Christmas horror is a niche field overstuffed with Santa-based serial killers all vying to be the nastiest.
The name of the game is to undermine Christmas,
to subvert it to horrific purpose by making a Christmas film that is as unChristmassy as possible -
the more unpleasant the better.
'Well no one's got a story like this one.'
What makes Gremlins stand head and shoulders above this throng is that it is, first and foremost, a true Christmas movie.
(Christmas music)
It wears its influences on its sleeve
the small town feel of Kingston Falls is deliberately reminiscent of It's a Wonderful Life's Bedford Falls,
and the character of Mrs Deagle a clear reference to Frank Capra's evergreen holiday classic
'The bank and I have the same purpose in life to make money.'
With a little Wizard of Oz thrown in.
'I'll get you, when you least expect it.'
There's a girl for whom the season has been tainted
'He had been climbing down the chimney on Christmas eve, arms loaded with presents.'
'He slipped and broke his neck and died instantly.'
'And that's how I found out there was no santa claus.'
even a Christmas moral
'You have done with Mogawi what your society has done with all of nature's gifts.'
but above all this is a film about the greatest Christmas present ever.
Billy Peltzer's unlikely Christmas gift from his father is Gizmo, a Mogwai,
the Christmas present that, quite frankly, everyone in the world wants.
'Why I bet every kid in America would want one of these.'
Even though he comes with a few more rules than, say, a hamster.
'Yeah what kind of rules.'
'Keep him out of light, he hates bright light, especially sunlight, it will kill him.'
'And keep him away from water, don't get him wet.'
'But the most important rule, the rule you can never forget...'
'No matter how much cries, no matter how much he begs, never, never feed him after midnight.'
And that's the set-up. Couldn't be simpler and in a way we know what's going to happen
because that list of rules is going to get broken,
'Thanks a lot.'
but of course, we don't know what will happen when they do.
And at first the results don't seem that bad at all.
'One two three four five new ones.'
Although another classic movie is used to remind us of what happens when bad stuff comes to a small town.
'They're here already, you're next.'
But Gizmo is more than the film's inciting incident.
In Chris Columbus's original script, Gizmo turns gremlin, which is what you would expect to happen.
But executive producer Steven Spielberg recognised that having given the audience this wonderful present,
turning it into something evil would be a mistake, and would undermine the film's Christmas vibe.
So instead, Gizmo became the lead.
With that decision made, it was imperative that audiences connect with the character.
The movie actually teaches us Gizmo's song, and his musical motif, written by composer Jerry Goldsmith
Gizmo seems to know the rules, and that something bad will happen if they are broken.
'Do you want some chicken?'
A contrast to the other mogwai
'It's not 12 o clock yet'
(mogawis whisper.'
who are trying to turn gremlin.
'Mum, what's going on here?'
Gizmo's character arc is that of the hero - he is a victim of fate
'Oh Gizmo, what's the matter?'
he is ill-used.
he learns new skills
and uses them later to save the day.
Again the original script allowed Billy to help in killing Stripe,
but Spielberg intervened once more to keep Gizmo the hero.
'Bright light.'
But if Gizmo has a lot of Spielberg in him, the Gremlins are director Joe Dante's babies
They do terrible things
They are vicious killers
Terrorizing the town
And we love them.
It's an incredibly difficult tightrope to walk and Dante unicycles along it, juggling chainsaws.
The film is filled with in-references
and cameos
but none is more telling than this
'You're doing fine.' 'Thanks'
that is cartoon legend, Chuck Jones
'Excuse me Mr Jones
A man who has perpetrated more, and more horrifying, acts of onscreen violence than Quentin Tarantino, Sam Peckinpah and Eli Roth combined
mostly to cartoon ducks.
Gremlins owes an enormous debt to Jones and the Warner Brothers cartoons
'Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my rag time gal.'
taking their psychotic humour and manic energy and bringing it into the real world, without losing the hilarity.
Why do we love the Gremlins despite their actions?
Partly because they are funny.
but also because their driving force isn't hatred or revenge, psychosis or sadism, they're just having fun
(laughter)
There's no malice here, there a joie de vivre to their violence and a chaotic anarchy,
enhanced by another great piece of Goldsmith music
You can't help but embrace it, because it's so random -
they do what they want, but what they want could be anything, from eating glass
to carol singing
(Gremlins sing)
to re-enacting scenes from Flashdance
They like a drink
they like to play dress up
some of them enjoy smooth jazz
and of course they love cinema.
'They're watching snow white, and they love it.'
and even sing-along
'Hi Ho it's off to work we go.'
And somehow, none of this detracts from them being a very genuine threat
As long as we're talking about the creatures themselves,
let's take a moment to appreciate the incredible animatronics and puppetry of Chris Walas and his team.
In the days before CG, getting a creature to interact like this with an actor was a Herculean task.
Now it's easy, and somehow less effective.
Does Gizmo move convincingly?
Not really, he has a limited range of actions and there's a lot of repetition.
Does he convince?
'Cute.'
Absolutely. There is never a point when you don't completely believe in him.
'Bye Billy.'
You know Gizmo is a puppet in the same way that you know the other characters are played by actors
- it just doesn't matter.
While it's references to other family movies are well documented,
it's often forgotten the debt that Gremlins owes to horror. It makes you jump
it's not afraid to break out a chainsaw
It clearly references Alien.
Most notably, the story is a spin on Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde,
the evil that lies dormant in all of us made terrifying flesh.
And, like all good versions of that story, it provokes a disturbing and delicious reaction in us
- while we want the good guys to win, it does look like the bad guys have more fun.
We all hope that we're Gizmo, but secretly dream of being Gremlins.
That sense of light and dark is key to Gremlins - something sweet can turn into something terrifying,
somewhere bland can be reduced to outright chaos,
something funny can become filled with horror.
Gremlins is a mass of contradictions
- it is one of the best horror comedies of all time and one of the few to do both with equal skill.
The sequel was bold enough to go in its own direction,
upping the anarchy and the humour while downplaying the horror,
resulting in a sequel that manages to be the equal of the original by being almost too different for useful comparison.
'Now was that civilised? No clearly not, fun, but in sense civilised.'
The biggest difference between them, and perhaps what gives the original the edge,
is that, as I said at the start, what Gremlins really is, what it remains through microwaved Gremlins
and savaged santas
is a great Christmas movie.
'Because you never can tell, there might just be a Gremlin in your house.'
Despite being released in June. Only Gremlins.