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In addition to being one of the country’s greatest directors, Steven Spielberg also produced a number of  films for other directors, including Poltergeist and The Goonies. Another early 80’s Spielberg production was Gremlins, a horror movie that included a good dose of comedy.

 

In the film, inventor Rand Peltzer buys his son Billy a gift from New York’s Chinatown – a cute, furry pet called a Mogwai. The shop owner warns him that he has to make sure he keeps the creature away from bright light, doesn’t get it wet, and never feeds it after midnight. Rand agrees, and takes the Mogwai home with him to Kingston Falls.

 

Billy is thrilled with the animal, and calls it Gizmo, taking it everywhere he goes. Eventually, however, he and his friends get a little careless with the three rules of Mogwai care. Accidentally splashed with water, Gizmo starts to multiply into several little Mogwais, including a not so nice brother named Stripe. And of course, the Mogwai find food and eat it after midnight, which leads to them changing from cute and fuzzy into scaly, evil creatures called Gremlins.

 

The Gremlins start to multiply and, through their mean-spirited antics, take over the formerly idyllic town. Billy and his girlfriend Kate have to figure out how to stop the Gremlins before they destroy the town and move on to wreak havoc in the rest of the world. The result is a climax that’s both funny and frightening.

 

Director Joe Dante (Piranha and The Howling) crafted a movie that is both a horror movie and a satire of horror movies. He created classic scenes, such as the one where Billy’s mom fights off a gremlin attack using a blender and a microwave, or where the gremlins take over a movie theater showing Snow White, and sing along with the Seven Dwarves. The film’s stars were also strong, with Zach Galligan as Billy and Phoebe Cates as Kate. Hoyt Axton played Billy’s inventor dad, and Cory Feldman appeared as one of Billy’s friends. The movie also featured comic actors Dick Miller as a former army soldier, and Polly Holliday (Flo on TV’s Alice) as a mean millionaire.

 

The actual gremlins were created by Chris Walas, who would later do The Fly with Jeff Goldblum. His innovative design made the gremlins both frightening and adorable. The creatures were voiced by Howie Mandel and Michael Winslow (whose talented, sound effects voice stylings graced the Police Academy movies.)

 

Gremlins got a PG rating when it was released in 1984, but the intensity of the scary scenes caused controversy, and it was instrumental in the creation of the new PG-13 rating – along with another Spielberg movie, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The controversy only helped the box office, though, and the film made $150 million in the US and just as much overseas. It was followed by a sequel in 1998, Gremlins 2: The New Batch.