.
Viewer Name Confusion: For the record, the main gremlin's name is "Stripe," not "Spike", and the lead gremlin in the sequel is officially named Mohawk (though Word of God suggests that they are indeed the same character, reincarnated).
Visual Effects of Awesome: The mogwai and gremlin puppets have aged quite well.
What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: This movie, along with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom led to the creation of both the PG-13 rating in the USA and the 12 rating in the UK. The trailers presented this picture as much more lighthearted than it was. Reviewing it for Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Harlan Ellison described it in terms more suited to Nightmare Fuel. He deplored its many instances of wanton cruelty played for laughs, and said he "heard little children scream and cry" in the theater. The manager later told him he'd never had so many patrons walking out and demanding their money back.
What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?:
- Of course, this was not intentional, but some people still see this film as a satire on the Yellow Peril and Americans' stereotypes about Asia, especially cheap Japanese imports. This is especially invoked when, at the beginning of the film, one of the veterans tells the main character a popular legend about Griping About Gremlins.
- Some cultural commentators have accused the gremlins of being racist caricatures of African-Americans, usually singling out a quick sequence where one gremlin breakdances as evidence (presumably these critics are unfamiliar with Flashdance, which is the clear subject of parody in that scene). Patricia Turner's Ceramic Uncles & Celluloid Mammies additionally singled out a scene where a group of Gremlins voraciously eat fried chicken, the fact that the Gremlins wear clothes that were popular among Black people at the time, and the fact that the only Black character in the film is also the first victim. Never mind that the chicken came from a white family's refrigerator, gremlins wear lots of different types of clothes, and Mr. Hanson is a perfectly ordinary science teacher.

YMMV / Gremlins (1984)

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