Looking back at these movies as I have, I just realized, I watched a lot of damn movies with my cousins.

Here was another.

This was one that we did under the radar if you know what I mean.  So I’m just going to say it.  My parents were a little over-protective in the watching movies department (Shit–I just realized I forgot to tell you guys my “Poltergeist” story.  I will go back to that one on a later post).  They were good parents, but their monitor jive was bagging on my flick focus if you know what I’m saying.  Anyways, my aunt and uncle were not that strict (most likely why I watched a shitload of movies with my cousins now that I think about it-duh).

We did attend the theater for this one.

It was a bit slow for me at first.  There was a dad that wanted to get his son an amazing present in Chinatown, late at night…nothing weird there.  He sees what he wants (we can’t, it’s behind the magic curtain) the guy that has it doesn’t want to sell it so dad leaves.  At the last second the salesman’s grandson brings out the item he wanted with three sacred warnings (keep him away from bright lights, especially sunlight, it will kill him, never get him wet, and NEVER feed him after midnight).

Dad doesn’t really seem like the kind of guy that would pay attention to the little details.  Of course, he is very laid back about delivering the details to his son and the last two rules are eventually broken.  We finally see the gift, he’s a Mogwai named Gizmo, and when he gets wet, 7 more Mogwai pop right off of him–brutal bullies to Gizmo, mind you.

The new Mogwai also start plotting and setup the third rule being broken by destroying the lead character’s clock; which makes them generate into cocoons that transform them into “Gremlins“.

You would think that the movie would be interesting by this point, but the cocoon stage took way longer (even in the film) than I thought it should.  Eventually they hatch and the title for the film finally begins well past 45 minutes into the movie.  I have to admit, the gremlins killing the teacher at the school freaked me out.  I was 7 at the time and the movie was starting to get “Poltergeist” scary for me (I promise, next post).  It seemed like there was nothing anyone could do to these havoc raving monsters that were allowed to roam around the town and destroy machinery, cause traffic accidents, and kill old people.

Enter Mom (2nd badass to Ripley on “Alien” but I get ahead–that one is coming later too).

I can’t remember if Mom killed 2 or 3 G’s, but she did it with extreme prejudice.  I remember a Gremlin diving head first into a blender full of chocolate.  Mom turned on the blender and ground him to oblivion.  Then she stabbed another one with a kitchen knife.

Finally, some people kicking some ass, these things weren’t invincible.  I appreciate the writers going with mom as a badass.  I think that my mom would’ve been too if she knew she had to protect me and my little brother, and that gave me solace.  The rest of the movie was just fun.

I remember not being sure whether to laugh or be sad when the little monsters killed old people and caused mischief, and I felt really bad for Gizmo.  He just wanted to be loved and he was more responsible than a lot of the people that were tasked with taking care of him.  In the end, I think that I was relieved, not sad to see Gizmo go back home to Chinatown.

Those idiots should’ve never been allowed to look after him.  The rules seemed very simple to me at 7.

WTF?

“Poltergeist” next.

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