Christmas movies are a staple of the holiday period, the movies designed to be watched with the family on the big day, films filled with whimsy, heart and holiday charm. Commonly characterised by comedies and dramas, films like Home Alone, Miracle on 34th Street, It’s a Wonderful Life and Elf are the most common staples of the holiday season, or films focused on fantasy elements like the multiple adaptations of Dr Seuss’ The Grinch. The horror genre is not uncommon to be included in the holiday craze however, with one of the many prototype slasher films coming as a holiday feature, in the film Black Christmas, and horror-holiday features continue to this day with films like Krampus. One of the most famous horror features set in the Christmas season would come in 1984, with the release of Joe Dante’s Gremlins. The film was released in the height of Steven Speilberg’s producing career, where most of the big blockbusters of the 80s felt like Spielberg films even when they were not directed by him, with films like Back to the Future and Poltergeist falling under this category.
Gremlins follows Billy Peltzer, who receives the mysterious Gizmo as a pet, who spawns evil members of his kind when touched with water, unleashing mischievous creatures onto Billy’s hometown. Gremlins would soon become a holiday classic, blending the worlds of dark comedy and horror under a Christmastime setting, and inspired a trend of horror creatures causing chaos on the big screen, with films like Critters and Spookies following the release of Gremlins. Demand would be made by Warner Bros for Dante to make a sequel instantly after the success of the original film, and the sequel would arrive in 1990. Not a Christmas classic in any sense of the word, it is one of the most entertaining and complex sequels made from such a lucrative property. Gremlins: The New Batch follows the same basic plot of the original film, but with a grander scale, as Billy now works in a skyscraper in New York City, where the mogwai Gizmo resurfaces, and a fresh new breed of Gremlins wreak havoc in the skyscraper.
Dante was originally against the idea of making a sequel to his Christmas classic, believing that the original told a very open-and-close narrative, and he seen the production of the original film as very taxing for him. Work on the sequel would be shopped around afterwards, with ideas being formed around bringing the Gremlins to cities like Los Angeles or even Mars. Dante would return to production of the sequel when Warner Bros returned to him with the offer of having complete creative control over the film, and budget that was triple compared to the original film. The 80s and 90s were filled with sequels, with most being seen as near-remakes of the original film but going under the motto of bigger is better. Ivan Reitman’s 1989 sequel to Ghostbusters would retread many of the same character beats of the original, resetting the characters progress so they could come apart and come back together as the Ghostbusters once again, leaning into the family friendly angle that came from the cartoon produced at the time. Chris Columbus’ 1992 follow-up to holiday classic Home Alone would do much of the same, but instead swapping Kevin and his family, leaving him home alone abroad, but still having to deal with the same robbers. Even Spielberg would not be immune to just remaking his own film, with 1997’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park coming alive with the central idea; what if there was a second island with dinosaurs on it. Dante seems to follow this trend of sequels, with the plot following the same basic concept of the original, but this time on a grander scale, but also heavily parodies sequels, and Hollywood itself.
Gremlins: The New Batch opens with a Looney Tunes animated short, directed by Chuck Jones, who had retired before being asked to return for these shorts. The opening short acts to confuse the audience, believing it’s an animated short attached to the film, and not actually part of the film, with Daffy Duck attempting to become the main character and requesting for the actual film to play once he fails to do so. The opening sets up the chaotic tone of the film, and how anarchic the film will get as it continues. The animated opening also helps set the stage for how animated and slapstick oriented the actual film becomes, as the film leaves its connection to horror behind to focus on the signature Gremlins causing chaos. A central plot thread leads to the Gremlins mutating into various forms, causing the Gremlins to become their own characters, most likely for merchandise but also to fall in line with its cartoonish aesthetic.
There is a lightning Gremlin, a female Gremlin and a smart Gremlin, who can speak full sentences. It is a rather goofy set of scenes that would not sit at home in the original feature. Satirical elements make up a large section of the Gremlins sequel, as the setting even satirises Trump Tower, with the character Daniel Clamp and his Clamp Tower clearly being a satirisation of billionaire Donald Trump. Spoofs of popular media appear all over the film, alongside spoofing cable television, which was on the rise in popularity at the time. Scenes include Gizmo wearing an outfit that resembles the lead character from the Rambo franchise, a Gremlin wearing the outfit owned by the Phantom of the Opera, or a bat Gremlin resembling the iconic Batman logo. Robert Prosky appears in the film as an actor portraying Grandpa Fred, a character from the popular show The Munsters, and the cast of the show Square One Television appear as themselves filming an episode of the show.
Meta comedy is all the rage in Hollywood nowadays, with films referencing popular culture and satirises their genres being common staple after the release of Scream in 1996, but it was certainly not commonplace in the time of the release of this Dante feature. The most meta moment comes when Dante stages the idea of the film breaking, as the Gremlins sabotage the projector and begin to engage in shadow puppets across the scene. Hulk Hogan makes a cameo appearance next as he threatens the troublemakers into allowing the film to continue to be shown, as the film continues. This scene was then reworked when coming to VHS and home media, where the scene is staged to make it look like the viewer’s VCR has been sabotaged, as the Gremlins are threatened by John Wayne instead, in a broadcast of the 1970 film Chisum, with actor Chad Everett providing voice over lines impersonating the late actor.
A scene also includes film critic Leonard Maltin, a critic who had heavily critiqued Dante’s original film, who retreads his thoughts on the original film inside the film’s sequel, before cutting off when being attacked by the Gremlins. There is another scene that acts as a direct commentary on the original film, namely around the rules placed on the Mogwai. The first film sets up rules, that you should not splash any water on the mogwai and you should not feed the mogwai after midnight, with this second rule leading to various fan theories. A scene in the sequel follows-up on this running ‘criticism’ of the first film, as Billy explains the rules to the staff of Clamp Tower, with the staff finding them absurd. The staff then ask the fan favourite question, whether a mogwai on a plane travelling across time zones would keep with the rule or break it, because it is always ‘midnight somewhere’.
Gremlins: The New Batch became a cult classic in the years after its release in 1990, grossing $42 million at the box office on a budget of $30-50 million, compared to the box office success of the first film, which sits at $212.9 million on a budget of only $11 million. With a higher budget, the film didn’t translate into a bigger box office haul, which put a pause on the franchise for nearly two decades. Dante would move on and find success with two more cartoon-focused features with 1998’s Small Soldiers, and 2003’s Looney Tunes: Back in Action. Dante remains focused that Gremlins 2 is his last film with the franchise, as Warner Bros has moved into the streaming era.
With the need of content for their HBO Max Streaming Service, Gremlins: Secret of the Mogwai would air on the service in 2023, with the second season, renamed to Gremlins: The Wild Bunch, airing between 2024 and 2025. The series acts as a prequel to the films, and also gaged the interest of the audience into the franchise. With the franchise appearing in various video games in the past couple of years, from crossover fighting game Multiversus, and the Lego Dimensions game, it was only time that the franchise would make a return. A Gremlins 3 is currently scheduled for 2027, directed by Chris Columbus, with Spielberg returning as producer, after being in development hell for decades. It can only hope that this film will live up to the hilarious heights of Gremlins: The New Batch, a film which broke the clear sequel roles, ushering in a new trend of meta filmmaking
Rhys Reviews 