The chaotic creature feature that won Spielberg's heart

As Gremlins’ returns to cinemas for its 40th anniversary, Geoffrey Macnab looks at the horror-comedy that led to the PG-13 rating and brought B-movie magic to the mainstream

- Geoffrey Macnab

Imagine being pursued by a great white shark around your living room. It’s never going to happen – but Joe Dante’s antiChristmas comedy-horror Gremlins (1984), back on screen soon to mark its 40th anniversary, is as close as you get to Jaws without the ocean. Humans are preyed on by feral hordes of seemingly cuddly little animals. When the film’s young hero Billy (Zach Galligan) is given a “mogwai,” a furry creature who looks like a baby Yoda, as a seasonal gift, sheer bloody mayhem ensues.

One key reason Gremlins was such a runaway hit, and has inspired so many imitators (Critters, Ghoulies, and Munchies among them), is that it unleashed its pint-sized monsters into everyday American domestic life. This isn’t King Kong or Jurassic Park. It is not set in a jungle, a national park or during a deep sea dive. Some of the most dramatic scenes take place in the hero’s family kitchen, when Billy’s resourceful mother (Frances Lee McCain) forces an especially vicious gremlin into the microwave and splatters another in the food mixer.

Another reason for the film’s enduring popularity is its very double-edged depiction of the chihuahua-sized fiends. At times, director Dante actively encourages the audience to identify with these anarchic little varmints. They’re eerily human in their behaviour – but it’s humanity at its very worst. They gamble, slurp beer, guzzle popcorn and, late on in the movie, one of them, in a dirty Mackintosh, is even seen flashing. During the film’s most glorious and subversive scene, hundreds of the grotesque beasts are shown in a cinema singing along in ecstatic chorus to the “Hi Ho” anthem from Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.