Latest / All The Right Movies / Gremlins (1984) | Ep. 6 - Part 1

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Gremlins (1984) | Ep. 6 - Part 1 · All The Right Movies

• 0:04
  All the old movies. Look, Mr. there's three rules.
• 0:08
  You've got to follow. We have what kind of rules keep
• 0:11
  him out of the light he hates. Bright light, especially
• 0:14
  sunlight, it'll kill him and. Keep.
• 0:17
  Him away from water, don't get him wet.
• 0:20
  But the most important rule, the rule you can never forget.
• 0:24
  No matter how much he cries, no matter how much he begs, never,
• 0:29
  never feed him after midnight. You got it?
• 0:32
  Sure kid, whatever you say. Hey, listen, thanks and have a
• 0:35
  Merry Christmas. The Pelzer family invite a cute
• 0:41
  little creature into their home for Christmas, but disappear the
• 0:44
  strict rules of maintenance, resulting in murderous monsters
• 0:47
  running amok in the small town of Kingston Falls.
• 0:50
  Gremlins brought the tradition of the family Christmas movie
• 0:53
  Jordan is creature feature replace sentiment with
• 0:56
  scepticism in a film that was huge at the box office and has
• 0:59
  been a Christmas favorite ever since.
• 1:01
  My name is Luke and I'm here with Matt.
• 1:04
  Hey gang, it's been a rough knife rockin Ricky, but he's
• 1:06
  still on the air. Nice and westy.
• 1:11
  Rand Pelter. Fantastic ideas for a fantastic
• 1:13
  world. All the Right Movies have been
• 1:16
  through the pupil stage and are emerging from our cocoons to
• 1:19
  create podcast and havoc as we bring you the story of Gremlins.
• 1:42
  Hello, Merry Christmas and welcome to All the Right Movies,
• 1:46
  a podcast on classic and hit films that make the illogical
• 1:49
  logical. We hope, like us here, that
• 1:51
  you're all in the festive spirit.
• 1:53
  Today on the show, we're talking about the disgustingly hilarious
• 1:55
  Gremlins. Before we do though, it's that
• 1:59
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• 2:54
  Movies to sign up. Back to the show.
• 2:56
  Westie, why do you want to talk about Gremlins?
• 2:58
  Oh, Gremlins. Because it's just an amazingly
• 3:03
  huge ball of fun, isn't it? It's got so much charm, it's got
• 3:07
  so much wit. It's like Spielberg and he's
• 3:09
  he's like gang of mates taking over.
• 3:12
  It's like the nerds are taking over and they're making
• 3:13
  something that's just going to make them incredibly happy.
• 3:16
  There's nothing quite like it. It just kind of sits there, this
• 3:19
  collection of, of great minds coming together.
• 3:21
  I mean, the writing's fantastic, the direction's fantastic,
• 3:24
  cinematography's great, the creature works, unbelievable.
• 3:27
  You know, it still holds up and it's still great fun.
• 3:29
  And you know, I kind of wait to show it to my kids.
• 3:32
  Although I did watch it again yesterday.
• 3:34
  I've watched it a couple of times this week in preparation
• 3:36
  for this. And I don't know whether I'm
• 3:37
  going to let them watch it or not because it is like watching
• 3:41
  it again. It's pretty ridiculous, but it's
• 3:44
  loads and loads of fun. It is.
• 3:46
  What about you, Matt? It's the first Christmas film I
• 3:49
  remember as a kid wanting to rewatch over and over again.
• 3:54
  Yeah, and even to the point where as a kid I didn't care if
• 3:57
  it was Christmas or not. It could be like a bacon hot day
• 3:59
  in August. I'd like oh man can I put
• 4:00
  Gremlins on one Watch Gremlins. No, you're 6.
• 4:07
  Take that jumper off, God, say. But because as a kid, it's just
• 4:12
  everything you want in the film. It's really funny, it's really
• 4:15
  scary, it's really entertaining. It's got these little monsters
• 4:18
  running about and over the years it's actually become quite a
• 4:21
  personal film for me. Like me with my son, it's become
• 4:23
  the film we always watch on Christmas Eve.
• 4:25
  So that's our tradition. Oh, lovely.
• 4:28
  Yeah, so I introduced him to when he was about 7.
• 4:30
  He's probably too young. But over the years it's our
• 4:33
  Christmas Eve tradition. We're going to sit down and
• 4:35
  we're going to watch Gremlins. And last year we were lucky
• 4:37
  enough to see it on the big screen.
• 4:39
  It'd been re released to the cinemas scene on the big screen
• 4:42
  was absolutely brilliant. It was fantastic.
• 4:44
  And there's a lot of Christmas films that I can skip watching
• 4:48
  year in, year out, but Grambling isn't one of them.
• 4:51
  It's it's on the top, top of the list.
• 4:53
  And knowing that in a few weeks time I'm going to get to watch
• 4:55
  it again, it's already making me feel really festive.
• 4:59
  Lovely. Not very nice, very nice.
• 5:01
  Well, I remember the film from a very young age, maybe even at
• 5:04
  the time of its release. At home we had it on VHS and it
• 5:07
  was on the same tape as Ghostbusters Little Bang Bang
• 5:11
  as. It was released as well, yeah.
• 5:14
  I remember avoiding Ghostbusters because it had the word ghost in
• 5:18
  and I was scared of those things so I opted for gremlins instead
• 5:25
  and I remember it starting loving Gizmo but obviously as
• 5:27
  soon as those gremlins came on I was straight out of their head.
• 5:30
  Didn't like that at all, but I did watch it a little bit when I
• 5:35
  got a bit older, but I couldn't really remember it.
• 5:37
  And then I watched it in my early 20s and I was really
• 5:39
  surprised at how good it was then and how good it really
• 5:42
  still is. It's really, really funny, pulls
• 5:45
  no punches. I really love.
• 5:46
  It's like dark themes and it's not what you would expect from
• 5:49
  us. Like a straightforward family
• 5:51
  Christmas film. I've got loads going for it.
• 5:54
  I absolutely love it. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
• 5:56
  Gremlins was produced by Michael Finnell, distributed by Warner
• 5:59
  Brothers and released on the 8th of June 1984.
• 6:03
  Film mainly at Burbank Studios in California.
• 6:05
  It was written by Chris Columbus and directed by Joe Dandy.
• 6:08
  It stars Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, Hoyt Accident, Francis
• 6:12
  Lee McCain and Dick Miller. The beginning straight into it.
• 6:21
  We open in a particularly stagy look in Chinatown, where
• 6:24
  inventor Rand Peltzer is hitting the shops trying to move a
• 6:28
  little merchandise. We're covering this and the
• 6:30
  introduction of the idyllic small town of Kingston Falls.
• 6:33
  So, Mass, the opening of the film.
• 6:36
  What do you think? Oh, I love it.
• 6:38
  I think it's such a great opening.
• 6:39
  I particularly love how like the beginning of the opening, then
• 6:43
  converse with how it ends because the the first bit in
• 6:45
  Chinatown, it's like a 40s film noir, isn't it?
• 6:48
  You know, you got around, he's in his foot door in his trench
• 6:51
  court. You got the steam kind of coming
• 6:53
  off the street. You've got a sailor walking
• 6:55
  past. And I mean, he looks like, I
• 6:56
  mean, I don't know what sailors were wearing generally speaking
• 6:59
  in the 80s, but he just like we, he's a stepped out of the 40s.
• 7:02
  Yeah, he does. Not voice over straight away
• 7:05
  that just pulls you into the story.
• 7:07
  You know, he's got the perfect voice.
• 7:09
  And then once you're in there, like Mr. Wings little shop, you
• 7:12
  know, I just love all the kind of nooks and crannies in there
• 7:14
  that could be anything, like hide in the shadows.
• 7:17
  Yeah, brilliant. Yeah.
• 7:18
  I like how Dundee it doesn't like show you too much of it.
• 7:20
  He kind of leaves the imagination, same as when you
• 7:22
  can hear like Gizmo burble in the way in the background before
• 7:25
  like round clocks it and goes look at him.
• 7:27
  And that short way lifts the cover up off the cage.
• 7:30
  And he's he's just looking at it and it's his face in amazement.
• 7:33
  That's pretty that. Yeah.
• 7:36
  Because he obviously it's not something hideous because he's
• 7:38
  not scared. But you just think, well, what's
• 7:40
  he saying? What's he looking at?
• 7:41
  It's great. And then to come out of that,
• 7:43
  you go back into that voice over this time with the kid giving
• 7:46
  you the warnings. It just leaves you kind of like
• 7:49
  very unsure almost where this film is going to go because on
• 7:52
  one hand it's you've got like this sense of wonder and
• 7:55
  amazement, but it's also quite ominous as well.
• 7:57
  Do you feel as though that's voice over by the kid must have
• 8:01
  been inserted in post? It feels as though they must
• 8:03
  have. They've shot and then thought,
• 8:05
  shit, we didn't get any grudge of that and it sounds like
• 8:07
  another kid doing the voice over and not the one in the scene.
• 8:10
  For me, it feels as though it's like hastily put together.
• 8:13
  Do you not get that vibe? I've never thought it's a
• 8:15
  different kid, but it could definitely be a case of it's
• 8:18
  kind of patching it together, maybe throw.
• 8:20
  You know what? We didn't explain the three
• 8:21
  wheels quickly enough. Yeah, but it just feels as
• 8:24
  though it's just shoe horned in a little bit.
• 8:27
  I got that impression from the entire film, to be honest.
• 8:30
  There's like there's lots of things that don't really make
• 8:32
  any sense, which we'll touch on as we go through it.
• 8:34
  But I would I would definitely say that Spielberg would be
• 8:37
  watching the cut go and we need a kid voice over here.
• 8:40
  Yeah, yeah, definitely. And then from that bomb, strain
• 8:44
  the darling love. Absolutely.
• 8:46
  And. Guarantee to put a smile on your
• 8:48
  face. Or absolutely in the timing that
• 8:50
  they have the title come on. It's when it comes on when she
• 8:53
  singing Christmas. So in my head I always go
• 8:55
  gremlins. It's.
• 8:56
  Like along with the song. Because the time is absolutely
• 8:59
  perfect. That's truly got to be
• 9:00
  intentional. Christ, that's going to be in my
• 9:02
  head forever. Every Christmas now I'll put
• 9:04
  that song on. What?
• 9:05
  Did you do with that for? Yeah, sorry I ruined the song,
• 9:08
  you know, haven't I? But it's fantastic.
• 9:11
  And it's not that I was talking about because Kingston Falls
• 9:15
  just looks like such a great place to be to spend Christmas.
• 9:18
  That's proper snow, proper crunchy snow.
• 9:20
  You just want to run about in. And I love how that the song
• 9:23
  goes from being like non diegetic to diegetic.
• 9:26
  So it's on the soundtrack and then it's coming through a
• 9:28
  Belize car radio. Lovely touch.
• 9:31
  Yep. So the whole opening, it's
• 9:32
  fantastic. Yeah, I do love the opening.
• 9:35
  There's so many influences in this film from a lot of other
• 9:38
  films, you can tell. And it's got Spielberg all over
• 9:40
  this and I don't quite quite know where he draws the line
• 9:44
  with it's a dual Dante film or it's a Steven Spielberg film.
• 9:48
  It's very, very mixed and it's very much in the middle.
• 9:50
  And they are having loads of fun.
• 9:52
  I mean, this reminds me of Blade Runner straight away and it
• 9:54
  reminds me of Chinatown straight away.
• 9:56
  It's got even that voice over, which was from like the
• 9:59
  theatrical cutter Blade Runner that it seems.
• 10:01
  It's got that five. And then when he's walking away
• 10:03
  and the rules are over the top and it's in slow motion, that's
• 10:05
  brilliant as well. Between it's a really choppy
• 10:08
  slow motion. I think the bathroom buddy is
• 10:10
  one of the best and worst things I've ever seen.
• 10:12
  And his reasoning for using it is absolutely outrageous.
• 10:18
  You're already going somewhere. Oh, you've forgotten nickeling
• 10:20
  your teeth or you've forgotten to have a shave.
• 10:22
  He's fucking amazing. He's never going to sell that.
• 10:25
  What a guy you're. Going to the big meeting, you've
• 10:28
  got the shave. And then there's the little bits
• 10:32
  where he's like, you've got dragon breath and then there's a
• 10:34
  gong on the soundtrack. Ridiculous.
• 10:37
  That's ridiculous. It's ridiculous.
• 10:39
  But I do. Love it, bad breath.
• 10:41
  Yeah, it's changed as my that was culturally incorrect.
• 10:48
  She looks at the dragon and then it don't goes off.
• 10:50
  It's brilliant. There's people behind the scenes
• 10:52
  here with putting in lots and lots and lots of little bits
• 10:55
  just to kind of entertain themselves.
• 10:57
  And if you look the levels of this film, there's lots and lots
• 11:00
  of rewards. And I love Kingston Ford, but
• 11:02
  when I see it, it's just about the future for me.
• 11:05
  Yeah, it's the same. It's pretty much the same set,
• 11:06
  isn't it? It is the Yeah, it's the same
• 11:08
  set. Mirrors, you know, it's Bedford
• 11:10
  Falls as well. It's got that fire.
• 11:12
  Yeah, the massive It's a Wonderful Life vibes, isn't it?
• 11:15
  You've got The Beatles there, which I'm going to go into these
• 11:18
  as I go through, but I think there's a lot of shining
• 11:20
  elements in this. That's the first one for me.
• 11:24
  That's the one that's crashed under the the lorry in The
• 11:26
  Shining. So that's the Red Beetle, right?
• 11:29
  And then the cinema's got A Boy's Life and watched the
• 11:31
  Stars, which were the working titles for close Encounters of
• 11:34
  the Third Kind and ET. So that, again, is a little nod
• 11:37
  to Spielberg. And I think Jordan said he put
• 11:39
  that in there just so when Spielberg watched the dailies,
• 11:41
  he would be impressed and just say, yeah, I like this, this is
• 11:44
  good. Kissing his ass a little bit.
• 11:47
  I love it where kids is. That's where everybody's dad
• 11:49
  proposed to their mom, reinforcing this like really
• 11:52
  small town America thing. Everyone.
• 11:54
  Knows everyone. Yeah.
• 11:56
  Yeah. Great.
• 11:56
  And Mrs. Deagle, she's pain in the A.
• 11:59
  Horrible. File.
• 12:00
  She's like the Wicked Witch of the West.
• 12:02
  And every mixed. Together.
• 12:04
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 12:04
  Peace and Mr. Potter. And Mr. Yeah, she's everything
• 12:07
  that you hate about everyone. She's an absolute monster.
• 12:11
  She's talking about catching the dog and giving him a slow,
• 12:14
  painful death barge into the front of the queue, she says.
• 12:17
  I'm going to put him in my spin dryer on high heat and the guy
• 12:20
  right next to her at the counter says that'll do it all right.
• 12:22
  Yeah, no, All right, man. Put out?
• 12:25
  Really. Well.
• 12:27
  Brilliant. We're going back to the
• 12:29
  Chinatown for a second. I absolutely love Rand Peltzer.
• 12:33
  He's fantastic. Do you really love about a ball
• 12:37
  of personality? Always upbeat no matter how shit
• 12:40
  these inventions are. Yeah.
• 12:43
  The guy who played him was called Hoyt Axton.
• 12:45
  He's probably best known as like, a country singer in the
• 12:47
  60s. He would croon away to the cast
• 12:50
  and crew in between takes. Lovely, great guy.
• 12:53
  Totally believe it as well. He totally gives off that vibe.
• 12:55
  He does. He's brilliant.
• 12:57
  I really love that scene that he's where he's in the gas
• 12:59
  station and he's selling that smokeless aspirate later on in
• 13:02
  the film and it cuts away and then cuts back to him coming out
• 13:04
  the door like billows of smoke following him out.
• 13:07
  Don't worry about that smoker. That's guaranteed.
• 13:12
  Didn't he write Joy to the World?
• 13:14
  Yeah, he did. He's.
• 13:15
  That kind of guy, isn't he? Lovely, Lovely man.
• 13:19
  Big cuddly moron. Yeah, yeah.
• 13:22
  Well, I've got so many questions immediately in this opening,
• 13:25
  like what's he doing in the bowels of Chinatown in New York?
• 13:28
  Why is he going to this shop? Why isn't he asking questions
• 13:31
  when he sees the mug? Why without saying this is not
• 13:34
  of this Earth, What the fuck is it?
• 13:37
  And why is he one instantly without saying, Is it dangerous?
• 13:41
  Does it bite? Every single scene in this film
• 13:45
  needs to be taken a little bit more seriously because it
• 13:47
  escalates very, very quickly through stupidity.
• 13:50
  But that makes it so engaging, isn't it?
• 13:52
  You know, stupidity. Hoyt Acne.
• 13:54
  He's just so, like, warm and welcoming and reassuring.
• 13:58
  Fantastic. Yeah, Sorry, Father Christmas
• 14:00
  basically, isn't he? And.
• 14:02
  He's singing when he comes in. He's just fantastic.
• 14:05
  Let's let's stop talking about that.
• 14:06
  He's home. Come on.
• 14:08
  But it's really because I just don't think you get that many
• 14:10
  kind of families in like cinema who, who clearly just have that
• 14:13
  much affection for each other. There's like a little bit of
• 14:18
  tension there. This family obviously really,
• 14:20
  really get on with each other. I think a lot of that comes from
• 14:21
  accident. And apparently he improvised
• 14:23
  most of his lines. Like he had the the roof kind of
• 14:26
  script. He just improvised most of the
• 14:27
  thing. That's why he's so kind of like
• 14:28
  relaxed throughout the whole film because he's just like
• 14:31
  putting his own personality into it.
• 14:33
  But having said that, as lovely as he is, he's also an idiot, to
• 14:36
  be fair. I mean, selling all this crap,
• 14:41
  you've kind of mentioned it, but what always like strikes me, he
• 14:43
  never asks about these three rules like he's already been
• 14:46
  told. By Yeah, yeah, whatever, kid.
• 14:48
  Yeah. I mean, he's been told, right?
• 14:50
  You break this one, it's going to die.
• 14:52
  So why do you think, fucking hell, what happens when I break
• 14:54
  the other two? Yeah.
• 14:55
  And he says, I know from the saunter off, you know, through
• 14:58
  Chinatown. Don't feed him after midnight.
• 15:00
  Midnight here. Midnight where I.
• 15:02
  Live. Midnight in China What?
• 15:05
  Yeah, exactly. He's an absolute moron and by
• 15:08
  the end of the film he should kind of self look.
• 15:09
  He's not like facing some He was jail time, no.
• 15:13
  Carnage. Absolute description.
• 15:14
  Manslaughter, probably. He's an absolute idiot.
• 15:18
  Just says he's really sorry about it.
• 15:21
  Well, I'm off a side accident. That's.
• 15:22
  Fine, and he offers an appeasement in the form of a
• 15:25
  smokeless ashtray. The role of Rand Pelter that was
• 15:32
  initially going to go to Pat Hingle, who appears Commissioner
• 15:35
  Gordon in the original run of Batman films.
• 15:39
  He's green tested but didn't get the gig because he was too good.
• 15:43
  Yeah. That's a piss out, isn't it?
• 15:45
  That is said that his performance would dominate the
• 15:47
  whole film. I'd love to see that screen
• 15:49
  test. Yeah, he.
• 15:50
  Said he played it like a failing inventor who was letting his
• 15:52
  family down and he was kind of tortured by it and it's like the
• 15:55
  psychological torment that's. Too much.
• 15:58
  Too much for this film, yeah. Party much?
• 16:00
  Dial it down a bit. The guy who plays Mr. Wing, the
• 16:04
  shop reprietor, he's called K Luke.
• 16:07
  He was 79 years old during filming but had to be made-up to
• 16:10
  look older because he had this, like, beautiful, youthful
• 16:13
  complexion, apparently glorious face.
• 16:15
  Yeah. Zach Gallagher, who plays Billy
• 16:17
  Astin. What his secret was?
• 16:18
  He was expecting some kind of, like, mythical ancient secret
• 16:21
  passed down from the forefathers or something like that.
• 16:23
  And Luke just said no fried food.
• 16:27
  Well, I'm fucked in. He wasn't the only person in the
• 16:33
  frame for Wing either. Japanese American actor Mayor
• 16:35
  Cole was considered, and so was John Pertwee, known for his role
• 16:40
  as Doctor Who and as Worzel Gummidge.
• 16:42
  Yeah, Sean Pertwee. 'S dad.
• 16:46
  It's ridiculous. Spielberg also considered him
• 16:48
  for the role of Henry Senior in Black Crusade as well.
• 16:52
  I don't know what kind of work he's done, which makes Spielberg
• 16:55
  think he's the guy for everything.
• 16:58
  Doctor Who, obviously. 2 rules He's the guy for everything.
• 17:06
  Customs Indiana Jones. Was he on the list for Oscar
• 17:09
  Schindler? Following the opening, Billy is
• 17:15
  given Gizmo as an early Christmas gift and we get to
• 17:18
  understand more about the Peltzer family dynamic.
• 17:21
  We're going to focus our attention on the scene where one
• 17:23
  of the three rules are broken and Gizmo gives birth to a
• 17:26
  litter of mug. Why?
• 17:27
  But things aren't quite as they're seen.
• 17:29
  Westy. Yeah, this scene.
• 17:32
  The given birth scene. I was traumatized.
• 17:36
  This when he's just on his foot kicking, screaming and these
• 17:40
  awful fur balls start coming out of him and flying around the
• 17:43
  room. I was thinking why is everyone
• 17:46
  else not as freaked out as I am? Like I've got it written to me.
• 17:49
  Notes here. I would be a touch more
• 17:50
  surprised, which I think I would.
• 17:53
  Just a touch. Just a touch which.
• 17:56
  Is ridiculous. So, like, even film and so can I
• 17:59
  have one now? Yeah.
• 18:01
  It's neat. Yeah.
• 18:02
  It really is. That just keeps looking at the
• 18:03
  cover what not. Neat, he's just birthed 5 of
• 18:07
  he's came. Five of the there's five of
• 18:09
  these things that I don't know what they are, never seen them
• 18:12
  before in my life. No one knows what they are.
• 18:13
  There's three rules, but no, that one of them kills them, one
• 18:17
  of them makes more of them. So, you know, let's let's not
• 18:20
  get freaked out by this and tell me, ma'am, I'll just say our
• 18:22
  dad, the multiply with water and he's like just water did this.
• 18:24
  It's just normal. Water was a tip.
• 18:26
  Yeah, it fucking was. I'll sell them.
• 18:28
  Now what? We're going to do about it.
• 18:30
  It's just like this. Is it the peltzer pet?
• 18:33
  Yeah. Good thing.
• 18:36
  It's like you're just watching this film, just going and
• 18:38
  watching a car crash happen in slow motion and nobody cares
• 18:41
  about it at all whatsoever. It's so good because it doesn't
• 18:45
  give a shit. And this is the first time that
• 18:48
  you brought into the film and you're like, right, well, this
• 18:50
  is going to take you places that you can't really predict where
• 18:52
  it's going to go. And I love the use of camera
• 18:55
  angles here. This is where we first see the
• 18:56
  Dutch angle when the first foot, the like the fair ball comes out
• 18:59
  the first one and switches to that Dutch angle.
• 19:01
  And you're just like, right, this is this is really fun.
• 19:03
  It's really playful. This is going to be something
• 19:06
  else. So yeah, it's a perfect time of
• 19:07
  the film for that to to ramp it up a notch.
• 19:10
  Those effects, they look great, but really simple.
• 19:12
  It's just fur on a balloon that's inflated, but it looks
• 19:16
  absolutely fantastic. I do think there is a case for
• 19:20
  Gizmo to be put down here. Quite frankly, he's a hazard.
• 19:28
  It's one false move and he'll multiply.
• 19:30
  And none of his offspring are pleasant either.
• 19:33
  So he's the only one who's any good out of the lid.
• 19:37
  They're all evil bastards, so I just, I think, cut ties and get
• 19:42
  rid of them. Yeah, cut ties, look outside,
• 19:44
  he's cute and all that, and there's snow everywhere.
• 19:47
  You're just going to be thinking, how am I going to
• 19:48
  avoid water here? It's not an impossible.
• 19:52
  There's no motivation for them to keep all of these things, not
• 19:55
  at all. It doesn't make any sense apart
• 19:56
  from us as an audience called go on, let's see what happens.
• 19:59
  That's a big. But I'm in the bath.
• 20:02
  Let's get some. More what's the do with the
• 20:04
  swimming pool? So you like this even better?
• 20:07
  What about you, Matt? Yeah, we're going to get like
• 20:09
  into the practical effects in more detail later, but this
• 20:12
  scene for me is made by how simple and practical they are
• 20:16
  when the pop out and the pain that Gizmo was in like as a kid.
• 20:19
  You know you're screeching, isn't?
• 20:20
  It, Yeah, really screeching, like this little kid watching
• 20:22
  this cute little thing go through pain like that.
• 20:24
  That's not good. But what really gets me still as
• 20:27
  an adult is like the close-ups of the faces when they're
• 20:30
  opening their eyes and like, the peel and the ears off the face
• 20:33
  and they're all sticky and gooey.
• 20:35
  I mean, even though I kind of just turn my stomach a bit.
• 20:38
  But I think it's classic Joe Dandy, and that he sets up the
• 20:41
  scene is really sinister and for Borden.
• 20:43
  Then he makes it funny when you see them all downstairs and
• 20:46
  they've just ripped Billy's presents open and they'll just
• 20:48
  cause an absolute habit. Playing the trumpet.
• 20:50
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. The one does that massive spit
• 20:53
  towards Barney. Barney.
• 20:56
  I mean, let's talk about Barney from the like, as a dog, he
• 20:59
  gives a great performance, you see.
• 21:01
  He just looks so thoroughly fed up, you know, you don't blame
• 21:03
  him for a minute. Props to Barney there.
• 21:06
  My best Barney moment is like, we'll talk about it at the end,
• 21:08
  But when Gizmo comes past him in the car and he just jumps out
• 21:11
  the jumps. Oh my, yeah, he gets tortured.
• 21:18
  He gets tortured. This.
• 21:19
  He does, yeah. Poor bastard.
• 21:22
  Considering the mugwire about 6 inches tall, I have no idea how
• 21:26
  they managed to tie him up outside.
• 21:28
  I don't think they have the strength or the reach.
• 21:30
  That's even if they were on each other's shoulders.
• 21:32
  Horrible as well they'd. Have to construct some sort of
• 21:34
  police system, wouldn't it? Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was
• 21:37
  beyond them. It is definitely beyond them.
• 21:39
  They can disable brakes of a car later on.
• 21:41
  I wouldn't put anything faster. What a bunch of bastards.
• 21:44
  They're horrible, aren't they? Yeah, I don't really understand
• 21:50
  the gestation period here. Like, within seconds, Gizmo has
• 21:53
  given birth to five of his kind, and they've grown up
• 21:55
  immediately. Yeah, they're instantly adults
• 21:58
  or adults comparatively. How far could we go into this?
• 22:02
  I mean, it is Gremlin. How far could we go to the
• 22:05
  reality of it? Yeah, yeah.
• 22:07
  Maybe the whole film to me, it's like like a Looney Tunes film to
• 22:10
  me. It's got that kind of cartoon
• 22:12
  logic to it. Yeah, yeah.
• 22:13
  Which is absolutely Jordan A to ATI think.
• 22:16
  Yeah, it is. I absolutely love it when they
• 22:18
  do come out of the mischievous as hell.
• 22:20
  You said it, Matt. The opening presents downstairs
• 22:23
  playing on the arcade game when Pete goes to stroke one of them
• 22:27
  and it's Stripe and he goes to bite them and then they all
• 22:30
  start giggling. Little bastard.
• 22:37
  Well, on Pete. Corey Feldman, obviously in AD
• 22:39
  staple, Yeah. What do you think of his
• 22:42
  performance in the film? I think he's pretty underused to
• 22:45
  be honest. He is good when he's on screen.
• 22:47
  He is believable as that character and he was given, he
• 22:50
  was given this rule because Spielberg dropped him out of ET.
• 22:52
  So he had a character in ET and he got this through that, But I
• 22:56
  think he's just in there because, you know, he is a
• 22:59
  really good actor, but I don't really think the role fits his
• 23:01
  ability, if you know what I mean.
• 23:02
  I think he needs a bit of a better role.
• 23:04
  He needs to get in there a little bit more and do more and
• 23:06
  maybe change the story a little bit.
• 23:08
  I'll take one. And then things happened.
• 23:09
  If he'd fed it after midnight and it happened to him and it
• 23:12
  was more of a like a best friend role.
• 23:14
  Instead, he just kind of walks over.
• 23:16
  I mean, I love Cory film. He's great.
• 23:18
  He makes every film that he's in, I think, enjoyable and warm
• 23:22
  to that actor. Yeah, and all the characters
• 23:23
  that he plays. I've got a couple of questions.
• 23:26
  First one, I think we've already covered it.
• 23:28
  Why doesn't Pete lose his mind when he sees Gizmo?
• 23:30
  He's a kid. He should surely love all that
• 23:32
  stuff. He's nonplussed by the whole
• 23:34
  thing. But why is Billy, who's old
• 23:37
  enough to work in a bank, why does he have a best friend who's
• 23:40
  a little boy that is not explained?
• 23:44
  That's weird. I think there was an earlier
• 23:46
  draft, though, where Billy was younger and then as the the
• 23:49
  reward it Billy becomes older, but that already cast Feldman.
• 23:52
  So it was kind of in place. And that's why, and I think it
• 23:55
  think it works just because like Zach Galligan is such like a
• 23:58
  solid presence. So you can imagine like Pete's
• 24:00
  parents being up, he's going to hang out with an adult or just
• 24:03
  Billy. Oh, that's fine.
• 24:05
  Yeah, fine. He's like a big kid anyway,
• 24:07
  isn't he's? Solid.
• 24:07
  Isn't he dependable guy? He's going to be fine.
• 24:10
  You mentioned there about early drafts of the screenplay.
• 24:13
  The original intention for Gizmo was that he was going to
• 24:15
  transform into Stripe, obviously the leader of the Gremlins.
• 24:18
  But Spielberg said that audience would want as much Gizmo as
• 24:22
  possible, so the idea was rewritten And.
• 24:24
  And just have him stay as the cute furball.
• 24:26
  Yeah. You like Gizmo?
• 24:27
  You think he's a cute little guy?
• 24:29
  He's irresistible, isn't he? Totally.
• 24:31
  Yeah, he is. He's model of Spielberg's dog,
• 24:33
  isn't he? Yeah.
• 24:34
  So that's him, Lucas. They're all just modeling shit
• 24:36
  off the dogs. Indiana Jones named after it.
• 24:40
  Gizmo. What kind of dogs do these
• 24:42
  people got? Just fucking thing I've ever
• 24:45
  seen to be like. Bags of wits, invention and
• 24:49
  great characters in the opening of Gremlins.
• 24:51
  Great start, lovely, fantastic. The director.
• 25:00
  The man who made it all possible, and that is director
• 25:02
  Joe Dante. We haven't talked about it on
• 25:04
  the podcast before, but no, I think we're all fans.
• 25:07
  Yeah. Westie, what do you think about
• 25:08
  Dante generally? I'm a big fan of Joe Dante
• 25:11
  generally because he feels to me like he does Classic Cinema, but
• 25:13
  he draws it with crayons, you know what I mean?
• 25:16
  It's got a real innocence and a real charm and a real childlike
• 25:20
  excitement about his films. There's these levels of humour
• 25:22
  that he puts in and there's so many little bits in his films.
• 25:24
  Like the Burbs for me is one of me all time favorite films.
• 25:28
  Yeah, I love the Howlin. I love Inner Space.
• 25:30
  I love Explorers. I love Gremlins too.
• 25:32
  Explorers is great. Yeah.
• 25:33
  And just think that all of these have kind of tied together and
• 25:36
  he's got his group and I think John Hora as well deserves a
• 25:38
  shout out. His cinematographer, which he
• 25:40
  worked with on everything from the Howlin all the way to
• 25:43
  Gremlins too. So he did everything apart from
• 25:45
  inner space, but he was inner space.
• 25:46
  He's actually got a like a little role in there, which is
• 25:49
  really good. But it does feel like this is
• 25:50
  very, very heavily influenced by Spielberg.
• 25:54
  And I think you've got you've got elements of Dante, but I
• 25:56
  think Spielberg's the train that's carrying this down the
• 25:58
  tracks. But you know, Dante's designed
• 26:01
  and what it looks like almost. But I do love his 80s stint.
• 26:04
  I think he's done some very, very important films in that
• 26:06
  time. And I do think he's he's very
• 26:08
  influential. He's like Columbus and he's like
• 26:10
  Zemeckis. For me.
• 26:11
  He just kind of sits in that group.
• 26:13
  Yeah, I'm a huge fan of him as well.
• 26:14
  And I always think he's got like one of his trademarks.
• 26:17
  I think in his films he just seems like a really mischievous
• 26:20
  filmmaker. Like Gremlins.
• 26:22
  He trashes this idyllic Christmas in In the Birds, He
• 26:25
  trashes the idea of lovely kind of middle class suburban
• 26:28
  America. And Gremlins too, he trashes
• 26:30
  like commercialism and mass entertainment.
• 26:33
  And I think that's that's what he's like when I watch his
• 26:35
  films, I think he's like a big kid, just have an enormous fun.
• 26:39
  But I think the key thing is he's a smart kid.
• 26:42
  He doesn't have this film films go out of control.
• 26:44
  He's always got a really firm hand on where the story's going
• 26:47
  to go and he's not just having fun.
• 26:49
  He knows how to tell it with characters and he's got a
• 26:52
  really, really good handle on the tone of a film as well.
• 26:55
  And and Wesley mentioned it then I would agree his films aren't
• 26:58
  childish, but the child alike nothing that's a big difference
• 27:01
  between the two. And that's why his films work as
• 27:03
  well as they do. And at heart, I think he's
• 27:06
  basically AB movie guy. I think he's just happy to make
• 27:09
  big scale B movies. And we've mentioned there's
• 27:11
  contemporaries, people like Spielberg and Smekas.
• 27:14
  I think the difference is between Dante and them.
• 27:16
  He's never wanted to grow up and he's never wanted to make
• 27:19
  something mature. And I think if you can imagine
• 27:21
  all them at school together, I think that those two would have
• 27:24
  their heads in like the history books and they'd be gone like
• 27:27
  physics lessons to work to work out how cameras work.
• 27:30
  And I think Dante would be absolutely happy.
• 27:32
  At the back of the classroom was written comic strips and drawn
• 27:34
  cartoons. That's him in his absolute
• 27:36
  element. I just like coming up with
• 27:38
  inventions in the background, just like the bathroom body or
• 27:40
  something, just that don't work but are loads of fun anyway.
• 27:43
  Yeah, exactly. One of the directors, isn't he,
• 27:45
  where you just say, who's Joe Dante?
• 27:46
  And then you read these films out and they'll go, ah, Joe
• 27:48
  Dante, Yeah. That makes sense, and it's.
• 27:50
  Always fun. And I think that's why he's
• 27:52
  probably quite underrated because he's never tried to to
• 27:55
  make that step in like serious cinema.
• 27:57
  You know, he's never made a film that you know, you think, oh,
• 27:59
  you know, he's going to win an Oscar for that because he's,
• 28:02
  he's never gone down that road. But that run of films he's made
• 28:05
  through the 80s and 90s, that's the run I've just got huge
• 28:08
  affection for. And knowing I'm going to sit
• 28:11
  down and watch a drought on a film just makes me really,
• 28:13
  really happy. I think he's great, all of the
• 28:15
  guy. Loads of fun.
• 28:16
  I've got a real soft spot for him.
• 28:18
  He's one of the names that are really recognized from watching
• 28:20
  films as a kid. Obviously This Inner Space and
• 28:22
  The Burbs. The films that you've mentioned.
• 28:24
  I certainly don't think, though, had Gremlins not being a success
• 28:27
  as it was, I don't think he would have went under have the
• 28:30
  career that he has had. You mentioned it, Matt, that
• 28:32
  he's he's kind of like AB movie director.
• 28:35
  And that's exactly what the Howlin was.
• 28:36
  And he got this because Spielberg loved the Howlin.
• 28:39
  Yeah. And so he caught the break and
• 28:41
  got the mainstream, which exposed him and allowed him to
• 28:44
  do things like in a space and the burbs.
• 28:47
  But I really don't think you would have had that success and
• 28:49
  have that cashier without the break that he caught from
• 28:52
  Spielberg on this. Yeah.
• 28:54
  So what about his work on this film specifically?
• 28:56
  I think his work on Gremlins, I think it's superb.
• 28:59
  There's such a sense of like, anarchy to this film, kind of
• 29:02
  like. Chaos, isn't it?
• 29:03
  Absolute chaos once it gets going, once it all kicks off.
• 29:06
  And I think that's Dante Tutti. And I can imagine him making
• 29:08
  this just cackling away to himself behind the camera.
• 29:11
  I just imagine he was having make, he was having so much fun
• 29:14
  with this, and what he's got to juggle in this film to make it
• 29:18
  work is really impressive as particularly when you consider
• 29:20
  he nails pretty much every aspect of it.
• 29:22
  Like he's really, really comfortable with those practical
• 29:25
  effects. Like, he knows how to like the
• 29:27
  gremlins. He knows how to edit around them
• 29:29
  to disguise the fact that they can't really move particularly
• 29:31
  well. And.
• 29:33
  And yet you never really think of that because he he just knows
• 29:35
  how to make them work on screen. But it's not just an effects
• 29:38
  film. And I think if the only good
• 29:40
  thing about this film was the effects, I don't think we'd be
• 29:41
  talking about it still. No, no.
• 29:43
  He gets really good performances out of the actors.
• 29:46
  I think there's some really, really impressive compositions
• 29:48
  here. What he does with the visuals.
• 29:51
  He's got great comic time and all the jokes really land.
• 29:54
  Yeah. Oh, they do.
• 29:55
  This is funnier than than most films that I've seen.
• 29:58
  I would watch really watching it for this.
• 30:01
  I was howling away at the film, but I think it's really biting
• 30:04
  and it's really nasty in places, but it still feels really warm.
• 30:08
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that's the most
• 30:10
  impressive thing he does, actually, this film, totally.
• 30:12
  It is all over the place, but he makes it work.
• 30:14
  He goes really dark scenes to really funny scenes and you
• 30:17
  don't feel any kind of like Whiplash.
• 30:19
  You don't feel you've been taken out of the film at any point.
• 30:22
  He clearly, clearly loves monster films and I think he
• 30:25
  just channels that love into something contemporary.
• 30:27
  And for me, this film, it's just the perfect marriage of material
• 30:30
  to the director. Yes, I'm very much the same.
• 30:32
  I think this is just the product of people, especially Dante,
• 30:36
  having a very, very good time. Like, I don't think any of the
• 30:40
  days, none of the days on set would have been dull.
• 30:43
  I don't think, you know, it's just, what can you think of
• 30:45
  next? It's almost like a challenge for
• 30:46
  them to come up with something that's going to entertain them.
• 30:49
  And I think when film makers try to entertain themselves by being
• 30:52
  honest to their own vision, then it's just so much more
• 30:54
  entertaining for everybody else. But you've got to have that
• 30:56
  confidence to do that. And a lot of directors don't
• 30:58
  have the confidence to do that. And they rely on subject matter
• 31:00
  that they know is going to work a certain way.
• 31:03
  They use music a certain way or they use actors a certain way
• 31:06
  and let them do what they do because you know what's
• 31:08
  guaranteed. But I think Joe Dante wants a
• 31:10
  Joe Dante film and always, always does.
• 31:12
  And no matter who's in it, like Phoebe Cates and this.
• 31:15
  I watched this and I thought she's going to be huge.
• 31:17
  She's amazing. Like, her performance is just
• 31:20
  superb. It's really tortured.
• 31:22
  Dick Miller in this fantastic. Judge Reinhold as well.
• 31:25
  You know, he kind of flies under the radar, but what a Dick.
• 31:27
  But what a great performer. Great.
• 31:29
  He doesn't Captain Clipper. But you can see the nasty.
• 31:35
  Ones. When he's supposed to be.
• 31:36
  And also it's still really warm, like you said.
• 31:38
  Look, it's just re. It's still really accessible.
• 31:41
  And I think every Jordan film is accessible, whether you're five
• 31:44
  years old or you're 95. I think it's got Dante written
• 31:48
  all over it. I know he didn't write the film,
• 31:49
  but it it feels as though he shaped the material to fit his
• 31:52
  style and imposed his style on it.
• 31:55
  It's got this right, really nasty, uncompromising tone,
• 31:58
  which doesn't sound appealing really at all, but it just
• 32:01
  works. And I think Gizmo and the
• 32:03
  Gremlins are irresistible for different reasons.
• 32:05
  The Gremlins, like all great bad guys, you just want more of
• 32:09
  them. And I want to see as much mayhem
• 32:11
  as possible, see how much they can create.
• 32:13
  And I think that's that what's obviously down to the effects
• 32:15
  team course, but I think it's Dante who's running the show.
• 32:18
  And you can tell that I know that Spielberg's big influence,
• 32:21
  but Dante is a head honcho. Yeah, he's great.
• 32:24
  And if you look at his work, he's got about five shots that
• 32:27
  he always goes to. He's got the extreme close up
• 32:30
  lemon that when they're eating chicken which is disgusting.
• 32:33
  He's got tends to. Get horrible.
• 32:36
  Sound. Yeah, that real.
• 32:37
  He goes that real extreme close up.
• 32:39
  He loves a sidetracking shot. He loves moving the camera.
• 32:42
  He loves that push, that zoom in, that quick zoom.
• 32:44
  But he doesn't use it like Tarantino, use it.
• 32:46
  Use it like a big movie horror. And he loves that Dutch angle.
• 32:50
  He'll use that on everything. Like as soon as you hear
• 32:53
  something slightly wrong on the soundtrack, boom, the camera
• 32:56
  almost seems to fall off the tripod like.
• 32:59
  Yeah. And he's just that your reaction
• 33:01
  there. Look, I would imagine his
• 33:02
  Jordan, his reaction when he's shooting it, that looks amazing.
• 33:06
  It's almost like he owns that. Like them shots are his.
• 33:09
  They are like chapter one, obvious camera moves in the book
• 33:13
  of cinema, but he kind of owns them a little bit.
• 33:16
  Yeah, you can't mention Joe Dante without mentioning
• 33:19
  legendary character actor Dick Miller, who plays Murray
• 33:22
  Futterman in Gremlins. Yep, Miller's appeared in all of
• 33:25
  Dante's films. So what do you think of him here
• 33:28
  as the slightly deranged Mr. Footerman Wesley?
• 33:31
  I think he's fantastic. I love him.
• 33:34
  He's such a great character. He's lost his job and he's down
• 33:37
  on his look, but he's just so traditional.
• 33:40
  Like he reminds me of like when I first watched this, it was
• 33:42
  like me granddad attitude was exactly the same, like foreign
• 33:45
  televisions and just like this store plow around.
• 33:50
  I've got my own chair in the middle of the sitting room.
• 33:52
  I'm not talking to her. The fucking television doesn't
• 33:54
  work. Jesus Christ.
• 33:56
  It's got like our our players. Outside and you know that's not
• 33:59
  his idea. Yeah, yeah, of course it's.
• 34:01
  Just like one more beer blown into the bottle and that little
• 34:05
  speech he gives when he's like talking about gremlins in World
• 34:07
  War Two. And yeah, it's really hard
• 34:10
  hitting. If you let it be, you just know
• 34:12
  that he's kind of expired. The culture societies move
• 34:15
  faster than he has. Society's moved on and he hasn't
• 34:18
  caught. Up and he would never will.
• 34:20
  He's a stubborn character but really lovable and I love him in
• 34:22
  two as well. He gets a lot more of a bigger
• 34:24
  role in two. Yeah, he's rolling.
• 34:26
  Two is ridiculous but brilliant. He's place in that story doesn't
• 34:30
  make sense. Just turns up into the
• 34:32
  apartment, all right, There he is.
• 34:36
  But you're like, that's Daddy, isn't it?
• 34:37
  He's bringing it back here for no reason.
• 34:39
  And I'm going to put the snow plow is going to go through the
• 34:42
  house and going to leave it ambiguous.
• 34:44
  Brilliant. I love it when he's talking to
• 34:46
  Billy Wright at the start. He's talking about buying
• 34:48
  American. He's seeing his snow plow hasn't
• 34:51
  given him any grief for 15 years.
• 34:52
  Do you know why? Kentucky Harvester.
• 34:54
  And it's some foreign piece of crap.
• 34:56
  It's Kentucky. Harvester.
• 34:58
  It's if it's the most obvious thing in the world, but of
• 35:01
  course it is. It's when he freaks out.
• 35:03
  He's like this real gremlins to be harvested.
• 35:06
  It's like that scream. He's got a picture of Nixon on
• 35:11
  his wall of. Course, a fantastic, innocent
• 35:14
  man. What about you, Matt?
• 35:18
  Yeah, I mean, I totally agree with you guys.
• 35:20
  He's just fantastic. He always is.
• 35:21
  When he turns up in in any done film, you know he has one scene
• 35:24
  in the burbs and he's fantastic and that is the garbage.
• 35:27
  Man, he's the garbage man, Yeah. He's absolutely hilarious.
• 35:31
  But yeah, in this, you know, I'm really glad he does have more to
• 35:33
  do because I think he is a character who really stands out.
• 35:36
  And I think kind of Dante uses him is a little bit of sad eye
• 35:39
  because he's so stuck in the past and he saw patriotic and we
• 35:43
  mentioned he's got the picture of Nixon on his wall.
• 35:45
  So he's like that kind of American.
• 35:47
  But like everything he believes and gets trashed in this film,
• 35:50
  you know, everything falls apart.
• 35:52
  And I think that's just like Dante, a sense of humor.
• 35:55
  You know, he is not like isn't bashing you over the head with
• 35:57
  sad eye. He isn't making the film
• 35:59
  political, but he's just tweaking it a little bit.
• 36:01
  And I think that's why he uses a Miller for he.
• 36:03
  And I think, well, he's just the perfect actor for it because
• 36:06
  he's just got, I've got that like down to earth
• 36:08
  believability, blue collar aspect to him.
• 36:12
  Yeah. But he's been the only norm from
• 36:15
  Joe Dante films, and he's been. In the one. 184 credits on IMDb.
• 36:19
  He's. Been in everything.
• 36:20
  But he was in 1941 with Spielberg, so I think that's
• 36:24
  that might be where the connection started.
• 36:26
  Right, right. Yeah, He's obviously in the
• 36:28
  Terminator of the Gun store. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 36:31
  He's in the howling as well as me, so.
• 36:33
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every Dante film.
• 36:35
  Everyone. Yeah.
• 36:36
  We mentioned at the top Patreon, obviously we talk about it a
• 36:39
  lot, but one of the benefits of being an ATRM patron is that you
• 36:43
  can you can ask us questions and we'll answer them on the show.
• 36:46
  So from Sheriff Ahmed, who's one of our patrons, wonderful guy,
• 36:50
  he says is Gremlins a Christmas film may sound like a
• 36:53
  straightforward question, but I think we've got a couple of
• 36:56
  different views. We'll go with Matt first.
• 36:58
  Well, it's said at Christmas it has an absolutely massive
• 37:03
  Christmas song over the titles. As we've discussed, it's
• 37:06
  actually about Christmas because it's about getting presents and
• 37:09
  it's about putting a little thought into what you get.
• 37:12
  People might not, might not actually be the most appropriate
• 37:14
  thing to get those people dressed up as Santa Claus.
• 37:18
  Christmas decorations are all over the place.
• 37:21
  I think you would have to be from another planet to argue
• 37:24
  that it's not a Christmas film. Yeah, Westie has the expression
• 37:28
  on his face that says he's going to go.
• 37:30
  For it. So let's see, what is yours,
• 37:33
  Westie? It's not a Christmas film for
• 37:36
  me. It's not.
• 37:37
  It just isn't because it's the same as like Lethal Weapon.
• 37:40
  It's very so that's got a Christmas song on the end titles
• 37:43
  that's about Christmas, that's Christmas themed all the way
• 37:44
  through. There's people dressed as Santa.
• 37:46
  Someone gets a present somewhere, I'm sure.
• 37:48
  But like, I know I know everyone fucking early.
• 37:52
  He's an idiot. Well, OK, and maybe I am, but it
• 37:54
  doesn't sit with me. You haven't said anything yet.
• 37:57
  I know it's just I'm just predicting, right?
• 38:01
  Here's my explanation. Is everybody ready?
• 38:03
  OK, OK. Settling.
• 38:06
  No, it doesn't sit with me as a Christmas film.
• 38:08
  I just don't think it kind of packs that weight because my
• 38:12
  attention was more on the Gremlins and what they were
• 38:15
  doing and the situations and the explosions and people flying out
• 38:19
  of windows and action. So for me it's it's more of an
• 38:23
  end of the year film. It sits perfectly around this
• 38:26
  time that we're talking about it because for me this is 50%
• 38:29
  Christmas, 50% Halloween. And I lean towards the Halloween
• 38:33
  element. I lean towards the scary element
• 38:34
  a little bit more. And the Christmas, it just seems
• 38:37
  to be put in there just to decorate the set and just to
• 38:39
  make it feel a certain way in that small town, because the
• 38:43
  community comes together and it gives you a character in itself.
• 38:45
  You automatically give people a feeling of warmth.
• 38:47
  And I think that's what you need to do to counterbalance the
• 38:50
  violence and the action that happens to you.
• 38:51
  If this happened in the summer in Alabama or something, it
• 38:54
  would be like critters and it doesn't work.
• 38:56
  So you've got to kind of balance things out.
• 38:59
  And I think he brings the warmth in that element and it gives a
• 39:01
  lot of forgiveness if you base it at Christmas because people
• 39:04
  are already happy because you're giving them Christmas songs, you
• 39:06
  put them in a certain mood. And I think it's done to
• 39:09
  counterbalance the violence. It's done to counterbalance the
• 39:11
  fear. So for me, it's the fear
• 39:13
  element, it's the scare element, it's the violence element, it's
• 39:16
  the action element that I buy into in Gremlins, not the
• 39:18
  Christmas element. I hope that makes sense.
• 39:21
  Wow, two ends of the scale there.
• 39:24
  Well, it didn't make in our top 10 Christmas list last year when
• 39:27
  we did the rank in Christmas. Because it's not a Christmas
• 39:29
  film. Which was a surprise.
• 39:31
  So I never used to consider it a Christmas film and I think
• 39:35
  that's because I didn't have a connection to it as a kid, and
• 39:38
  the reason I didn't have that connection is because it freaked
• 39:40
  me the fuck out when I watched it when I was like 6.
• 39:42
  Fair enough. And I think those connections
• 39:45
  have an impact in their life, really evocative of your
• 39:48
  childhood this time of year. So whatever you watch, then you
• 39:51
  bring in the adulthood. Certainly for me anyway.
• 39:54
  And because I didn't watch it then, I didn't consider it a
• 39:56
  Christmas film. But viewed now, yeah.
• 39:58
  I mean, it's Christmas film, a billion percent.
• 40:01
  It's a billion percent doesn't exist anyways.
• 40:06
  It's on a technicality. You've gone too far.
• 40:10
  It's Christmas film. Oh, whatever.
• 40:11
  It is, which is why we're releasing it in December, not
• 40:15
  Christmas. And This is why it's our
• 40:16
  Christmas episode. Oh fuck off.
• 40:24
  We've mentioned Steven Spielberg so far.
• 40:26
  He'd gotten hold of the script for Gremlins and loved it.
• 40:29
  And he had considered another director briefly for Gremlins,
• 40:33
  and that was Tim Burton. He'd been creating quite a lot
• 40:35
  of buzz for his short film Frankenweenie, and Spielberg was
• 40:39
  interested him but opted for Dandy based on Burton's
• 40:42
  inexperience. And because Dandy's 1981 film,
• 40:45
  the How Long We've mentioned it, Spielberg loved it.
• 40:47
  Yeah, Dandy said The first time I heard Gremlins, it was in a
• 40:51
  Bugs Bunny cartoon where they're trying to tear an airplane
• 40:54
  apart. And he says, I remember getting
• 40:56
  this script in the mail and thinking this must have been
• 40:58
  sent to the wrong address. But Steven had seen the Howlin
• 41:01
  really wanted to make a low budget horror movie, right.
• 41:04
  You mentioned it as well, Matt. The rules for the Mogwai were
• 41:07
  partly influenced by the productions kind of
• 41:09
  inexperienced with these special effects.
• 41:12
  The bright light rule was introduced so that the darkness
• 41:14
  in the film could be introduced to mask the puppetry where it
• 41:18
  didn't look fantastic. The cutaways and stuff like
• 41:21
  that. Kind of masterful when you think
• 41:23
  about that cutting edge technology from an FX point of
• 41:26
  view. So we'll just use camera
• 41:28
  trickery to kind of mask where it doesn't really hit the mark.
• 41:31
  And I think, I don't think there's many parts in the film
• 41:34
  where it isn't seamless with the rest of the action.
• 41:37
  No, I don't think so. I mean, he did, he did that on
• 41:39
  Howlin as well. Didn't he use that technique
• 41:40
  quite a bit with the darkness because he didn't have the
• 41:43
  budget for it? So he's bringing that straight
• 41:44
  over from his experience, which I think really works.
• 41:47
  It adds that, you know, dark element.
• 41:48
  But Tim Burton doing this would have been fucking terrifying.
• 41:51
  Andy would have argued with Spielberg every single day.
• 41:54
  There would have been no fun whatsoever.
• 41:55
  It would have just been straight down the line.
• 41:58
  You would have the back story from Phoebe Cates, but you
• 42:00
  probably would have filmed it. And he would have been in a
• 42:02
  black Santa suit climbing down. See him getting stuck,
• 42:05
  suffocating. Johnny Depp would be in.
• 42:07
  It that would be Johnny Depp. But yeah, well, it would have
• 42:09
  been, you know, there would have been too many like spirals
• 42:11
  around and it all would have looked a little bit.
• 42:14
  Ridiculous. It'd be like a Haunted Mansion
• 42:16
  at the end of town. Yeah, that's.
• 42:17
  Where Mrs. Steagall lives. Yeah.
• 42:21
  Yeah, he wouldn't be able to like trickle the taunts like
• 42:23
  don't it does. I just don't think that's
• 42:24
  important skill at all. He has one taun and that's it.
• 42:28
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dark.
• 42:29
  Yeah. Monotone.
• 42:31
  Weird few taunts there. Dark and weird.
• 42:37
  Amazing. Once the film was finished, it
• 42:41
  was screened for Warner's studio execs, and a note from one of
• 42:44
  them suggested that Dan it reduced the number of gremlins
• 42:47
  in the film because he thought there were too many, and
• 42:49
  Spielberg suggested cutting them all out all together and
• 42:51
  changing the title to People. He's a right cop when he wants
• 42:57
  to be Spielberg and he want. To burn, that is.
• 42:59
  Yeah. Oh let's just change it to
• 43:02
  people then, dickhead, because I'm a sheriff asshole.
• 43:12
  Obviously Spielberg at the height of his powers in the mid
• 43:14
  80s, his name was plastered all over films that he exec
• 43:17
  produced, and he exec produced this one as well.
• 43:20
  Films like The Goonies, Back to the Future, massive, massive
• 43:23
  films, and I think a little bit of this went to his head in
• 43:27
  Gremlins. You mentioned it Westie, but
• 43:29
  Spielberg references are just littered throughout the film.
• 43:33
  All the way. Through you've got those ET work
• 43:35
  and titles. This is the first film with the
• 43:38
  ambulance logo at the top. Obviously the Billboard at the
• 43:41
  start. Rock and Ricky Rialto don't look
• 43:43
  like the Indiana Jones. Yeah.
• 43:44
  Yeah, he's in it as well. And he?
• 43:46
  He's in it, yeah. He's at the convention that runs
• 43:48
  that. Just riding around, Yeah, he's
• 43:50
  footing, having a wheel of the time.
• 43:53
  Was everyone pissed when they made this?
• 43:58
  So Joe Danny it is creative best being given a break out one of
• 44:01
  the most powerful men in Hollywood at the time as well
• 44:03
  can't go wrong and they didn't the.
• 44:09
  Cat. We've talked about some of the
• 44:13
  cast already. In this section, we'll focus on
• 44:15
  the two leads. First up, Zach Galligan, who
• 44:18
  plays Bill Peltzer. Matt, what do you think about
• 44:20
  Gallagher as Billy? I think he's incredibly likable
• 44:24
  in this, and I think what's interesting is just on the
• 44:26
  paper, there's not that much there.
• 44:29
  He's he's a very kind of square protagonist for his age.
• 44:32
  Like, particularly when you contrast them to Marty McFly,
• 44:34
  Ferris Bueller, you know, young characters who are like, forming
• 44:38
  bands, skipping school, Billy, holding down a solid job in a
• 44:41
  bank. Yeah.
• 44:42
  Hold some fella, isn't he but you?
• 44:44
  Know he's got to do that because obviously his dad is an absolute
• 44:46
  moron, probably bringing very little money.
• 44:49
  And so, you know, Billy doesn't have much choice.
• 44:51
  So I think the fact that we do like him as much as we do, that
• 44:55
  all comes from Galligan's performance.
• 44:56
  I think I love the OR two room when he went into the bank and
• 44:59
  he's a bit late. He puts his name slot on the
• 45:01
  counter, but it's upside down. And then kids having to come
• 45:04
  over to him and like saw this tire for him.
• 45:07
  And I think it's really nice to try.
• 45:08
  And she asked him to sign that petition.
• 45:10
  And he does without asking a question, because he quite
• 45:12
  clearly just adores her. Yeah, absolutely in love with
• 45:15
  it. Yeah.
• 45:15
  Yeah, but but then just makes you think for fuck's sake to
• 45:18
  none of the pelts of family ask questions about.
• 45:20
  Anything. Everything, no questions asked.
• 45:23
  Oh, yeah, I'll do that. Everything that's good about
• 45:27
  Billy in this film comes from the performance because like I
• 45:29
  say, on paper, there's probably not a lot there.
• 45:32
  So he brings everything out. Yeah, I know there were some of
• 45:34
  the, like, big names considered at the time and all, like Emilio
• 45:36
  Estevez's name was in the mix, which could have been an
• 45:39
  interesting way to go, I think. But yeah, no, I think Alcons
• 45:41
  great. I really like him in this.
• 45:43
  I think he's he's got a little heart.
• 45:44
  He's got a lot of warmth. I think he's somebody that we
• 45:47
  can relate to and I think he's somebody that would root for
• 45:50
  certainly, definitely. Yeah.
• 45:52
  What about you? Is he?
• 45:53
  He's all right, isn't he? I mean, he's a bit, he's a bit
• 45:57
  wet. He's a.
• 45:59
  Bit he's a terrible hero. He's just there to make Gizmo
• 46:04
  look like a hero, which means that he's smoltzy and a little
• 46:07
  bit just a little bit, you know, maybe too nice and a bit too try
• 46:12
  hard in places. There's a bit when he, when he
• 46:15
  tries to confront the sheriff and he shouts at him, you, you
• 46:17
  wouldn't take him seriously at all.
• 46:19
  Like he hasn't got much of A range, but the range that he,
• 46:22
  the range that he's got in this is perfect for this.
• 46:24
  Yeah, it it really works. You need to be this really
• 46:27
  lovely guy who gets this really cute little thing and things
• 46:30
  happen and you don't solve any problems.
• 46:32
  You just run around trying to get a girl who's clearly more
• 46:34
  powerful than you are and a stronger character.
• 46:37
  Clearly punching as well, isn't he?
• 46:39
  But that was shadow of a doubt. But he's just a very, you know,
• 46:41
  he's he's a bit of a wet letters for me.
• 46:43
  He's all right, not much of A range.
• 46:46
  He works as Billy, but that's about it.
• 46:48
  I. Agree with both of you really.
• 46:50
  Not like massively remarkable, not fireworks, but he does a
• 46:55
  solid job. I think the character of Billy
• 46:57
  is not to be trusted and absolute liability.
• 47:00
  The first night he has Gizmo he blasts light into his eye and
• 47:03
  cuts his head. Second night, water on him.
• 47:06
  Third night feeds his spawn after midnight.
• 47:08
  Irresponsible as. Well, and he uses all of that
• 47:11
  fucking chicken like they haven't got much money coming
• 47:13
  in. Everyone's on the Ross whole
• 47:16
  plate of chicken. I would have been fucking
• 47:18
  furious with him. Billy, where's that chicken?
• 47:21
  I'll give it to the fucking things.
• 47:23
  And now they're now they're now they're.
• 47:25
  Monsters. So I've got I've got monsters up
• 47:29
  here and I've got no fucking chicken.
• 47:32
  Where's your dad? He's in a convention with the
• 47:35
  bathroom buddy. Out of his depth, he.
• 47:39
  Should have just run away. It's.
• 47:43
  Yeah, it's madness. It's absolute madness.
• 47:45
  But he's the only person who probably could have played him
• 47:47
  where you go. Yeah, actually, that cute little
• 47:50
  gremlin is probably more of a man than you are.
• 47:57
  As Matt mentioned, they were the actors in the frame for Billy
• 48:00
  Emilie Westerves. You mentioned Judd Nelson with
• 48:03
  the front runners as well. Spielberg watched Estevez's tape
• 48:07
  and he said, look, he's internalizing.
• 48:09
  I don't like it, get rid of him. So he didn't get the part.
• 48:13
  Wow, what? What could he possibly
• 48:14
  internalise in this? Where?
• 48:17
  Comic book #1 Where'd you get it from?
• 48:19
  I talked to fantasies. There's no alliance you can
• 48:25
  internalise. Galligan got the gig because of
• 48:30
  his chemistry with Phoebe Kids. In the screen test, he rested
• 48:33
  his head on Kids's shoulder and looked into the camera like all
• 48:35
  dreamy. And when Spielberg saw this, he
• 48:38
  said, Oh my God, look at that. He's in love with her already.
• 48:41
  I don't need to see anything else.
• 48:42
  Give him the job. Yeah, and then Phoebe Kids was
• 48:45
  interviewed later and she said I don't really remember the
• 48:47
  audition. It's all right, friend zone.
• 48:53
  No, you play a Scalligan. At least Billy, isn't he in real
• 48:57
  life? But Kate's also said that
• 49:02
  kissing Zach Galligan was like kissing her brother, and
• 49:06
  Galligan blamed Spielberg for making him feel nervous.
• 49:08
  But no, not reciprocated at all. I can maybe understand the view
• 49:12
  on that. He's, he is a bit like, oh, is
• 49:14
  this going to be all right? I mean, he's having a laugh
• 49:16
  basically. Get stuck in there.
• 49:18
  Get stuck in there. Hello Stevens, put me off.
• 49:23
  What do you think about Steven for Just Kiss the Girl?
• 49:29
  John Williams score. It appears that Galligan was in
• 49:37
  absolute or of being involved in this in the film completely.
• 49:41
  I mean, who wouldn't be really? But he said.
• 49:43
  I was this geeky kid and and being in this movie was really
• 49:46
  kind of a dream. I got to blow up a movie theater
• 49:48
  and work with great people just in these element having a great
• 49:51
  time. Same as everybody else though.
• 49:53
  I mean, it does fit. It does fit the whole framework
• 49:56
  of the film. You do need someone like that in
• 49:57
  there. Sure, Dante had to keep on
• 50:00
  telling them during production to keep his mouth closed during
• 50:02
  scenes when he wasn't talking, he was just standing there
• 50:05
  gulping at Kate's. Or the fact that Spielberg was
• 50:07
  around sounds. Like any of us get the chance to
• 50:12
  make a film. Galligan did appear in Gremlins
• 50:16
  too, of course, and other movies like Waxwork Films, Warlock of
• 50:20
  the Armageddon. He's had a steady acting career
• 50:23
  but his films basically just straight to DVD, including
• 50:26
  Cyborg 3 The Recycler classic. Oh yeah, great.
• 50:32
  Next cutting room, is it? Straight on the floor
• 50:47
  finally on our cast list is Phoebe Kate.
• 50:50
  She plays Kate Barringer. Got to love Phoebe Cates.
• 50:53
  Yeah, she's lovely. My view on this is she's far too
• 50:56
  good of an actress to be in this film.
• 50:58
  There's such a weight to a character.
• 51:00
  It's almost like she's in a different film.
• 51:02
  Like she doesn't know she's filming Gremlins and she's got
• 51:04
  this back story and she doesn't like Christmas.
• 51:06
  And I love that about her because I don't like Christmas
• 51:08
  and she's great in this and she's great in Gremlins too.
• 51:11
  And she's absolutely a brilliant and Drop Dead Fred as well,
• 51:14
  which should be a massive throwaway film, but she brings a
• 51:17
  weight to that character and a real, you know, emotion to it.
• 51:20
  And she does. And she should be in a lot more
• 51:22
  things and she isn't. And in my head like she was, one
• 51:25
  of the things that remind me of my childhood is watching her in
• 51:27
  these films. And she's like, you know, Fast
• 51:29
  Times in Ridgemont High, Gremlins, Gremlins 2, Drop Dead
• 51:32
  Fred, them four films, films I watched growing up.
• 51:35
  And I I thought, well, where's where's she gone?
• 51:37
  You know, she should have been huge.
• 51:39
  Yeah, I know she nearly wasn't casting this because of Fast
• 51:42
  Times, the Richmond High, because she did the topless
• 51:44
  scene and that, but I can't imagine Gremlins without her in
• 51:47
  it because I think she's really great in this.
• 51:50
  I think kind of like Billy in the sense that she's really
• 51:52
  solid and she's likeable, but this is so much more to her
• 51:56
  character than the rest of his. Those little on that there's
• 52:00
  something not quite, I'm not going to say not quite right
• 52:02
  with it, but there's definitely a pass to her and something's
• 52:06
  going to come out. And I like how it balances out
• 52:08
  because you've got a, you know, working those shifts for free
• 52:11
  and Doris Tavern to keep it going.
• 52:13
  And that's really great. But then when you do get to that
• 52:17
  bit, that monologue genuinely is one of my favorite monologues in
• 52:20
  cinema. The way she sells that, she
• 52:23
  just, she just throws every little bit of ability she's got
• 52:27
  into that and it's just horrifying here.
• 52:30
  It's just a fantastic bit of acting.
• 52:32
  So I can't imagine this film without.
• 52:35
  I think she's probably the best performer in the film.
• 52:37
  Yeah, I think most interesting character for me in the film,
• 52:40
  certainly. In fact, I much prefer Phoebe
• 52:43
  Kids to be the lead in the film. Yeah.
• 52:45
  That'll be far much more interesting if she got Gizmo and
• 52:48
  everything started happening. But then again, she's not
• 52:50
  stupid, so it wouldn't work. Yeah, that's true enough.
• 52:53
  She's got to fix the problem, not 'cause it and anxious that
• 52:56
  really. Well, I think she's got this,
• 52:57
  like, real great bite of cynicism, which I mean, that
• 53:00
  comes a lot in the film as well. She's clearly dealing with some
• 53:03
  traumatic issues that you've mentioned there, Matt.
• 53:06
  And she's got some great dialogue as well.
• 53:08
  When she's talking about not loving Christmas to Billy and he
• 53:10
  takes exception to this, she says, see here, Washington's
• 53:14
  Birthday or Thanksgiving, and nobody cares, but see here,
• 53:16
  Christmas and everybody makes you feel like a leper.
• 53:18
  Great line, great line of dialogue.
• 53:20
  And it feels as though she's been given all the good lines.
• 53:22
  Yeah, brilliant. You mentioned it as well, Matt.
• 53:26
  The studio wasn't particularly happy with Kate's being cast as
• 53:29
  Kate. She starred in Fast Times at
• 53:31
  Ridgemont High a couple of years earlier.
• 53:32
  Particularly racist scene where she's topless and the studio
• 53:36
  didn't think she'd be able to pull it off, didn't think she
• 53:38
  was wholesome enough. Dandy hate scene, first times
• 53:41
  Ridgemont High and he said. I think she's awfully wholesome.
• 53:47
  Good for you, Joe. So on that scene, Matt, the one
• 53:51
  that stands out for Phoebe Kids, where she's explained the reason
• 53:54
  why she doesn't like Christmas, what do you think about that?
• 53:57
  It is. It's heartbreaking, but it
• 53:59
  again, it just shows the the tones in the film and how well
• 54:02
  Dante balances them and how he gives her this time and how
• 54:05
  it's, you know, it's a very quiet moment in the bank and
• 54:08
  everything's just falling apart around them.
• 54:10
  But she somehow binds the film together with this story, brings
• 54:14
  this real level of reality to it, and the fantasy almost goes
• 54:18
  away, which adds weight to the ending because it's got that
• 54:21
  extra strength to it. I think it's a perfect place to
• 54:23
  put it, but she delivers it so beautifully.
• 54:26
  It's so well done. And the writing as well, the way
• 54:30
  that's written, you've got lots of questions because you go,
• 54:34
  well, how, how didn't you smell him?
• 54:36
  If he's been up there four or five days, how on earth is he up
• 54:38
  there? And then you'd find out that's
• 54:40
  how she discovered it, because of the smell.
• 54:41
  And he snapped his neck and he died immediately.
• 54:43
  It makes it believable. It does it really well.
• 54:46
  I mean, imagine Billy doing that.
• 54:48
  His dad wouldn't fit down the chimney anyway, so.
• 54:55
  I mean, I don't know what he's thinking coming down the
• 54:56
  chimney. I mean, what idiot, But still.
• 54:59
  I mean, it's a Horror Story in it and she sells it.
• 55:02
  I think you're right. I think it's the best written
• 55:04
  piece of dialogue in the end. Well, I think just all her
• 55:07
  dialogue, she's strongest character.
• 55:09
  Best written dialogue, definitely.
• 55:11
  What about you, man? I mean, I'm doing all the, this
• 55:13
  is the scene at the studio got very, very nervous about, I
• 55:16
  think including Spielberg. He wasn't sure if it should
• 55:19
  stay, stay in or not and or don't really, really hard
• 55:22
  forward. And I just can't imagine the
• 55:24
  film without it. It's like a punch in the gut.
• 55:27
  It's the one bit of the film that isn't funny at all.
• 55:30
  Everything else, no matter how dark it gets, is always like a
• 55:33
  little comic twist to it. This is the only time where it's
• 55:35
  just now that's horrible and that experience of character and
• 55:41
  I just love how it's just dropped in and it's not remarked
• 55:44
  upon again at all. There's no like pay off down
• 55:47
  like because it doesn't need to be.
• 55:48
  Not at all, no. It just adds a lot of depth to
• 55:50
  that character. It does, yeah.
• 55:52
  Yeah, a lot of unexpected depth as well.
• 55:54
  Spielberg and the studio weren't too sure how to take it.
• 55:57
  Was it supposed to be funny or was it supposed to be serious?
• 56:01
  And that's why Dandy, like you said, Matt fought for it is
• 56:04
  because that he thought it was like the perfect metaphor for
• 56:06
  the film, a mixture of funny or serious.
• 56:08
  I don't know how to take this. I mean, it's a rendered story
• 56:11
  and the one that's always stuck with me since I was a kid.
• 56:14
  And despite Joe Dandy's assertions, I really don't think
• 56:18
  there's anything funny in that for me.
• 56:19
  I'll take it deadly seriously. Really vivid story and I can
• 56:22
  picture it in my mind's eye and it's a terrifying, terrifying
• 56:26
  thought. Absolutely horrible.
• 56:27
  Well, on that, another question from one of our patrons, this
• 56:31
  time from Anna Randall. Hello, Anna.
• 56:33
  What up? Hello, Anna.
• 56:34
  She says Do you think Kate's storyline about a father should
• 56:37
  have been developed more? She said, Personally, I think
• 56:40
  the character could have been fleshed out more, but she still
• 56:42
  watches every Christmas and loves it.
• 56:44
  Just would like a bit more development of that character.
• 56:46
  Would you like to see that? I don't think you need any more.
• 56:49
  I think you get it from that back story.
• 56:51
  I think you don't really want her to go any further into that.
• 56:54
  You totally understand where she gets her strength from.
• 56:56
  You get she's been supporting her mother all the way through
• 56:59
  from all these years and they've been ignoring Christmas and it's
• 57:02
  come they maybe don't put any decorations up and you can you
• 57:05
  can see where our strength comes from and that from that one
• 57:08
  monologue. So I think you you don't really
• 57:09
  need to flesh any more out because then you start moving
• 57:11
  away from, you know, gremlins terrorizing the town and you
• 57:15
  start thinking about other things.
• 57:16
  I think that's just enough for me.
• 57:18
  I think she's the probably the most stretched out character in
• 57:21
  the film. Yeah, anyway, yeah.
• 57:22
  Because the focus is the gremlins.
• 57:24
  I mean, obviously the characters are great, but I don't think the
• 57:27
  scope for any more character development.
• 57:29
  I don't think the story of the narrative really requires.
• 57:32
  It No, definitely not. There's no time.
• 57:34
  Let's just watch these little things go and fuck the town up.
• 57:38
  That's all you need. What about you mate?
• 57:41
  You'd like to see more development of Kate?
• 57:43
  No, I'm in. I'm in complete agreement with
• 57:45
  you guys because I think the only way you could do it would
• 57:48
  be having like scenes of her alone in a house, like looking
• 57:51
  mournfully at like a picture of a man.
• 57:52
  And I think it would just be distracting if if you sort of
• 57:55
  kind of seeding this in earlier, I think that'd mean you would
• 57:58
  need to pay off at the end. You know, like she would get a
• 58:02
  stepfather figure from somewhere, which you just don't
• 58:05
  need. So I think just isolating it as
• 58:07
  this one story that explains everything about it, It's all
• 58:10
  you need. And I don't think it would give
• 58:12
  her any depth. It would just seem messy and
• 58:14
  unnecessary. And, and I mean that like, if
• 58:17
  you do think about it, it does add even more depth trick out to
• 58:19
  maybe like the fact that she's working at Doris Tavern.
• 58:23
  Maybe it isn't just to support that place.
• 58:25
  Maybe it's because she'll do anything to keep herself
• 58:27
  occupied over Christmas. Yeah, something in right
• 58:30
  respect. It makes that it makes that make
• 58:32
  more sense. So I think there's more than
• 58:34
  enough depth in there to compensate for anything else he
• 58:37
  could have written around it. Yeah, I mean, you do get that
• 58:39
  resolution. She is standing on the family
• 58:41
  porch with the family, part of the family at the end, because
• 58:44
  in the house, you know, it's all warm.
• 58:46
  She's kind of accepted it. Yeah, just our mother's at home
• 58:50
  thinking about what might have been.
• 58:51
  So left, left alone. Bottle of Jack Daniels.
• 58:56
  Opening her wrist. Looking up the chimney, not like
• 59:01
  the fire, just in case. Slowly freezing it up.
• 59:06
  Brilliant. There's your sequel.
• 59:10
  Like you mentioned, Westie Kate seemed destined for stardom with
• 59:13
  her early efforts, but her career tailed off until she
• 59:16
  retired from acting mid 90s. Focusing more on her family.
• 59:20
  She got a star ring role in Bright Lights Big City with
• 59:22
  Michael J Foxley at 80s. Really worth searching out that
• 59:25
  very good. Other than that, slightly
• 59:28
  disappointing that she didn't go on to have the career that I
• 59:30
  think she deserved. Yeah, same.
• 59:33
  Yeah, definitely. So the cast on Gremlins serving
• 59:35
  the material well. Solid performances from the two
• 59:38
  leads. Not for getting the stellar
• 59:39
  supporting cast. Indeed, into the second act of
• 59:48
  Gremlins. As we pick up the action, Billy
• 59:50
  is taking one of Gizmo's demon seat to Mr. Hanson for some
• 59:53
  analysis. Well, he inadvertently feeds the
• 59:56
  rest after midnight the Mogui cocoon before transforming into
• 59:59
  something much more dangerous and attacked Billye mother in
• 1:00:02
  the kitchen. Amazing scene, yeah.
• 1:00:05
  Probably be favorite scene in the whole film.
• 1:00:07
  I really like it. I love the Shining references as
• 1:00:09
  well, which I mentioned at the top.
• 1:00:11
  So we've got the red beetle, we've got a, you know, cardigan
• 1:00:13
  very similar to Shadow Duvall's character.
• 1:00:15
  She's holding the knife in a very similar way.
• 1:00:17
  There's a Calumet baking powder on the on the bench.
• 1:00:20
  You know, you've got all these little nods.
• 1:00:22
  And then earlier on as well, if you notice when Billy's next to
• 1:00:25
  the juicer that soundtrack, it sounds like the opening beats of
• 1:00:28
  The Shining. It does, yes, very.
• 1:00:30
  Very similar. So it's got this lovely kind of
• 1:00:32
  running all the way through this.
• 1:00:33
  But yeah, this is just carnage, isn't it?
• 1:00:35
  It's just such such fun carnage because they've created these
• 1:00:41
  things that you actually want to see destroyed in the most
• 1:00:45
  disgusting way ever. I mean, when that finds that one
• 1:00:48
  of the blender turns it on, it's just brilliant.
• 1:00:51
  That's amazing. That's just flipping around and
• 1:00:53
  it's just like. Mess flesh.
• 1:00:55
  Grim little flesh flying at the camera, Yeah.
• 1:00:58
  There's that whole she does the stabbing, which is like
• 1:01:00
  Hitchcock, you've got like the shadow of the Gremlin on the
• 1:01:03
  wall, but which for boards everything, which is really,
• 1:01:06
  really good. Yeah, it's excellent.
• 1:01:09
  It's just got all these like really, really great moments.
• 1:01:12
  It's so enjoyable. A great, great sequence.
• 1:01:15
  It's a great reminder that Dante, like, first broke through
• 1:01:18
  with a horror film because this is proper horror in a kids film.
• 1:01:21
  But it's so suspenseful and it works so well because you've
• 1:01:25
  just had the scene with Mr. Hanson being killed by just one
• 1:01:28
  Gremlin and you know, Billy's mother's in the house with like
• 1:01:31
  half a dozen or so, So, you know, she's really in trouble.
• 1:01:34
  Which again, is another stupid decision by Billy.
• 1:01:36
  Just leave those cocoons up there with his mum announced.
• 1:01:39
  Should we lock the door? Anything else?
• 1:01:41
  Fine, call the police. Nah, just leave him up there.
• 1:01:43
  He'll be, absolutely. Fine.
• 1:01:44
  Out. Yeah, I'm off.
• 1:01:45
  Out. On Christmas Eve as well,
• 1:01:47
  everyone's at school on Christmas Eve.
• 1:01:49
  It doesn't make any sense. Like everyone's like busy doing
• 1:01:51
  stuff. Like it's absolute madness.
• 1:01:53
  But that music as well, when the music like comes on, it's almost
• 1:01:57
  like a drum scare the way it's a Johnny Mathis.
• 1:02:00
  Do you hear what I hear? Yeah, do you hear?
• 1:02:02
  What I see? Yeah, so it's such like a, like
• 1:02:06
  a middle-aged, genteel piece of music, but it's so shocking
• 1:02:09
  because it just comes out of nowhere.
• 1:02:11
  Yeah. When she turns it off and that
• 1:02:12
  cut to silence. And this is where Dante really,
• 1:02:14
  like, shows as horror chops as her creeping around that shadow
• 1:02:18
  around the corner, the use of silence.
• 1:02:20
  But once you get into that kitchen, it's just me, hem,
• 1:02:23
  isn't it? It's brilliant.
• 1:02:24
  Carnage. It's I mean the bit in the
• 1:02:26
  blender that's hilarious, but then of course the hair stubborn
• 1:02:28
  one that's actually really disturbing.
• 1:02:30
  Like you see that like fury in her eyes probably goes for it.
• 1:02:34
  And then like forcing the other one in the microwave.
• 1:02:36
  That's like horrifying and hilarious at the same time.
• 1:02:39
  And when I saw this at the pictures last year, I noticed
• 1:02:42
  for the first time when she's forcing one in the microwave,
• 1:02:45
  the one just stabbed. You can see it's pinned to the
• 1:02:48
  kitchen top and it's like kicking its arms and legs of
• 1:02:50
  out. It's like slowly die in the
• 1:02:52
  background. That's a great little detail.
• 1:02:54
  That gremlin was meant to pull the knife out of itself, but
• 1:02:57
  they shot it and that's what you can see in the background is
• 1:02:59
  that effect. So that we're going to cut a
• 1:03:01
  little bit pulling the knife out of itself.
• 1:03:03
  So it's the continuity, but they said that this would have been a
• 1:03:05
  little bit too violent with it just kind of pulling that out of
• 1:03:08
  there. It's ridiculous.
• 1:03:10
  And that that soundtrack you mentioned as well.
• 1:03:11
  It's great that they've picked that because you can see the
• 1:03:13
  footprints on the record. See that?
• 1:03:15
  Yeah. In the dust.
• 1:03:16
  Yeah, Brilliant. And they've chosen that and put
• 1:03:19
  it in the middle of the record. Yeah, it's not the first song on
• 1:03:22
  the album. But it's great how this is
• 1:03:28
  ground as well. If your kid watching this, it's
• 1:03:30
  different to watching like Star Wars or Indiana Jones because
• 1:03:34
  this is so grounded in reality. Obviously as a kid, you're not
• 1:03:37
  going to have a lightsaber, so you have to pretend.
• 1:03:39
  You have to pretend you've got a bullwhip and a revolver.
• 1:03:41
  But if your kid, you're watching this, you're thinking, God, you
• 1:03:44
  know what? If gremlins did invade my house,
• 1:03:45
  I would be able to fight them off because I do have a blender.
• 1:03:48
  I would show them in the microwave.
• 1:03:49
  I've got a microwave, yeah. So for a kid it works really
• 1:03:52
  really well. But this then built up to the
• 1:03:55
  one bit. This did leave me fairly
• 1:03:57
  traumatized as a kid. The gremlin in the Christmas
• 1:04:00
  tree when that pounces on it, That's just horrible.
• 1:04:03
  Even our feeling. With some lights.
• 1:04:08
  I mean, like as a kid I was like, Christmas trees are nice,
• 1:04:11
  you know, I like looking at Christmas trees.
• 1:04:13
  They make me happy. They shouldn't be horrific.
• 1:04:16
  That's the one bit where I think how on earth they've got away
• 1:04:19
  with that. Yeah, and then Billy comes in
• 1:04:22
  and locks the head off one of them, and that Vernon image in
• 1:04:26
  the fire and that noise coming from it.
• 1:04:29
  Horrible. Brilliant.
• 1:04:31
  Though I love that Billye mother turns into this like resourceful
• 1:04:35
  badass like the blender kill. Obviously we talked about it.
• 1:04:38
  Amazing. I like the scene that it doesn't
• 1:04:41
  dwell and the gremlins don't get the other hand.
• 1:04:43
  Billy's mom's on a game immediately.
• 1:04:46
  Yeah, yeah, nice one. Straight in the microwave, no
• 1:04:49
  mess. And it's what is it read or
• 1:04:51
  something that she uses on its face and it's noise when it gets
• 1:04:54
  in the film. Oh, straight into the microwave.
• 1:04:59
  But it does explode within like 5 seconds.
• 1:05:01
  Very sensitive. It's a hell of a powerful
• 1:05:03
  microwave. It's.
• 1:05:04
  Not high, it's. Probably a Peltzer invention.
• 1:05:07
  Peltzer's microwave. That you see, that's the thing
• 1:05:09
  I've got with this sequence. I think it would have been far
• 1:05:11
  better if you you've been you've been introduced to these
• 1:05:14
  inventions throughout the whole film.
• 1:05:16
  And I would have loved the fact that he's his inventions only
• 1:05:19
  work to kill the gremlins. I think that would have been
• 1:05:21
  amazing. I think if instead of a blender,
• 1:05:26
  yeah, it is a blender, it's fair enough.
• 1:05:28
  But like if the if the phone backfired because she tries to
• 1:05:31
  speak to him on the phone. So if she kind of wrap the phone
• 1:05:32
  cord around him and then hit the button and it electrified him or
• 1:05:35
  something like bathroom buddies squirt the toothpaste in his
• 1:05:37
  face and that kind of thing, who's the razor?
• 1:05:41
  Who's the razor of? It would have been great.
• 1:05:47
  Just slice noodle. Well, on Rand, I mean, I don't
• 1:05:53
  know what kind of person he is. He brings this foreign body into
• 1:05:57
  a family home. It multiplies.
• 1:05:59
  He's got this crackpot idea of selling the the Rand family pet
• 1:06:02
  or whatever he calls it, and then he just leaves, skips town
• 1:06:06
  and leaves the family to deal with this mayhem.
• 1:06:09
  I know they haven't turned in the gremlins yet, but that's an
• 1:06:12
  unexpected arrival. Yeah, it would make me question
• 1:06:14
  my. Decision Should I leave?
• 1:06:16
  Well, I know that the invention's really shit and it's
• 1:06:19
  not going to win anything. Probably.
• 1:06:23
  Obviously this scene probably the most violent in the film and
• 1:06:27
  it was rated PG on its first release, which is insane.
• 1:06:30
  It was rated A-15 in the UK. It prompted criticisms of
• 1:06:34
  violent content. Was jointly responsible for the
• 1:06:37
  introduction of the PG13 rating in the US as we know it today.
• 1:06:40
  This and Temple of Doom prompted Spielberg to suggest the new
• 1:06:43
  rating to the MPA. First film to be released under
• 1:06:46
  the rating was John Melissa's Red Dawn.
• 1:06:49
  Thoughts on the criticism of violence in the film didn't
• 1:06:51
  justified. I think so.
• 1:06:53
  I think it came along at a really interesting time because
• 1:06:56
  in the 70s you've got horror like Texas Chainsaw last on the
• 1:07:00
  left, which is like really pushing the boundaries in terms
• 1:07:04
  of violence and why you get an adult cinema.
• 1:07:05
  And I think it was inevitable of that was going to kind of bleed
• 1:07:08
  into kid cinema to see like what what can we now get away with
• 1:07:11
  them and. Push the board.
• 1:07:13
  Yeah, exactly. And I just think they didn't
• 1:07:15
  quite know how far they should or shouldn't go with it in the
• 1:07:18
  same of the Raiden spot. I think they weren't quite sure.
• 1:07:20
  Well, hang on, what do we do with this?
• 1:07:22
  Because so much of this is kid friendly, but then you've got
• 1:07:25
  these scenes. So I think like if this came
• 1:07:28
  along a few years later, it would be much softer than than
• 1:07:31
  what we have got. I mean, if it came out now,
• 1:07:33
  there's no way it would be this film, this tone.
• 1:07:36
  No, absolutely not. But I think you do also have to
• 1:07:39
  give kids a little bit more credit because as violent as
• 1:07:42
  this is, for the most part, it's kind of Looney Tunes violence.
• 1:07:45
  It's it's cartoon violence just with like puppets instead.
• 1:07:49
  And for the most part, I think kids are going to be fine with
• 1:07:52
  it. So I think the the criticisms
• 1:07:54
  were definitely valid, but I think it's more to do with the
• 1:07:56
  fact of when this film came along than anything that's
• 1:07:59
  necessarily in there. I think the way it was marketed
• 1:08:03
  was just confused as well. It's set up as if it's this,
• 1:08:06
  this cute furry thing that kids obviously want to go and see.
• 1:08:09
  Then all of a sudden there's these little monsters who get
• 1:08:11
  their heads cut off. It's, it's really confused.
• 1:08:15
  I wouldn't change it though. I, I love the one thing I love
• 1:08:18
  more than most is it's tone is the fact that it's completely
• 1:08:21
  uncompromised and it does what it wants to do.
• 1:08:23
  Really love that. What about you Wes?
• 1:08:25
  Do you think criticism of violence worthwhile?
• 1:08:28
  I think so because of the realistic environment in which
• 1:08:31
  it's portrayed. But Spielberg's kind of climbing
• 1:08:35
  on board with the Looney Tune stuff as a few years later he
• 1:08:38
  comes up with the Animaniacs, which is kind of in the 90s.
• 1:08:40
  Yeah, Dante did a Looney Tunes film in the 90s as well, didn't
• 1:08:43
  he? He did, yeah.
• 1:08:44
  Yeah. Yeah, so you've got all these
• 1:08:46
  elements and I think they're playing on the fact that, you
• 1:08:49
  know, like Matt said, it's it's Looney Tunes violence.
• 1:08:52
  It's it's puppets. It's, you know, let's let's do
• 1:08:55
  that crossover. There is a not a Texas chainsaw
• 1:08:57
  when he gets attacked with a chainsaw at the end, you know,
• 1:08:59
  there's all these nods to this kind of splatter horror that was
• 1:09:02
  happening a lot in like the late 70s, early 80s, you know, and it
• 1:09:06
  has got a lot of that vibe to it.
• 1:09:08
  But it is, you know, tongue is firmly in cheek here.
• 1:09:12
  Like funny, funny violence. It's always towards the evil
• 1:09:17
  that's there. It's always towards the
• 1:09:18
  gremlins, these disgusting looking, horrible things that
• 1:09:21
  you want to see killed. So that kind of gives it a
• 1:09:24
  little bit of leeway. I mean, not to revel in the
• 1:09:27
  violence, but when that gremlin does go in the in the microwave,
• 1:09:30
  it's like kind of hunched over. You just see it, bring it pop
• 1:09:34
  open. It's just what an image I love.
• 1:09:36
  It so. Well, it's much more violent in
• 1:09:39
  the original script, though, wasn't it?
• 1:09:41
  Yeah. So it was like the one point
• 1:09:44
  Billy's mom ended up being decapitated, doesn't she?
• 1:09:46
  By the gremlins, Yes. Before I head down the stairs,
• 1:09:49
  Adam, I think. I think Barney gets eaten at one
• 1:09:51
  point. Eaten.
• 1:09:52
  Yeah. Eaten, Yeah.
• 1:09:53
  Hole. The dog hole feasted on it
• 1:09:56
  alive. And there's the the professor as
• 1:09:58
  well at the school. Originally when Billy finds him,
• 1:10:02
  he's got 5 syringes inserted into his face because of the
• 1:10:06
  blood test. So Spielberg changed that and
• 1:10:09
  put it in his. Put it in his buttocks.
• 1:10:11
  Yeah, Spielberg thought that's pretty.
• 1:10:13
  Just stick it in his ass in the buttocks.
• 1:10:17
  And there's a massive close up on that as well, isn't it?
• 1:10:20
  Yeah, there's something you can tell spiel looks like do a push
• 1:10:22
  it on that. But you imagine Billy turned up
• 1:10:24
  and he's there with five syringes in his face.
• 1:10:26
  Yeah. Jesus.
• 1:10:28
  So Spielberg obviously liked the screenplay, bought it with all
• 1:10:32
  of these elements in with with Billy's mum's head being thrown
• 1:10:37
  down the stairs and with the dog being eaten.
• 1:10:39
  Yeah. Crazy.
• 1:10:40
  Yeah. They're elements he's probably
• 1:10:42
  just read that went oh, I can change that.
• 1:10:43
  Made that a bit more mind, but I think.
• 1:10:44
  Yeah, I suppose he's both the concept, hasn't he?
• 1:10:46
  Yeah. The concept, yeah, the concept's
• 1:10:48
  amazing. You can kind of do anything with
• 1:10:50
  it. And I think that's why they
• 1:10:51
  enjoy this so much, because it could go anywhere.
• 1:10:52
  You can go these places with this content and I think that's
• 1:10:56
  what they've done and done it really well.
• 1:10:58
  The leader of the Gremlins stripe makes it out of the pelts
• 1:11:00
  at home and the local swimming pool with disastrous
• 1:11:03
  consequences. Billy goes to the police who
• 1:11:05
  don't buy his crackpot theory. There are now hundreds of
• 1:11:08
  gremlins and we're looking at their trail of destruction as
• 1:11:11
  they rampage through the streets of Kingston Falls.
• 1:11:14
  Matt, what do you think of this wave of destruction from the
• 1:11:18
  Gremlins? I think it's absolutely
• 1:11:21
  wonderful. It's a joy.
• 1:11:23
  Isn't it that that is the word to do it, Joy?
• 1:11:26
  And it's all about what we've said a few Times Now about this
• 1:11:28
  film. It's getting the torn absolutely
• 1:11:30
  right. And when you're a kid watching
• 1:11:32
  this, you're just absolute Nirvana watching it because
• 1:11:35
  basically what the gremlins are, they're just the naughtiest,
• 1:11:38
  biggest kids ever. But they can get away with it
• 1:11:40
  because there's no one basically who can tell them to stop.
• 1:11:43
  And the thing that makes work is how much fun they haven't doing
• 1:11:46
  it. You know, if they weren't
• 1:11:48
  cackling their heads off at every opportunity, whether
• 1:11:50
  they're like eating the pause that's going in the post box or
• 1:11:54
  ripping the wires out of the traffic lights, cars and car
• 1:11:57
  crashes. If it was if it was just like
• 1:11:59
  pure malice, the tone would be completely different.
• 1:12:02
  But it's the fact that they're having fun doing it.
• 1:12:04
  So you kind of get caught up in it.
• 1:12:06
  You'd certainly do. It's difficult not to.
• 1:12:08
  Yeah, that's why it works. Just the whole town absolutely
• 1:12:11
  getting shredded to pieces. I love it.
• 1:12:13
  It's fantastic. Well.
• 1:12:16
  I mean, what's not a loaf about this whole thing?
• 1:12:18
  And the criticism I've got is like that stop motion of the
• 1:12:20
  ball coming out with the dog is a little big crap now.
• 1:12:23
  Yeah, that's pretty much it. Like at that point, you don't
• 1:12:26
  really care. Some set pieces on this are just
• 1:12:29
  humongous. Like when the police car
• 1:12:31
  crashes, it's brilliant. It's pure, like 80s Action
• 1:12:35
  Cinema. But I love it when the police
• 1:12:37
  are there and the realizing what's going on around them.
• 1:12:40
  And he's like Jesus Frank. That's Dave Morris.
• 1:12:42
  He plays center every year. What's that on him?
• 1:12:47
  Like what are them fucking tastes?
• 1:12:49
  Winding the window up and it's like come and go now please.
• 1:12:53
  Really freaking out. That's exactly what you'd be
• 1:12:55
  like that. Yeah.
• 1:12:56
  Like what the fuck's going on? And I love that element of it.
• 1:12:59
  I love when it kind of cuts to outside or when he gets out the
• 1:13:01
  car so we're going to have to run for it. 123 And then when
• 1:13:04
  they get out the car and you see it like, imagine if it's almost
• 1:13:08
  like Pottersville but with gremlins in it.
• 1:13:10
  Yeah, yeah. It's just.
• 1:13:12
  He's absolute pandemonium everywhere.
• 1:13:14
  Just from that minute that you know, as soon as Stripe goes
• 1:13:17
  into that pool in the YMCA and you're like, oh shit.
• 1:13:22
  But they have so much fun with that shot.
• 1:13:24
  There's just so much small green, light green, light green.
• 1:13:28
  And red light green. The way the way he's holding his
• 1:13:31
  nose as well when he dives in I love.
• 1:13:33
  That it's. Just like sinking down to the
• 1:13:36
  box. He's just like, gleeful.
• 1:13:38
  Wonderful. I really like that part where
• 1:13:41
  the priests goes to mail, mail a letter and it's like yam, yam.
• 1:13:46
  And then it spits back out. And then he's like, perplexed.
• 1:13:49
  He doesn't know what's happening.
• 1:13:50
  And somebody comes to the mailbox and the priest says, oh,
• 1:13:55
  hello, Anderson, you want to mail something, do you?
• 1:13:57
  And you're like, go ahead, go on, then see what happens.
• 1:14:01
  What a deal. Brilliant, he says.
• 1:14:04
  It's a last minute gift. It's Christmas Eve, it's about
• 1:14:06
  6:00. It's.
• 1:14:07
  Not going to get there. Really.
• 1:14:09
  Last minute that. So out of all the carnage, out
• 1:14:13
  of all the madness, have you got a favorite pocket of action
• 1:14:15
  that's happening here? Well, my favorite bit is the one
• 1:14:18
  that kind of kicks it all off, really, which is the attack on
• 1:14:21
  the foot of man's house. I love that contrast you have
• 1:14:23
  between Mary and his wife, because she is so nice and he's
• 1:14:26
  so grumpy. You know, he's sitting there,
• 1:14:28
  he's bitching about the TV. Oh, should've got a zenith.
• 1:14:31
  You know, he's looking for the board and she's just like,
• 1:14:34
  you've got the thingy, you know, see, it's completely going over
• 1:14:38
  her head how horrible he is to her.
• 1:14:40
  She just thinks it's hilarious. But it's when obviously the, the
• 1:14:44
  engine starts up and you get that shot of her in the house,
• 1:14:46
  like a mouthful of crisps, like looking around, like, what's
• 1:14:49
  that? And when they burst out and
• 1:14:50
  they're laughing their heads off driving that bulldozer.
• 1:14:53
  And it's when the, the, the music kicks in.
• 1:14:55
  That Gremlin theme is a fantastic bit of music.
• 1:14:58
  And this is the first bit where it properly kicks in.
• 1:15:01
  They're chanting away. Yeah, they're chanting away and
• 1:15:03
  they're having an absolute blast, but again, it's horrible,
• 1:15:07
  but it's also hilarious. It is.
• 1:15:09
  It's amazing. What about USD?
• 1:15:12
  Again, horrible, but hilarious. More hilarious than horrible
• 1:15:16
  though. It's the demise of the horrible,
• 1:15:18
  disgusting Mrs. Deagle. She's a bitch and I hate her and
• 1:15:22
  she goes in the best way possible like this is.
• 1:15:25
  This is better than I could have imagined it to be.
• 1:15:28
  It's just you get them singing carols, she's just goes out.
• 1:15:31
  She doesn't know what the fuck's going on.
• 1:15:33
  She's got three dead locks on her door.
• 1:15:35
  They've messed with her Stairmaster, wherever the fuck
• 1:15:38
  you call it. And when she goes up them
• 1:15:40
  stairs, that's some speed that whoever was on the stunts for
• 1:15:44
  that she is gone. And that's a practical effect.
• 1:15:46
  That's something else. Yeah, we mentioned Dante's
• 1:15:49
  comedy time and before that could do outside and that bit of
• 1:15:53
  sound design where you still hear it just.
• 1:15:55
  And that exit from that window, I kiss myself every single time.
• 1:16:01
  I just, it's just perfect. Our legs are kicking.
• 1:16:05
  Yeah, yeah. In front of you see a slip.
• 1:16:12
  As a still man, I could watch that.
• 1:16:16
  I'd repeat if ever I'm feeling a little bit down, just then two
• 1:16:19
  minutes. The cat.
• 1:16:21
  She's got names for all of our cats.
• 1:16:23
  Have you any idea what those names are?
• 1:16:25
  There are based on currency. They're all based on currency.
• 1:16:29
  So once called dollar bill, once called peso, once called
• 1:16:33
  drachma. It's ridiculous.
• 1:16:36
  She's. Money with Wedge, that's what
• 1:16:37
  happened. You end up flying out the
• 1:16:39
  window. And she's she's got like a real
• 1:16:41
  estate business and she's got that sign outside Mrs. Deagles
• 1:16:44
  Real Estate or Deagles Real Estate.
• 1:16:46
  Opening hours 10:30 to 11:15, Monday to Friday.
• 1:16:54
  That's a great story. A joke that isn't it, genius.
• 1:16:57
  She's a piece of shit. I'm going to go for the scene in
• 1:17:02
  Dory's Tavern where Kid is serving up drinks and there's
• 1:17:06
  absolute pandemonium. I can't when I rewatch this.
• 1:17:11
  I just couldn't believe this scene existed.
• 1:17:13
  Oh no. It's amazing they haven't a
• 1:17:16
  wheel of a time. Someone flashing in the corner.
• 1:17:21
  Yeah, the flash is really weird, but they have years and time
• 1:17:24
  getting really pissed hanging from the ceiling singing songs.
• 1:17:28
  I love the the little pockets of of action going on the card
• 1:17:31
  games. Amazing.
• 1:17:32
  One of them gets shot by the other and the rest start
• 1:17:34
  laughing. Yeah.
• 1:17:36
  Stripe shoots have done it. No solidarity among them.
• 1:17:38
  It's brilliant. They don't care if the others
• 1:17:40
  get killed, it's still funny. And it's the late night jazz
• 1:17:44
  segment that's really, really amazing.
• 1:17:47
  The lights go down from nowhere and then one of them does like
• 1:17:50
  hand puppetry. That's.
• 1:17:53
  So. Weird.
• 1:17:54
  That's weird. Really bizarre.
• 1:17:59
  And then there's like that homage to Flashdance in there.
• 1:18:01
  Yeah. The, the bit that I really,
• 1:18:04
  really love is where one of them's caught on the ceiling fan
• 1:18:07
  and he's spinning round and round and round.
• 1:18:08
  It cuts to one of the other gremlins with his head just
• 1:18:11
  following the the fan round and then flies off.
• 1:18:14
  Yeah. Hilarious.
• 1:18:16
  And then really menacing. Right at the end, there's a one
• 1:18:19
  with a gun who's gonna just like, straight up murder case.
• 1:18:21
  Yeah. Yeah, but she didn't.
• 1:18:22
  Duck out the way, yeah. Yeah.
• 1:18:25
  Really terrifying. So good, so funny, so much fun.
• 1:18:30
  Yeah. So with the town in chaos, and
• 1:18:33
  after a few drinks at Dory's, there's only one place left to
• 1:18:35
  go for the gremlins. Oh yeah, the crew.
• 1:18:44
  Look at some of the crew work on Gremlins.
• 1:18:45
  It was written by 80s stalwart Chris Columbus, who also wrote
• 1:18:49
  The Goonies directed Adventures in Babysitting, Home Alone, Mrs.
• 1:18:52
  Doubtfire. Few Harry Potter films in there
• 1:18:54
  as well. Very successful.
• 1:18:56
  What do you think of the screenplay on Gremlins, Matt?
• 1:18:59
  I do Signs find it hard to believe that it has come from
• 1:19:02
  Columbus, considering how light dark it is and how cynical it
• 1:19:05
  is, because there's nothing really else he's done that
• 1:19:07
  suggests that, and which does make me think we're kind of
• 1:19:10
  touching it. Did Donde have a hand in
• 1:19:12
  rightness? I do know that Columbus didn't
• 1:19:14
  actually think this would get made at all.
• 1:19:16
  And he was inspired because one night in his apartment, he could
• 1:19:19
  hear mice scurrying around. And that kind of sparked this
• 1:19:22
  idea. And he took it from there.
• 1:19:24
  And he thought it was just going to be a writing sample to show
• 1:19:26
  what he was capable of. But Spielberg read it and said
• 1:19:29
  it was the most original thing he'd read in years.
• 1:19:31
  That's right, yeah, he said. That night, what sounded like a
• 1:19:34
  platoon of mice would come out, and to hear them skittering
• 1:19:37
  around in the blackness was really, really creepy.
• 1:19:39
  Yeah. And what it reads like to me,
• 1:19:41
  it's like a short story you would get in something like
• 1:19:44
  Fungoria or some kind of fantasy magazines almost something you'd
• 1:19:48
  read around like a campfire, like the Christmas present that
• 1:19:50
  went wrong. I think what does it just builds
• 1:19:52
  a really solid base from those 3 rules and that voice of the
• 1:19:55
  beginning of that so integral that tells you the story, right?
• 1:19:58
  And everything we're going to build comes from there and.
• 1:20:02
  Because that base is so solid, it doesn't over extend itself.
• 1:20:05
  It doesn't have them, you know, try to take over an entire city.
• 1:20:08
  It doesn't have, you know, ridiculous set pieces like the
• 1:20:10
  army trying to roll into town and have big set pieces.
• 1:20:13
  It just keeps everything grounded for me.
• 1:20:16
  So even when they just started stream Plaza building, we've
• 1:20:18
  talked about things like the gremlins are out there running
• 1:20:20
  around through snow. So I want to kind of spawn them
• 1:20:22
  on more. You don't really care that much
• 1:20:24
  because the screenplay is being so solid up to now, you're just
• 1:20:27
  with it. So I think, yeah, it's really
• 1:20:30
  good bit of writing from Columbus.
• 1:20:32
  Yeah, I do have a problem with those things.
• 1:20:35
  Not an initial viewing, but just watching it again and again for
• 1:20:39
  this episode, it does start to stick in a bit that the rules
• 1:20:42
  are the set up in the film. They're quite loose to begin
• 1:20:45
  with, but the film doesn't necessarily follow them.
• 1:20:47
  Like Mug, why I can't get wet, but he's rolling Stripes rolling
• 1:20:51
  around in the snow. They're at door E having and
• 1:20:53
  they're drinking as much booze as possible.
• 1:20:56
  But that's wet. Yeah, sure.
• 1:20:57
  Surely. Something should be have a face
• 1:20:59
  as well. Also the smoking cigarettes in
• 1:21:04
  door E Heaven. But then when kid goes to light
• 1:21:07
  one of them, one of them freaks out.
• 1:21:09
  Well, how did it get lit in the 1st place then?
• 1:21:11
  Yeah, so some of these do start to get under the skin a little
• 1:21:14
  bit on repeat viewings. Thank you, said Matt.
• 1:21:16
  I am willing to let that slide because you just bought into
• 1:21:20
  this concept. Yeah.
• 1:21:21
  Yeah, I think that this would have been a very, very
• 1:21:24
  different, very different beast on the 1st, right.
• 1:21:27
  Or the the one that Spielberg was bought into.
• 1:21:29
  If I'm completely honest, I think all of them things would
• 1:21:32
  have made sense. I think he would have watched
• 1:21:34
  what he was doing. I don't really think it was all
• 1:21:37
  in the screenplay. I think it was a concept that
• 1:21:39
  was bought and I think the concept's great and the concept,
• 1:21:42
  it sounds very much like a Roald Dahl kind of thing.
• 1:21:44
  I mean, I know he coined the term Gremlin anyway.
• 1:21:47
  So it's it's from that that kind of fantastical background.
• 1:21:52
  Deep down. I think Columbus wrote this as
• 1:21:54
  like a horror film. It's a straight out horror film.
• 1:21:57
  And I think when Spielberg got his hands on it, he made it more
• 1:21:59
  family orientated. He started to put a lighter spin
• 1:22:01
  on it. And then Dante comes on board
• 1:22:03
  and then it's a lighter spin again and it's more dark humour
• 1:22:05
  and it's very much, for me from a writing point of view, A-Team
• 1:22:09
  effort. I get that definitely.
• 1:22:11
  It's more like a pick and mix and he just kind of put the
• 1:22:14
  certain things in and then Spielberg and Dante have added
• 1:22:17
  and taken away, which is why it doesn't really make much sense.
• 1:22:19
  But from the character point of view, from the the stuff that
• 1:22:22
  you know, that's in the original script, you know, you know that
• 1:22:25
  the whole violence sequence in the kitchen, you know, from
• 1:22:28
  Kate's monologue, you know that that's in the original script,
• 1:22:31
  the original ideas, the haunting of Chinatown and these these
• 1:22:34
  rules that you've got all these things will destroy you.
• 1:22:36
  You know, there's a real deep undertone.
• 1:22:38
  And I think that's what the original was.
• 1:22:40
  But then it was, you know, candy floss added and it was fluffed
• 1:22:43
  up a little bit by Spielberg, and then it was just fluffed up
• 1:22:45
  a little bit again by Dandy. So from a writing point of view,
• 1:22:48
  I think it's very much a team effort.
• 1:22:50
  Yeah, I'm with you on that one, Wesley.
• 1:22:52
  Certainly I really do love the concept of the film and I think
• 1:22:56
  that's that's come from Chris Columbus.
• 1:22:57
  Of course, I'm sure the majority of the the lines and the
• 1:23:01
  scenarios have as well. But I think that Spielberg and
• 1:23:04
  certainly don't they have had an influence on those as well.
• 1:23:06
  Yeah. Absolutely.
• 1:23:08
  Certainly the dialogue, I think it's got a really great a barbed
• 1:23:11
  wit. There's some really dark lines
• 1:23:13
  of dialogue. Go back to Kate, she says while
• 1:23:16
  most people who are open and presents, they're at home
• 1:23:19
  opening their wrists. So much darkness in that line.
• 1:23:22
  Best line in the film for me. It certainly represents some of
• 1:23:25
  the resentment felt towards Christmas by some people.
• 1:23:28
  I think people will be able to relate to that now.
• 1:23:31
  I really like that. Yeah.
• 1:23:33
  Wesley, you mentioned earlier that gremlin term first
• 1:23:35
  originated from Roald Dahl in his book Gremlin Law, which was
• 1:23:39
  about elves who caused damage to Royal Air Force planes during
• 1:23:42
  World War Two. And this is obviously what Mr.
• 1:23:44
  Footerman's referring to when he's talking about gremlins in
• 1:23:47
  the machinery. Yeah.
• 1:23:48
  Very nice. Next on the crew list, Chris
• 1:23:57
  Wallace. The effects work on gremlins
• 1:23:59
  made possible by the great Man the old fashioned way, with a
• 1:24:03
  majority of the gremlins controlled by puppetry.
• 1:24:05
  Amazed. And when you look at the
• 1:24:06
  finished article, really, what do you think of the Gremlin
• 1:24:09
  effect to SD? I love them.
• 1:24:11
  I love the evil gremlins are far, far more accessible for me
• 1:24:14
  in a case of just a design point of view that just small yeah
• 1:24:18
  the. Design's amazing.
• 1:24:19
  It's just, how do you come up with that?
• 1:24:21
  It's terrifying, but at the same time, you can't really look away
• 1:24:23
  from it. And you know, they've got an
• 1:24:25
  ability that they're capable of so many things like the limbs
• 1:24:28
  are just the right length and the ears are just the right
• 1:24:31
  length from just to kind of like scuttle around and fit into
• 1:24:34
  places. But they're not too small so
• 1:24:36
  that they're annoying and jumping on you and biting you.
• 1:24:39
  Like them shit little dinosaurs in the lost world where they're
• 1:24:41
  just kind of like run after the girl and like they need, they've
• 1:24:44
  got, they've got like a substance to them.
• 1:24:46
  They're substantial enough to destroy really.
• 1:24:48
  Funnily, I think that's really good from a design point of
• 1:24:51
  view. But he's always done it old
• 1:24:53
  school, hasn't he? I mean, come on, from the
• 1:24:55
  melting faces and Raiders to like the fly to House to naked
• 1:25:01
  lunch Return to the Jedi character creation as well.
• 1:25:03
  Like he's got some imagination. Oh, amazing, Matt, what about
• 1:25:07
  you? I think the key thing to any
• 1:25:09
  special effect and whether it's practical or CGI, it's not just
• 1:25:12
  about believability, it's about creating character.
• 1:25:15
  So like you look like the original King Kong, the
• 1:25:18
  dinosaurs from Jurassic Park, the apes and the new Planet of
• 1:25:21
  the Apes films. They're not just believable, you
• 1:25:23
  believe them as characters. And I think that's one of the
• 1:25:26
  really impressive things that Wallace to see with those
• 1:25:29
  gremlins. Well, like with Gizmo, you, you
• 1:25:31
  feel like like every emotion that Gizmo has gone through when
• 1:25:34
  he's worried, when he's scared, when he's happy.
• 1:25:36
  And it's the same of those gremlins.
• 1:25:37
  Like, I generally don't know how many models they created for
• 1:25:41
  this film because every time you see one, it feels really
• 1:25:43
  individual from the ones you've just seen or the ones it's next
• 1:25:47
  to, even if it's maybe used, not No 5 like over and over again.
• 1:25:51
  And I think that's like testament to how good his work
• 1:25:54
  is in creating him. He just fills him with so much
• 1:25:56
  character. So much of the brilliance of
• 1:25:59
  this film all comes down. I like how simple everything is,
• 1:26:01
  like when the cocoons crack, warping, it's just a smoke
• 1:26:04
  machine and some lights and shadow and it's really, really
• 1:26:07
  effective. Mentioned it earlier, but when
• 1:26:09
  Stripe jumps into the swimming pool again to the smoke machine
• 1:26:13
  lights and getting the water to bubble up.
• 1:26:15
  But it looks really, really great.
• 1:26:18
  The gremlins themselves, they are just fantastic.
• 1:26:20
  But doing all that, that was so expensive that each night when
• 1:26:23
  the custom crew left the lot, everybody had have their car
• 1:26:26
  checked by security to make sure no one was trying to, like,
• 1:26:28
  smuggle any of them out. Yeah, they can't show them off
• 1:26:30
  to like, folks back home or whatever because obviously they
• 1:26:33
  must have cost an absolute bomb to make.
• 1:26:34
  But the money's up there because they look amazing.
• 1:26:37
  Yeah, I think they're about 66 grand each or something.
• 1:26:40
  I know they made five gizmos, right?
• 1:26:43
  Not all of them worked. There was always a problem with
• 1:26:45
  each and every one of them, which is why it was Chris
• 1:26:48
  Waller's idea to put Gizmo on the dartboard and have them
• 1:26:50
  thrown darts at it, because they're like just pissed off
• 1:26:52
  with that public because it didn't work as well as it
• 1:26:54
  should. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:26:55
  The frustration. Yeah, this is his idea.
• 1:27:00
  They drew a list of like, horrible things to do to Gizmo
• 1:27:03
  just because he'd caused them so much heartache.
• 1:27:06
  Breaking down all the time. All these little moving parts
• 1:27:09
  breaking down all the time. There was instances where the
• 1:27:11
  cast and crew fell asleep because Gizmo took that long to
• 1:27:15
  repair. Fucking hell.
• 1:27:18
  Little knob head. Little bastard.
• 1:27:25
  I think the effects works absolutely amazing.
• 1:27:27
  Gremlins Gizmo perfectly integrated into the film.
• 1:27:30
  There is only a couple of examples that I can think of
• 1:27:32
  where it doesn't really fit and it feels a little bit fake.
• 1:27:36
  You mentioned it, that stop motion when they come a road and
• 1:27:39
  out of the darkness. There's hundreds of them.
• 1:27:41
  It's clear that it's scale models, but it's 1984, you know
• 1:27:44
  what you're going to do. I think the most impressive is a
• 1:27:47
  Dory's Tavern when there's just loads of them and it feels as
• 1:27:50
  though they're alive. And you mentioned it, Matt put
• 1:27:53
  the different expressions on Gizmo's face, whether he's happy
• 1:27:56
  or sad or or frightened. I don't know how they've done
• 1:28:00
  that, but they've done it perfectly.
• 1:28:01
  And just look at his face and I know what he's feeling.
• 1:28:04
  Fantastic stuff. Chris Wallace was first given
• 1:28:06
  the script for Gremlins and he said I've written one word on
• 1:28:09
  the front cover of the screenplay and that was simply
• 1:28:12
  ha, he said. I don't think it could be done.
• 1:28:14
  The technology didn't exist. Don't have a shop, I don't have
• 1:28:17
  a crew. There's no way I'll do it.
• 1:28:19
  But I was desperate for money, so I took the job.
• 1:28:21
  I. Nailed it.
• 1:28:24
  Before it was agreed that it was puppetry would be the way
• 1:28:26
  forward for the gremlins stop motion animation and also
• 1:28:30
  monkeys in gremlin outfits were tried out.
• 1:28:32
  I mean I don't know what they were thinking but that would
• 1:28:35
  have just looked ridiculous. A monkey in a gremlin faith.
• 1:28:39
  Yeah. Did you hear about it when he
• 1:28:40
  said Jordan to his office and they tried it on?
• 1:28:42
  They tried to put a mask on it and it went absolutely mental
• 1:28:44
  and trashed the whole office. It was like, yeah, puppets then.
• 1:28:49
  Yeah, yeah. Trashed the office and defecated
• 1:28:53
  everywhere and they ran out. Sounds like a gremlin.
• 1:28:58
  So perfect. There are a number of voice
• 1:29:02
  artists on board for Gremlins. Frank Welker voiced Spike and
• 1:29:05
  suggested Howie Mandel for the voice of Gizmo.
• 1:29:08
  Mandel, now known to modern audiences as the host of USTV
• 1:29:12
  show Deal or No Deal and also as a judge on America's Got Talent.
• 1:29:16
  Mandel didn't provide the vocals for Gizmo.
• 1:29:18
  When he sings that little dizzy that he sings.
• 1:29:21
  Jerry Goldsmith did the score for the film and he hired a 13
• 1:29:24
  year old girl who was a member of his synagogue to sing.
• 1:29:27
  Also Michael Winslow who you might know as Jones from police
• 1:29:31
  Academy, he obviously he does all the the sound effects in
• 1:29:35
  police Academy, he's he's involved in there as well.
• 1:29:37
  Of course he did of. Course.
• 1:29:39
  He did all over the voice work in the in the 80s Really talent.
• 1:29:43
  The crew work on Gremlins. Chris Wallace deserves the
• 1:29:45
  lion's share of prayers, but it's a great concept by Chris
• 1:29:48
  Columbus, not forgetting the edit, and by Tina Hirsch and
• 1:29:50
  Jerry Goldsmith, who provided the unforgettable Gremlins
• 1:29:53
  theme. Yeah.
• 1:30:01
  Final act of Gremlins Kate and Billy severe the destruction
• 1:30:04
  caused by the Gremlins and Kate reveals why she dislikes the
• 1:30:08
  whole day season with a chilling glimpse into her tragic past.
• 1:30:11
  They find the Gremlins settled in the local cinema to watch a
• 1:30:13
  Disney classic, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and they're
• 1:30:16
  loving it. Westie, what do you think of
• 1:30:19
  this thing? I think it's very convenient,
• 1:30:21
  isn't it? Oh, they're all just in one
• 1:30:23
  place. How do they know how to put the
• 1:30:26
  projector on? Yeah, let's just wrap this up
• 1:30:28
  now, shall There's loads of popcorn.
• 1:30:29
  There's none left. Striped leaves.
• 1:30:31
  We know what's going to happen. But why Snow White and the Seven
• 1:30:34
  Dwarves? Was there something?
• 1:30:36
  Well, Joe Dandy said we had to use Snow White.
• 1:30:38
  He said, first of all, it's got dwarfs in it, which is nice
• 1:30:41
  because they're small and they sing.
• 1:30:43
  But he said it's also nice because what Snow White means to
• 1:30:46
  people, it's such a sweet, nice, wonderful movie.
• 1:30:48
  And the gremlins are just so awful.
• 1:30:50
  The fact that you can watch Snow White and get such a kick out of
• 1:30:53
  it is very sunny. You love the contrast of it.
• 1:30:55
  Yeah, that's your daddy all over.
• 1:30:56
  Is it really? That's good.
• 1:30:57
  Yeah, of course it is. Totally.
• 1:30:59
  And they bring it up. They bring it up again in the
• 1:31:00
  sequel as well. They just want to watch Snow
• 1:31:02
  White and the Seven Dwarfs still running gag years later.
• 1:31:07
  I like the fact that they're all in the cinema.
• 1:31:09
  It's, it reminds me of why I stopped going to the cinema for
• 1:31:12
  a while before lockdown, because that's kind of what it turned
• 1:31:14
  into. People just fucking talk to
• 1:31:17
  Gremlins. They just bunch of bastards not
• 1:31:20
  appreciate the film. But.
• 1:31:22
  But after the Tavern, I think it wraps itself up and you can just
• 1:31:26
  think, right, OK, I've had enough of these now let's just
• 1:31:28
  start moving towards some kind of conclusion.
• 1:31:31
  And I think it does work. It does work from that point of
• 1:31:33
  view, yeah. Yeah I mean like as an ex cinema
• 1:31:35
  worker I do feel very traumatized by the scene.
• 1:31:37
  Just the amount of crap you'd be left to clean up afterwards,
• 1:31:41
  Absolutely unreal. It's basically if you did let a
• 1:31:44
  bunch of seven and eight-year old kids run, ride in the cinema
• 1:31:47
  with no adult supervision whatsoever.
• 1:31:50
  And it's just more chaos. And it's another scene where
• 1:31:52
  it's all about the details, like there's a gremlin down the phone
• 1:31:55
  who's wearing the sheriff's hat. Yeah.
• 1:31:58
  The Mickey Mouse ears. Yeah, the Mickey Mouse is one of
• 1:32:01
  the popcorn bags on his ears, one that's got the fireman's
• 1:32:03
  helmet. And there's no way you'd get
• 1:32:05
  away with this scene today, like with the Disney film.
• 1:32:09
  No way. No way would Disney let you do
• 1:32:11
  that. It's such a massive.
• 1:32:12
  Not at all with a cherished classic.
• 1:32:14
  Yeah, exactly. I don't know why it would be,
• 1:32:17
  but it does feel like a big fuck you to Disney even.
• 1:32:19
  Or probably wasn't, but that's what it kind of feels like.
• 1:32:21
  Yeah. It's that contrast between like,
• 1:32:24
  such an innocent film and the Gremlin's totally getting into
• 1:32:27
  it. They.
• 1:32:28
  Love it. They love it and our our thing.
• 1:32:30
  The scene is like this for me, this scene just takes me back to
• 1:32:32
  being a kid again. I absolutely love it.
• 1:32:34
  And then it does again. That Donde thing, it's really
• 1:32:37
  funny. But then that scene where
• 1:32:39
  they've spotted Billy and Kate and they're coming for them
• 1:32:41
  through the screen, that's really horrific.
• 1:32:43
  That's. That's a really, really
• 1:32:44
  terrifying image when they're sort of wetted against the
• 1:32:47
  cinema screen. And that that's just sort of
• 1:32:49
  typical of the film, the way it's able to just spin from one
• 1:32:51
  or the other. I think it's brilliant.
• 1:32:53
  Do you guys not think as well with this contrast that Dan is
• 1:32:56
  trying to portray that it's not very much Warner Brothers
• 1:32:59
  against Disney or Looney Tunes against the Disney vibe, how
• 1:33:02
  it's got that real schmaltzy Disney feel.
• 1:33:04
  And Gremlins feels more Warner Brothers and feels more like,
• 1:33:07
  you know, Bugs Bunny or Sylvester and Tweety.
• 1:33:08
  And it's got that, yeah. Definitely.
• 1:33:11
  Yeah, contrast between the two. I think that might be a reason
• 1:33:14
  as well. Yeah, I know it's not the most
• 1:33:16
  complex of songs, but I don't know how the Gremlins know the
• 1:33:20
  lyrics to High Hall immediately, and as soon as it fires up,
• 1:33:24
  they're singing along. I mean, they've just been born,
• 1:33:27
  so I don't know what's going on here.
• 1:33:30
  They've just been born by a mugwag getting water poured on
• 1:33:33
  it, and they've popped out of his back and he's jumped into a
• 1:33:36
  swimming pool and then burst more.
• 1:33:38
  They've just cut the brakes of a police car, fucked up some
• 1:33:41
  traffic lights. They've just fucked up the whole
• 1:33:44
  town and they've just got pissed.
• 1:33:46
  They've just killed turds and they've killed people.
• 1:33:48
  You're wondering how they know the lyrics to High Hole.
• 1:33:56
  To be fair, they pick up the Christmas carols really easily.
• 1:33:58
  When it's ideal to. You know, so they'll obviously
• 1:34:01
  read music. Really.
• 1:34:01
  Got them written there too. I really love that Christmas
• 1:34:05
  Carol bit because they've all got, like hats on and earmuffs.
• 1:34:08
  Where did they get them from? Yeah.
• 1:34:11
  All fit perfectly as. Well, they've killed the
• 1:34:12
  Christmas carolers from the earlier sequence, haven't they?
• 1:34:14
  Because they're wearing the same.
• 1:34:15
  Game. Right now, lovely.
• 1:34:17
  Well, not lovely, but you know. Lovely.
• 1:34:21
  Dead. Singers like it's all the way
• 1:34:28
  through, but these gremlins are just like eating machines.
• 1:34:31
  Nothings filling them up, everything Yum Yum.
• 1:34:33
  Whether it's a test tube or an apple or a letter or popcorn or
• 1:34:38
  anything like that. And when stripes at the popcorn
• 1:34:40
  machine and there's none left, he's gutted.
• 1:34:42
  Yeah, he's absolutely devastated that they're out of popcorn and
• 1:34:44
  then just makes it out of there over to the department store.
• 1:34:47
  Amazing how to throw the apple away as well.
• 1:34:49
  Like this is good for you. Fuck that, throw the apple.
• 1:34:51
  But yeah, you just want absolute shit.
• 1:34:55
  Yeah, brilliant. That big explosion from the
• 1:34:58
  cinema, Phoebe. Kate said.
• 1:34:59
  It singed her eyebrows and it shattered windows on a
• 1:35:02
  university building a mile away. I mean, it looks really
• 1:35:05
  impressive. It's a really good set piece.
• 1:35:07
  So with the cinema up in flames, Kate and Billy think they've
• 1:35:10
  saved the day. That is, until they see Stripe
• 1:35:13
  in the department store over the road.
• 1:35:14
  So the final showdown. Westie, what do you think of
• 1:35:17
  this? There's loads of 80s films that
• 1:35:19
  have this like department store vibe and always end up in the
• 1:35:23
  sports section, and there's always cool stuff like baseball
• 1:35:27
  bats and chainsaws and it's always so yeah, it's so much
• 1:35:30
  fun. But this is the bit for me where
• 1:35:32
  Billies just crap. He's just.
• 1:35:35
  He's a wimp, isn't? He crap, he is rubbish at every
• 1:35:40
  turn. Like he's out foxed by stripe
• 1:35:42
  every single time. And to be honest, if it wasn't
• 1:35:45
  for Gizmo driving his little Barbie car, Billy would be
• 1:35:48
  absolutely fucked because stripes like he's given birth
• 1:35:52
  almost immediately. He's just taking the piss out of
• 1:35:55
  him with a crossbow. You know, as a character, you
• 1:35:58
  want to kind of, you know, approach that a little bit
• 1:36:00
  stronger. Like he sends her off to turn
• 1:36:03
  the lights on, which she does. She succeeds in her task.
• 1:36:06
  He fails at his. But how shit is that chainsaw?
• 1:36:09
  I can't even cut a baseball back off.
• 1:36:11
  It takes no. After.
• 1:36:13
  Even after about a minute. And it's a brand new chainsaw as
• 1:36:15
  well, but still really funny. I love the the Gizmo Dr. And
• 1:36:19
  that goes back to that Clark Gable film he was watching.
• 1:36:22
  Oh. It's great that close up of his
• 1:36:24
  face when his eyes are all darting about.
• 1:36:26
  A little bit here, the dialogue from the film, like, yeah, it
• 1:36:28
  takes a great thing that's just there in the background and he's
• 1:36:31
  absolutely really loving it. And I like the fact that Stripe
• 1:36:34
  comes from behind a soft ET quickly ET.
• 1:36:37
  You got Sylvester the one side and Bugs Bunny to the other,
• 1:36:39
  which is the Warner Brothers and Spielberg tie.
• 1:36:41
  And again, but the thing, another Shining influence is
• 1:36:45
  when Stripe is on that trike, which is pretty similar to Danny
• 1:36:47
  and the Shining when he just pedals away from it, which is a
• 1:36:50
  red trike, which is again a nod to the Shining.
• 1:36:52
  So I think there's a few more in there.
• 1:36:53
  Nice. And Stripes death is both.
• 1:36:55
  I mean, you feel sorry for him and it's absolutely disgusting.
• 1:36:59
  Disgusting. That was filled that was filled
• 1:37:02
  with liquid nitrogen in that fountain and the puppeteer was
• 1:37:05
  in protective clothing, but that actually melted the puppet.
• 1:37:08
  It's. Horrible.
• 1:37:10
  It looks great. It reminds me of the the final
• 1:37:13
  sequence in Evil Dead. Yeah, where the plasticine
• 1:37:16
  models like stop motion animation started like
• 1:37:19
  disintegrate. It's really wildest stuff.
• 1:37:21
  Raiders melting faces as well. It's very similar to that.
• 1:37:23
  Similar to Naked Lunch, which you did as well.
• 1:37:25
  I think it keeps going as well, doesn't it?
• 1:37:27
  Like it doesn't stop. Yeah, it.
• 1:37:29
  Does it's? The sound design as well, I
• 1:37:31
  really love that sound design. When it starts to, it jumps out
• 1:37:35
  of the thing and then it starts to dissolve and there's like
• 1:37:38
  weird, like wow in the sound design.
• 1:37:41
  Brilliant. Terrifying stuff.
• 1:37:43
  Great sequence though. What about you, Matt?
• 1:37:45
  Oliver I think the piercing to it is really, really good.
• 1:37:48
  How it's in the couldn't like Billy just creeping around the
• 1:37:50
  department saw with round like racing back.
• 1:37:53
  To be fair, he doesn't even know he's racing back far, really.
• 1:37:55
  Does he? No, no, he's.
• 1:37:56
  Just being on for his Christmas dinner evenings, no ID.
• 1:38:00
  The amount of shit he's left behind, That's really funny.
• 1:38:05
  But like all the stuff in the department.
• 1:38:07
  So I think it works really well. I think like the editing really
• 1:38:10
  helps sell it. So like when strike force that
• 1:38:12
  saw blade that really clangs into the wall, Yeah.
• 1:38:15
  It. Does really feels like, yeah,
• 1:38:18
  yeah, like he threw that some force.
• 1:38:20
  And that's that's obviously because of the editing.
• 1:38:21
  And I think it does a really good job of making it.
• 1:38:24
  I mean, part of it is down to Billy's general crappiness, but
• 1:38:26
  it does. Shit, isn't he?
• 1:38:28
  It does help you convince that actually there is genuine peril
• 1:38:31
  here, like with a human against a puppet, but there's some
• 1:38:34
  lovely details in there. I love it when air stripe just
• 1:38:37
  pops up on the the multiple TV's.
• 1:38:39
  Brilliant. That's.
• 1:38:40
  Great love that I do know in like the kind of garden star
• 1:38:44
  part of it. There's a triffid in there from
• 1:38:45
  like the from the 60s. Made a version day of the
• 1:38:48
  Triffids. Don it.
• 1:38:49
  Would have been a huge fan of that's.
• 1:38:51
  Absolutely is like a huge fan of like old school horror movies.
• 1:38:54
  Yeah, so probably there's a triffid in there if you guys
• 1:38:57
  open for it. Yeah, just the way it builds up
• 1:38:59
  and it just bring all those characters back in together.
• 1:39:01
  So Kate gets something to do, obviously gets more serious the
• 1:39:03
  day run turns up with Barney. I think it brings it all
• 1:39:06
  together really, really well. And you mentioned there, like
• 1:39:08
  what that that final bit of stripe just melting away like
• 1:39:12
  you mentioned. Like what you think it looks
• 1:39:13
  like I was thinking reminds me of if you've seen the first
• 1:39:16
  Dracula film that Hammer made. We have that Christopher, he
• 1:39:19
  gets like fair price now. He kind of melts away.
• 1:39:22
  And again, we're talking about stuff that Dante would have
• 1:39:24
  been, would have been into. He would absolutely be massive.
• 1:39:27
  I'm a horror fan. Definitely.
• 1:39:29
  I really like what feels like the dog is set up to save the
• 1:39:32
  day. It jumps out of Ron's car and
• 1:39:34
  into the department store but then just gets freaked out by
• 1:39:38
  everything. But you mentioned it Westie.
• 1:39:40
  But that that moment where it jumps up when Gizmo goes flying
• 1:39:43
  past his? Fucking hilarious.
• 1:39:45
  Hilarious. I would imagine totally
• 1:39:47
  unintentional as well. That's really, yeah.
• 1:39:50
  Yeah, it looks it's obviously legit.
• 1:39:52
  The the dogs obviously totally freaked out by the fact that
• 1:39:55
  there's a there's a mug. Why running around?
• 1:39:58
  What the fuck is this? I think the dog's reaction all
• 1:40:00
  the way through the film should have been the human reactions
• 1:40:02
  all the way through the film. It's the only one with any
• 1:40:04
  fucking sense. Yeah, what the fuck?
• 1:40:07
  Keep that away from me. In the original end and it was
• 1:40:09
  Billy who lifts the blinds to kill Stripe, but Spielberg
• 1:40:12
  changed it so that Gizmo does it and he's the hero.
• 1:40:16
  Just further poor and misery on the fact that Billy is just
• 1:40:19
  inept in this situation. But it's it's the taunting
• 1:40:25
  stripe. Like he's on the TV, he's going
• 1:40:29
  crazy throwing things off him. He's got him backed into a
• 1:40:31
  corner shooting arrows at him. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:40:34
  Billy's about 10 times the size him.
• 1:40:36
  Just kick him. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:40:38
  Get rid of us, run at him and punch him in the face.
• 1:40:41
  Easy stuff. Did Galligan not know about that
• 1:40:44
  end until he saw the cut? And then you sit with your daddy
• 1:40:46
  and your daddy just said, whose idea do you think that was?
• 1:40:50
  He said, well, I'm not going to say anything, so I'd like to
• 1:40:51
  work for him again one day. It's obviously sphere Spielberg
• 1:40:55
  cutting him out of the last, but he's like sitting there to watch
• 1:40:57
  it. He'll go.
• 1:40:57
  He'll be a big moment. I've acted like I'd be really
• 1:41:00
  crap, but I got to kill the bad guy and now you, you don't.
• 1:41:03
  Oh for fuck's. Sake, one of the part of the
• 1:41:08
  effects that I really like in this film, and it's only used
• 1:41:11
  two times, it's the beginning of the end, is the use of matte
• 1:41:13
  paintings. I just love that Matt Paton at
• 1:41:16
  the end with Mr. Wing walking off.
• 1:41:18
  I just think that looks fantastic.
• 1:41:20
  With that voice over as well. Yeah, with the, Oh yeah, that
• 1:41:23
  voice over, which is already kind of teasing you for a
• 1:41:25
  potential scene. But I know that when they were
• 1:41:28
  putting it together, there was a technical glitch and Mr. Wing
• 1:41:31
  actually disappeared from the paint at one point.
• 1:41:33
  And they were unsure as to whether or not to leave that in
• 1:41:36
  to like, leave as a kind of like a little mystical twist at the
• 1:41:39
  end. And obviously they've left it as
• 1:41:41
  it should have been. I don't know if that would have
• 1:41:43
  been a twitch too far maybe. It would have been a touch too
• 1:41:45
  far, like. Too.
• 1:41:47
  Far too much, too late in the film.
• 1:41:50
  Whole new plot twist finished. You know what I love about this
• 1:41:55
  ending is how normal the Peltzer family is after this absolute
• 1:41:58
  horrendous tragedy that's befell the whole town.
• 1:42:02
  I think you'd like some chicken soup.
• 1:42:07
  Like people have died here. Just like, don't you on that.
• 1:42:10
  Don't you on that? And it's that speech that Wing
• 1:42:14
  gives about this is your society does this to nature.
• 1:42:17
  And I think that's it's a really strong point to hit home at the
• 1:42:20
  end. Like they're exploring some
• 1:42:21
  really deep things here. The Western society and as a as
• 1:42:25
  a whole really doesn't respect or care about values or
• 1:42:28
  traditions or rules. That's what the whole film's
• 1:42:31
  about. If you start respecting values
• 1:42:32
  and traditions and rules, then things go a little bit smoother.
• 1:42:36
  If you don't, then it ends up in this absolute nightmare.
• 1:42:38
  So I think that just that one line is is huge.
• 1:42:41
  Yeah, and I think Mr. Wing knows the truth.
• 1:42:43
  He says that maybe one day you will be able to to look after
• 1:42:47
  him. You'll be able to learn and look
• 1:42:48
  after him. He knows that that's never.
• 1:42:50
  Going to happen, but not going to say that directly to Billy
• 1:42:52
  though, who's probably got the most compassion out of everyone
• 1:42:55
  and probably the most intelligence.
• 1:42:56
  He's got compassion, but he's still stupid.
• 1:42:59
  He can't defend himself. You're easy 6 two with a
• 1:43:03
  baseball bat. Like fucking grow up.
• 1:43:09
  That is definitely the subtext of what he was saying to me.
• 1:43:12
  That is, yeah, 100%. I read that as well.
• 1:43:18
  But all's well that ends well. We're going to leave it up to
• 1:43:20
  the great man Ran Peltzer to take us out with some sage
• 1:43:23
  advice. Well, that's a story.
• 1:43:27
  So if your air conditioner goes on the Fritz, or your washing
• 1:43:30
  machine blows up, or your video recorder conks out, before you
• 1:43:35
  call the repairman, turn on all the lights.
• 1:43:39
  Check all the closets and cupboards.
• 1:43:41
  Look under all the beds because you never can tell there just
• 1:43:47
  might be a gremlin in your house.
• 1:44:12
  Reception and awards. Gremlins is a Christmas movie.
• 1:44:17
  I think we've established that already.
• 1:44:18
  Is it? Yes, we have.
• 1:44:22
  It was planned for a Christmas release, but Warren has hurried
• 1:44:24
  production and put it out in the summer because they didn't have
• 1:44:26
  a big movie to go tour to tour with the likes of Indiana Jones,
• 1:44:29
  The Temple of Doom, Ghostbusters.
• 1:44:32
  In fact, Gremlins was released on the same day as Ghostbusters
• 1:44:34
  as well. An amazing Bang Bang.
• 1:44:36
  Can you imagine that that weekend at the Flicks?
• 1:44:39
  I'd be amazing now wouldn't. It it did better in New York or
• 1:44:41
  didn't it, Gremlins, because of all the disruptions that
• 1:44:44
  Ghostbusters caused filming in New York.
• 1:44:45
  That's right, the streets down. So everyone want to see all
• 1:44:47
  right, said fuck you guys. Who you going to call?
• 1:44:52
  Gremlins on an $11 million budget.
• 1:44:59
  It returned a very handsome $212.9 million today's money.
• 1:45:03
  That would be roughly 533 million.
• 1:45:05
  Pretty good. Pretty good.
• 1:45:07
  It was the 4th highest grossing film of the year behind Beverly
• 1:45:10
  Hills Cop, Ghostbusters, and Temple of Doom.
• 1:45:12
  Joe Dante summarized this simply by saying I still have no idea
• 1:45:16
  why the picture was successful, and I don't either.
• 1:45:19
  I don't know why audiences bought this confused tone.
• 1:45:22
  Shouldn't have. Really should though.
• 1:45:24
  It was a hit at the Saturn Awards in 1985.
• 1:45:26
  It picked up statues for best horror film, best director, best
• 1:45:29
  supporting actress, best music and best special effects.
• 1:45:32
  Critical reception at the time was a little mixed.
• 1:45:35
  Leonard Moulton said that the film is negated by too vivid
• 1:45:38
  violence and mayhem. It's an easy criticism, isn't?
• 1:45:41
  It not vivid enough. Actually, it was two out of four
• 1:45:44
  his review and a little tongue in cheek jokey shows up in
• 1:45:49
  gremlins to seeing how putrid it was and stuff like that.
• 1:45:53
  That's. Right, he does not go.
• 1:45:54
  About it. Nice little touch Variety, said
• 1:45:56
  the humans a little more than dress extras for the mechanics.
• 1:46:00
  And Gene Siskel, on the positive side, said a wickedly funny and
• 1:46:04
  slightly sick ride summed it up beautifully.
• 1:46:07
  Wow. Didn't give anyone's address
• 1:46:11
  away at this time. No, that's a reference to a
• 1:46:18
  Patreon podcast that we did a couple of weeks ago.
• 1:46:20
  You're missing out on that one. So sign up.
• 1:46:22
  That's what you say in Western, yeah.
• 1:46:23
  I think so, yeah. From a contemporary critical
• 1:46:27
  standpoint, Gremlins has an 85% rate on Rotten Tomatoes and a
• 1:46:30
  score of 7.3 out of 10 on IMDb. Unexpected success and welcome
• 1:46:34
  press for Gremlins. Richly deserved in our opinion.
• 1:46:37
  Yes, absolutely. Sequels and influence.
• 1:46:45
  The success of Gremlins LED to a number of horror comedy creature
• 1:46:48
  features in the 80s, including things like Troll, Googlies and
• 1:46:51
  Critters. Also, 90s Scottish rock band Mug
• 1:46:54
  White took their name from the film as well.
• 1:46:56
  Those fellas are big fans. Six years after the film's
• 1:46:59
  released, we've got a sequel, Gremlins to the new Batch.
• 1:47:03
  Released in 1998. It's got a 71% rating on Rotten
• 1:47:06
  Tomatoes. 6.4 and IMDb directed the game by Joe Dandy, who said
• 1:47:10
  that he prefers the sequel to the original.
• 1:47:12
  Dandy is a fan, are you fellas? I do have a what was a slightly
• 1:47:16
  traumatic story at the time when it came out.
• 1:47:18
  Obviously, I was. Lovely like.
• 1:47:23
  Because I was so obsessed with the first one, I was just
• 1:47:25
  unbelievably excited for the sequel.
• 1:47:28
  And this was in the days where you couldn't pre book your
• 1:47:30
  tickets. He had to turn up on the day for
• 1:47:32
  the screening and queue outside and the local cinema near me, it
• 1:47:37
  just went queuing down the street in the piss and rain.
• 1:47:39
  And I was with me mum. She said she would take us.
• 1:47:42
  We got to the front and she looked up and she went oh, this
• 1:47:45
  is a 12. And the woman behind the car
• 1:47:47
  went yeah, she went oh he's 10, he can't go in.
• 1:47:49
  Oh no. No.
• 1:47:53
  What are you thinking? She wasn't going to ask.
• 1:47:56
  My age I was so, so good at. That's romantic.
• 1:48:00
  It is to my version of Kate's story, I think.
• 1:48:03
  Yeah, that explains a lot. But I must have moaned about it
• 1:48:09
  because like a couple of months later, my sister's boyfriend
• 1:48:12
  managed to get hold of like a pirated copy of it, basically,
• 1:48:15
  and he bought it around just for us.
• 1:48:17
  There was a happy ending to it eventually.
• 1:48:19
  And as a film, I do really like it.
• 1:48:21
  I like the kind of spoofy nature of it.
• 1:48:23
  I like a lot of the meta humor that's in there.
• 1:48:26
  I think the designs for the new Gremlins are brilliant, that
• 1:48:29
  variety they've got in there. I think it's incredible.
• 1:48:31
  On the negative side though, because there's so much at it,
• 1:48:34
  it does feel a little messy as a film.
• 1:48:36
  It is, yeah. You definitely don't have the
• 1:48:38
  tightness of the original, and I don't think it's as dark as the
• 1:48:41
  original either. It's not no, no.
• 1:48:43
  So I would have to differ from Joe Dante's opinion, but I still
• 1:48:46
  really like it. Misty, do you like it?
• 1:48:49
  I do like it, you know, and I think this is probably one of
• 1:48:51
  the only sequels that I could argue is as good, not better,
• 1:48:55
  not worse than the first one. It's just on a par.
• 1:48:58
  OK, it's a different take, but it's still just as good.
• 1:49:02
  And I know what Matt's saying. It is a little bit disjointed.
• 1:49:05
  It is a bit all over there, but it's got some really wonderful
• 1:49:07
  bits in it, the same as the first one.
• 1:49:09
  It's got some really wonderful, but Christopher Lee, and this is
• 1:49:12
  man, pendantly good, Excellent. Hands it right up.
• 1:49:15
  Excellent. Gizmo as Rambo, brilliant.
• 1:49:18
  You've got like the bat Gremlin, you've got the spider Gremlin,
• 1:49:22
  and I think that's what makes it better because they don't try to
• 1:49:24
  be something from the first one and it becomes incredibly meta,
• 1:49:27
  especially in the middle. You've got that appearance from
• 1:49:30
  Hulk Hogan where he's kind of like interrupting the whole
• 1:49:32
  film. Ridiculous.
• 1:49:33
  It is ridiculous. I mean, if you watch it again,
• 1:49:35
  you just think Jesus, but in the cinema, that's what this was
• 1:49:38
  made for. It was made for the theatre
• 1:49:40
  audience, and that's what I love about that.
• 1:49:41
  But there's just as much fun going on here as there isn't the
• 1:49:44
  first one. Yeah, I've recently rewatched
• 1:49:46
  and I was a little bit disappointed.
• 1:49:48
  I was expecting because I knew it had a positive reception.
• 1:49:50
  I was expecting it to be as good.
• 1:49:52
  It fell short for me. I thought it was just a little
• 1:49:55
  bit too slapstick, and I think it's thick and fast with gags,
• 1:49:59
  which I don't think land anywhere near as effectively as
• 1:50:02
  the first one. I do think there are definitely
• 1:50:05
  far too many gremlins in it this time around.
• 1:50:09
  They should have taken some out. It's really effective.
• 1:50:11
  But the gremlins, the disfigurement of them and all
• 1:50:14
  that kind of stuff really made my skin crawl in this.
• 1:50:17
  I was watching it, I felt itchy watching it.
• 1:50:20
  Awful. See, I quite like that.
• 1:50:21
  But decent Christopher Lee, you can't go wrong, can you?
• 1:50:24
  Not a nice script. There has been talk of the third
• 1:50:27
  in storm of quite some time. It's one of those have been off
• 1:50:30
  and on forever. Chris Columbus said in 2012 that
• 1:50:32
  it was impossible to recreate it in a CGI environment and it
• 1:50:36
  would inevitably lose its charm. But five years later, he'd
• 1:50:40
  written a script and it said it was twisted and dark, something
• 1:50:43
  that he was really proud of. Then a couple of years ago, he
• 1:50:46
  said the third installment would be a straight reboot.
• 1:50:49
  The last report saying that it was under development of Warner.
• 1:50:51
  So it is listed on IMDb, but just no date of when it's going
• 1:50:56
  to come out or what it is actually going to be.
• 1:50:59
  Another question from one of our patrons, this time, Dean Jones.
• 1:51:02
  He says there's been talk of Gremlins three since forever.
• 1:51:05
  Is this something that we would look forward to or is it best
• 1:51:08
  left alone? He enjoyed the spoofy tone of
• 1:51:11
  the second one. So Westie, you want to see a
• 1:51:13
  third Gremlins? I think it would be great.
• 1:51:15
  You can't really go wrong, can you?
• 1:51:16
  I mean, you just just the more of the same slapstick dark
• 1:51:20
  humour with these little things causing as much damage as
• 1:51:23
  possible to as many different things as possible.
• 1:51:25
  I think if you update it to the culture we're in today and the
• 1:51:29
  cliches that we're in today, I think you've got an absolute
• 1:51:31
  smorgasboard of stuff to explore.
• 1:51:33
  I think it could be really, really fun.
• 1:51:35
  I'd love to see what they would do with it.
• 1:51:37
  I did hear there was a series coming out next year which is
• 1:51:41
  Gremlins Secrets of the Mogwai. Yeah, that's right.
• 1:51:44
  That's animated, isn't it? Yeah, it is.
• 1:51:46
  It's a prequel. Which is a prequel, which
• 1:51:48
  explores kind of the history of it and where Gizmo came from and
• 1:51:51
  that type of thing, which will be quite interesting.
• 1:51:53
  But I would, yeah, I would love to see Spielberg, Dante
• 1:51:57
  Columbus, everyone back together and just, you know.
• 1:52:00
  Gallagher. Well.
• 1:52:02
  Straight back in. There well and just saying, you
• 1:52:04
  know, Phoebe Cates, maybe Gallagher, well see maybe a
• 1:52:07
  cameo role. Yeah, what about you, Matt?
• 1:52:11
  Yeah, I agree. Because fundamentally it's not a
• 1:52:14
  film that's dependent on anyone particular character that, you
• 1:52:17
  know, you'd have to worry about them getting the character
• 1:52:19
  right. There's no particular mythology
• 1:52:21
  you'd have to worry about. You know they're going to mess
• 1:52:23
  up. Well, they don't care about that
• 1:52:25
  in the first well. Exactly.
• 1:52:27
  There's barely any rules. That are addictive.
• 1:52:30
  So like fundamentally, yeah, you could take it in so many
• 1:52:33
  different directions. You could, you could have them
• 1:52:35
  like running loose in like a theme park or something like
• 1:52:37
  that or across Disneyland. WBL's Cop 3.
• 1:52:42
  If you have these running riot in like a film studio, you know,
• 1:52:46
  where they're trying to do different films, you've got
• 1:52:48
  cameos from a Lords of big time actors, you know, I think it
• 1:52:51
  would be so much fun. I think the key thing for me
• 1:52:53
  would be, though, getting that torn right?
• 1:52:56
  It has to have that same spirit, that same kind of sense of
• 1:52:59
  anarchy in chaos. If they brought it back and it
• 1:53:01
  was softened, it just wouldn't work at all.
• 1:53:03
  Yeah, I think that's my concern as well.
• 1:53:06
  I just don't know how this would be adapted for a modern
• 1:53:08
  audience. I don't think it would be as
• 1:53:10
  uncompromising. I don't think it would have the
• 1:53:13
  bite of the original. I'm not crying out for a Gremlin
• 1:53:17
  3 to be honest. No, no I'm not.
• 1:53:18
  Would have to be something really shocking and at the same
• 1:53:22
  time funny, which I guess the time might have passed.
• 1:53:25
  I think 1984 was probably the perfect time to do that.
• 1:53:27
  Yeah, particularly those creative guys, Chris Columbus,
• 1:53:31
  Joe Dandy, Steven Spielberg. It's 35 years later, 3637 years
• 1:53:37
  later. I just don't know if they'll be
• 1:53:39
  in the right place. No, to be able to bring that
• 1:53:43
  spirit to it. Yeah.
• 1:53:44
  It's be the likes of like JJ Abrams and Edgar Wright and be
• 1:53:48
  them kind of guys to get a hold of it and make something of it.
• 1:53:51
  Yeah, yeah. Well, we're unsure if the third
• 1:53:53
  installment would hit the mark, but if you can't get enough of
• 1:53:56
  Gizmo and his Mugwai friends, you've got that animated series
• 1:53:59
  to look forward to next year. Yep.
• 1:54:04
  All right, you need be the ranking.
• 1:54:07
  Like a wonderful present on Christmas Day, we're going to
• 1:54:09
  unwrap our final thoughts on Gremlins in our final segment of
• 1:54:12
  the podcast. Matt, could you give us your
• 1:54:14
  summary and score for Gremlins? Gremlins feels like a film that
• 1:54:18
  is just been tailor made for me. The sense of humour in the film
• 1:54:22
  is exactly the kind of stuff I find really funny.
• 1:54:26
  The effects work is incredible. It's exactly the kind of
• 1:54:30
  practical effect work as well that I just really, really love.
• 1:54:33
  But it's more than that. All of the story behind it, I
• 1:54:36
  think there's some incredible set pieces in here.
• 1:54:39
  There are some really good performances in here.
• 1:54:41
  There's some fantastic bits of dialogue sprinkled throughout.
• 1:54:44
  And the whole thing still feels very, very unique.
• 1:54:48
  And it also feels timeless. You know, this is film that's
• 1:54:50
  believed by our generation, and I know I've passed it on to the
• 1:54:53
  next generation when I've introduced to my son and I know
• 1:54:56
  he loves it just as much as I do.
• 1:54:58
  There are, you know, some things to criticize about it.
• 1:55:01
  The the kind of three rules at the beginning get thrown out of
• 1:55:03
  the window pretty quickly. Immediately.
• 1:55:06
  As we've discussed, Billy is not the most heroic central figure
• 1:55:09
  you could hope for in a film like this.
• 1:55:12
  But these are criticisms where to me, I don't care that much
• 1:55:15
  because the film as a whole I just find so incredibly
• 1:55:18
  entertaining from beginning to end.
• 1:55:21
  It's become a very personal film for me.
• 1:55:23
  It is one that I do hold very dear to me.
• 1:55:26
  It is in my list of all time favourites so for me, yes it has
• 1:55:30
  its floors but I don't care so it's a 10.
• 1:55:34
  Wow, wow. All right.
• 1:55:35
  Surprises. Surprises every episode, Matt.
• 1:55:39
  I'll try my best. What about you, Wesley?
• 1:55:42
  OK, the sentimentality isn't attached to this.
• 1:55:46
  For me. I was checking out different
• 1:55:47
  films. I'd seen this one and it kind of
• 1:55:50
  just appeared and disappeared. I enjoyed it, didn't immediately
• 1:55:54
  love it when I first saw it, but again, I never revisited it.
• 1:55:57
  It wasn't part of my, you know, routine as as a Christmas film
• 1:56:01
  or it didn't sit as something that I would revisit and be
• 1:56:04
  excited to revisit. If it was on, I would watch it.
• 1:56:06
  It was. It didn't take all the boxes
• 1:56:08
  with me as it does with Matt, but having said that, it is
• 1:56:12
  incredibly fun and there's not enough films out there that are
• 1:56:16
  this much fun that have this much confidence in the craft.
• 1:56:20
  It's very Spielberg, it's very dandy, it's very Columbus, it's
• 1:56:24
  very good. So I'm going to give it 8 out of
• 1:56:27
  10 for its fun factor and for the fact that it that it was
• 1:56:31
  made and it was made to this level, it is great.
• 1:56:34
  Anything more than that I'll be robbing myself.
• 1:56:36
  So sorry Matt mate, but it's going to be an 8 for me.
• 1:56:39
  Got to be true to yourself. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:56:41
  That's. Fine.
• 1:56:42
  I'm not sure, Dante. I'm not going to take it
• 1:56:43
  personally. If he's listening, though, he
• 1:56:47
  might take it personally. That's fucking furious.
• 1:56:53
  Like we've been saying throughout, I do get a load of
• 1:56:56
  joy from watching Gremlins and it's genuinely laugh out loud
• 1:56:59
  funny. Very, very good.
• 1:57:02
  The darkness in the film and the effects work is what I love the
• 1:57:04
  most about it. Just a joy to watch.
• 1:57:07
  Really solid performances, great concept and script and Joe Dandy
• 1:57:11
  firing on all cylinders. You mentioned the maths but it
• 1:57:14
  didn't have an impact on your score.
• 1:57:16
  But the holes in the rules from a screenplay point of view do
• 1:57:19
  annoy me a little bit. And I really can't get away with
• 1:57:22
  those Spielberg references throughout the film.
• 1:57:24
  Just unnecessary from a storytelling point of view.
• 1:57:27
  Just in my opinion. I just prefer the word in there.
• 1:57:30
  Spielberg's got his place in the production, he was instrumental
• 1:57:33
  in bringing it all together. Just fails for me.
• 1:57:34
  A little out of place and unnecessary a little.
• 1:57:36
  Bit self-righteous as well I guess.
• 1:57:38
  A. Little bit, little bit.
• 1:57:40
  So my score for the film is going to be a nine out of 10
• 1:57:42
  straight down in the middle. OK.
• 1:57:44
  Our ever growing Twitter fans have been voting on Gremlins as
• 1:57:47
  well of course. A few highlights from the
• 1:57:49
  comments. Carl Rorschach 2022 at C4 RL
• 1:57:54
  under score 2022 said I was 12 and Gremlins was a 15
• 1:57:58
  certificate here. I imagine he means in the UK and
• 1:58:01
  we sneaked in to see it, he said.
• 1:58:04
  He also said that I managed to get the first video copy from
• 1:58:06
  Variety Video 2 when it came out.
• 1:58:09
  Variety Video. So evocative.
• 1:58:11
  Fantastic, got. Everything you need in there.
• 1:58:14
  Love it so, he said. For me it's always a 10 out of
• 1:58:18
  10 all. Right.
• 1:58:19
  Very nice Carl. Lovely that Mason boy at that
• 1:58:23
  Mason boy said the only bad thing about Gremlins is that
• 1:58:26
  there isn't more of them. Obviously he's not a studio
• 1:58:29
  executive. Warners No.
• 1:58:31
  Does he mean actual gremlins or gremlins films?
• 1:58:35
  Because there's loads. Of that's ambiguous and he also
• 1:58:39
  says and now have that theme tune in my head, which can be
• 1:58:42
  both good and irritating. I love it.
• 1:58:45
  Yeah, it's been in my head for the last four hours.
• 1:58:47
  Yeah, on a slightly negative point, Rob Crewis at Rob Crewis
• 1:58:53
  said pure novelty film that honestly is not very good.
• 1:58:56
  A7 is generous. How do you feel about that,
• 1:58:58
  Matt? Furious.
• 1:59:03
  So on the Twitter poll, Gremlins averaged out with the score of.
• 1:59:08
  Average per I'd say an 8. Yeah, I reckon on average it'll
• 1:59:11
  be. I don't think many people rated
• 1:59:13
  as highly as I do as RTN 8 as well.
• 1:59:15
  Oh, nailed it again. 8 out of 10.
• 1:59:19
  Yeah, well done. So combining our votes in the
• 1:59:22
  score from Twitter, Gremlins has a total score of 35 out of 40.
• 1:59:25
  Still strong. Yeah, strong.
• 1:59:27
  Yeah, absolutely. Go to
• 1:59:29
  alltherightmovies.com/leaderboard to check out our ranking table
• 1:59:33
  of the films that were covered on the podcast.
• 1:59:35
  As we mentioned at the top, for more of the kind of world class
• 1:59:38
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• 1:59:41
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• 1:59:45
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• 1:59:46
  community building over there. And a special shout out to the
• 1:59:49
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• 1:59:52
  They are Adam Cowie, Adam Yates, Kayaks Clough, Damien Lennox,
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• 2:00:00
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• 2:00:03
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• 2:00:07
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• 2:00:11
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• 2:00:15
  and David Quartz. Nice.
• 2:00:18
  Wonderful expanded list. Great guys.
• 2:00:21
  Yeah. Lovely, lovely.
• 2:00:22
  We're all off the Dory's Tavern for a good old Christmas
• 2:00:24
  singsong. Not me, It's a Christmas film.
• 2:00:32
  For all show notes, credits and references that we use in the
• 2:00:34
  production of the podcast, you can visit
• 2:00:35
  alltherightmovies.com/gremlins. Join us next time in all the
• 2:00:39
  right Movies when John, Matt, Pi, Westy and me are bringing
• 2:00:43
  you an extra special Christmas bonanza when we rank the Top 10
• 2:00:46
  Alternative Christmas Films. Lovely.
• 2:00:48
  We're going to have a Christmas party there.
• 2:00:50
  Socially distance, of course. Of course.
• 2:00:51
  Yeah, should have put this one in there.
• 2:00:55
  It's going up, please, that's. Your opinion man?
• 2:00:59
  We did the top 10 Christmas films last year and that's in
• 2:01:02
  our archive, so sign up to Patreon to listen to that as
• 2:01:05
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• 2:01:07
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• 2:01:09
  We're obviously on Spotify, Google Podcasts, everywhere.
• 2:01:12
  Really. Our content doesn't stop the
• 2:01:14
  podcast either. We've got a ton of really great
• 2:01:16
  articles going up on our website regularly.
• 2:01:18
  So go to alltherightmovies.com for some very insightful
• 2:01:22
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• 2:01:23
  Great stuff on. That our Facebook page is
• 2:01:25
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• 2:01:28
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• 2:01:30
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• 2:01:32
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• 2:01:36
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• 2:01:38
  Yep. As ever on Twitter we are at
• 2:01:40
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• 2:01:43
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• 2:01:46
  We will be back in two weeks. Everybody hope you have a great
• 2:01:49
  December. Yep, have fun guys.
• 2:01:52
  Bye, Bailey. What the fuck was that to shoot
• 2:01:57
  yourself? He has something to say to you.
• 2:02:24
  You're easy Six too with a baseball bat.
• 2:02:26
  Like fucking grow up.