Evening, kids.
How about a trip down memory lane? After all, hasn't that become a de facto theme to this site? I breakdown something we've all forgotten about while giving you a personal anecdote? On board? Good? Great. Let's do this. Today's Xmas Xception is Gremlins, a film like no other.
If you are roughly my age, there's a strong chance this movie gave you a serious case of the creeps when you were young. It was terrifying despite being oh so appealing to the youth market. Gremlins was part of that microgenre that blends horror and comedy in a subtle way. Ghostbusters was another prime example, as was the modern iteration, Shaun of the Dead. How could kids not get suckered in by the adorable Gizmo - voiced by Howie Mandel, nonetheless. Still, you break those three inscrutable, arbitrary rules and all Hell breaks loose. Nothing seemed safe as a kid after that. The little monsters were so devious! So malicious! The original draft of the screenplay was even darker, with decapitations and animal mutilations abound. Nasty stuff, eh? Of particular note was the over the top gore of the finale when a melting gremlin becomes a horrendous, dripping mess. It broke my mind as a kid. Hey, as an adult it still elicits a visceral reaction from me. Pretty killer Christmas movie, huh?
Oh, what's that? You forgot Gremlins was a Christmas movie? That's right, world. This nasty little staple of 80s horror was planted squarely in the midst of yule tide madness. I found myself forgetting that fact, only to see a clip of the movie online and I recalled all the snow and realized "Oh man, I have to watch that again! I haven't seen it in years!" Well, by a bit of serendipity that actually happened to me last Christmas. There had been some conflicts with my Christmas arrangements last year, and I ended up spending the holiday here in Minnesota while my better half saw her family in Arizona. I had to be back at the office the next day, so when I got back to my place in Uptown I grabbed my mail and headed upstairs. There, in a now defunct Netflix envelope, was Gremlins. By some excellent coincidence my DVD queue had synced up perfectly with me being all alone after Christmas. So I did what any twentysomething would do - popped it in and cracked a bottle of wine.
It was awesome.
Gremlins was cathartic and mischievous, a fantastic way to vent after the stress of the holiday. A little Cabernet Sauvingon didn't hurt either, but hey! Monsters terrorizing the town and ruining Christmas! What better way to indulge my inner (but most likely outer) child! While obviously dated and intentionally hokey and B-movie-esque at times, it still held up really, really well. I had a lot of fun poking through the memories of my previous experiences watching this movie and being do damned scared. Sounds like good holiday fun!
How about a trip down memory lane? After all, hasn't that become a de facto theme to this site? I breakdown something we've all forgotten about while giving you a personal anecdote? On board? Good? Great. Let's do this. Today's Xmas Xception is Gremlins, a film like no other.
Gremlins was cathartic and mischievous, a fantastic way to vent after the stress of the holiday. A little Cabernet Sauvingon didn't hurt either, but hey! Monsters terrorizing the town and ruining Christmas! What better way to indulge my inner (but most likely outer) child! While obviously dated and intentionally hokey and B-movie-esque at times, it still held up really, really well. I had a lot of fun poking through the memories of my previous experiences watching this movie and being do damned scared. Sounds like good holiday fun!
