Jerry Goldsmith – yadadarcyyada

When you think of Christmas movies, Gremlins probably doesn’t spring to mind. Yet this 1984 horror comedy is a Christmas movie.
Despite the fact that Gizmo was cute and the movie had massive marketing of toys, video games, etc. this is not a cuddly Christmas movie; not for children or those disturbed by violence and graphic scenes.

GREMLINS bits and pieces:

Howie Mandel did the voice of Gizmo, the Mogwai.

Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) 1943 book, The Gremlins influenced the director, Joe Dante.

During World War II, aircraft mechanical failures were jokingly blamed on gremlins or small creatures.

A WWII era Bugs Bunny cartoon had Bugs harassed and battling a gremlin on an airplane.

In Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, a 1963 William Shatner Twilight Zone episode he sees a gremlin on the wing of the plane trying to destroy it. There’s…something…on…the…wing!!!John Lithgow re-enacted it in Twilight Zone: The Movie then he and Shatner referenced the scenes when they were together as Father and Son on 3rd Rock From The Sun.

In The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror IV, Terror at 5 1/2 Feet, a gremlin attacks the school bus…

Look at the set for Kingston Falls closely, it’s the same one they used as Hill Valley in the Back to the Future movies.

There was never supposed to be a Mogwai named Stripe. Gizmo was to turned into Stripe, but Gizmo was so cute they’d keep him around for the whole film.Gremlins and Indiana Jones: The Temple of Doom were so violent the ratings were changed, on the suggestion of Steven Spielberg, and the PG-13 rating was created.

Howie Mandel learned to say “Bright light!” in several languages so he could dub the movie in various countries and do appearances and promos.

When Billy is walking by the movie marquee we see the titles A Boy’s Life which was the original title for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Watch the Skies which was the working title for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Spielberg loves to put this stuff for movie buffs.

Steven Spielberg did a rare cameo as the man with the broken leg riding recumbent bicycle. His suitcase says SS Enterprises.

Merry Christmas and remember, if you get a Mogwai as a gift:
1. Never expose it to bright light;
2. Never get it wet;
3. Never, ever feed it after midnight.

Over 30 years later and I wondered if I still would like Poltergeist.

I did.

I still got chills.

I know there have been creepier, more gruesome and violence horrors films since, but nothing will replace this spooky classic.

The reboot of this film series is set to come out in 2014 or 2015. I can’t see how or why they would redo this.

After all, Family Guy did such a fantastic parody in 2006 (Season 4, episode 26) with Petergeist, it was almost difficult to watch the real Poltergeist without giggling. I’ll never look at clowns the same way again.

The plot is like any good fairy tale, a young girl is the unwitting cause her family’s trauma and they do anything to help her; showing that love conquers all.

Does anyone remember the Poltergeist curse? Fuelled by real skeletons being used in the climatic scene, as well as Dominique Dunne’s murder, Heather O’Rourke’s death, and several other incidents the legend of the curse grew, which equals great publicity.

There were 2 more in this series.

2nd was bad, the 3rd horrible.

So the only real curse was trying to milk a series, gee, not like Spielberg’s ever done that …cough, Indiana Jones, cough, Jurassic Park, cough, cough.

Note, no one died in this movie, not one character, even the family dog, E-Buzz survived (I don’t think we can count the canary at the beginning).

And they still scared us silly.