Gremlins

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:28):
Welcome to another horrifying episode of Bill and Ashley's Terror
Theater on the Marquee. This week is nineteen eighty four's Gremlins.
Join us right after we get back from not caring
that these creatures we never heard of before speak English
all that after these ads we have no control over.
Welcome back. I'm Ashley Coffin, joined as always by my

(00:51):
co host and Terror Bill Bria Bill Darling.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
How are we today?

Speaker 3 (00:55):
Hey, ash I'm doing pretty good and I think we
have some terror theater fans outside the studio today. Hey,
you're not terror theater vans who We're gonna turn the
hoses out of. No, that's a terrible idea. Don't do
do it.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
I guess that listeners can guess what move we're doing
after I know I just said it. But first we
have to consult an ecronomicon because there's a little bit
of news that we have to conjure up.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
What do you got, Well, unfortunately, some more sad news
from the land of passed away slasher villains of yesteryear.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
The actor who played.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
Russ Thorne in the nineteen eighty two classic The Slumber
Party Massacre.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Michael of villeya or Villela.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
I'm sorry if I'm just pronouncing that he's passed away
at the age of eighty four this past week. And unfortunately, yeah,
his organs failed and he passed away in the hospital
after spending a month there. So very sorry to hear that.
But he is great in Amy Holden Jones's The Slumber
Party Massacre, So if you haven't seen that yet, hope.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
I endure that.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Hopefully we'll something about that one.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yeah, of course we will.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
He was also in the movies Love Letters, Something called
Gotham from nineteen eighty eight, a couple of erotic thrillers
from the late eighties early nineties, Wild Orchid and Wild
Orchid two, Two Shades of Blue.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Wow, and uh yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
He also did a lot of TV guest spots, like
on shows like Amazing Stories and Getting Away with Murder,
And you know, it's it's interesting because like unlike other
slasher you know, franchises and Villain's Lubber Party Massacre never
really used the same killer twice, even though they used
the same weapon, you know, so it was never necessarily

(02:35):
like a character that it was always coming back.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
But what one gets a little wild with like electric guitars.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Is that for that's two?

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Oh that's too.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, love it, ye love the guy. Guy wos great,
it's great, it's great.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
So yeah, so it's it's it's you know, an interesting
legacy to have, but you know, the guy gave it
as all. He had a quote when he did an
interview in twenty thirteen where when he was playing the role,
he said, I used a lot of my techniques that
I learned from Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, things like animalizations
and portrait exercises. And he talks a lot about his process,

(03:10):
you know, creating the character as an actor for the
commentary track on the Blu ray or four K, now,
because there is a four K and it is interesting
if you keep that in mind when you watch it again,
you can definitely see him playing this guy in a
very animalistic way.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
So you know he he gave some signature sauce to it.
So props Michael Rip.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah, eighty four, that's a good year. I feel like
the last couple people I've heard about passing away have
been like sixty two, and I'm like, no, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
At least he lived a pretty full life and you know,
got to portray something iconic during his career, which is
all an actor needs to have a legacy. And speaking
of legacy, this is just something I wanted to put
on the radar in terms of maybe who knows, maybe
we'll talk about it, maybe we won't. But there is

(04:02):
a documentary from Uncorked Entertainment that will be released on
January seventh of twenty twenty five, directed by Brandon Salisbury,
entitled George A. Romero's Resident Evil. So if you know
anything about the development of the Resident Evil movie, originally
Constantin Film, which was the production company that got the
rights to the Japanese Biohazard series of games, video games

(04:25):
that were very popular during well they still are, but
certainly you know, started during the nineties. They first hired
George A. Romero to try and adapt them to the
big screen, and you know, there was a lot of
I mean, some people are comparing this. They haven't seen
the documentary yet, but some people are saying it might
be another Yodorowski's Dune where it's like, you know, this

(04:46):
unrealized vision of a cinematic genius that you know was
going to be the best thing ever and now we'll
never get to see it. I don't know if it's
going to be that much, but apparently there's going to
be a lot of candid interviews with industry insiders as
well as maybe a couple of people that were involved
with the production of this movie that never happened.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
So we'll see.

Speaker 3 (05:06):
It could be it could be nothing, you know, it
could just be a bunch of talking heads talking about well,
you know, I heard from George one day in the hallway,
like maybe it was gonna be this, or or it
could be juicy, you know, it could be you know,
there might be a lot of really good stuff in it,
because Romero did not pull punches as an artist, you
know when he came when it comes to dealing with
corporate people in the suits and you know, trying to

(05:26):
get his vision out there.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
So who knows.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
It's it's kind of a missing link or missing piece
to his career if you're a fan of his, as
I am, and we are, so it could be something
worth checking out when it comes.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
Out in January.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
Those things just make me angry because I just wish
I could have had it, you.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, But that's.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
Like, like, of all the people to do a resident
evil right of course it should have been him, because
the first one was just so disappointing, and you're like,
just do the first video game.

Speaker 3 (05:51):
Right, Well, yeah, and if it was going to be
a translation of that first video game, obviously Romero would
be the best person to do it. But who knows,
maybe he had you already, you know, at that point,
was probably thinking of doing whatever he was going to
do with Land of the Dead, you know, years later,
as well as Diary and Survival, which you know, if
you've watched those movies, they are fairly different from his

(06:13):
original Dead trilogy, you know, in terms of tone or Yeah,
so you know, maybe he was already kind of thinking
about doing his own thing at that point, and maybe
that's what the suits were not happy with. They were like, no,
just make it more like the game. Who knows, I
don't know. We haven't seen the document but we'll. Maybe
you have to check it out.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
Jumping in with documentaries. I know this isn't new news,
but I just watched the Jharr virus on Shutter about this.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yes, it was so good.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
It was really really good. They had the actress who
plays Sumara or whatever in the Uh in the ring
and she she's this adorable woman and she's just talking
about the acting, and she's like, and this is what
I did when I was in character. And when she
flipped her hair up and started doing the hand stuff,
I was like, get off my DV. It was so

(06:59):
she's still, oh got it, let's just put it that way.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
But yeah, it was really cool.

Speaker 2 (07:04):
I enjoyed it.

Speaker 3 (07:05):
Yeah, you gotta be careful watching somewhere on your TV
and never know if it's dude.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
I almost like, get back doing that with your hands.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
Stop the handstuff. Do it.

Speaker 3 (07:14):
The last thing I wanted to mention is just I,
you know, being a citizen of Los Angeles and in
the film industry circle, I was able to me and
I don't know how were many other people were there.
We got to see it early screening of this new
movie called Companion, which is being released by New Lanth
Cinema on January thirty first of twenty twenty five. So

(07:37):
we saw that as of this recording like two weeks ago,
and it's pretty damn good.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
Ghosts.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
It's is it ghosts? It is not ghosts.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
They don't want us to give away any spoilers, you know,
they're trying to Okay they're trying to do like it's
what's inside where it's like, don't even give away the premise,
but I will say it is not just horror. It's
you know, there's there's a little bit of sci fi
in there. There's a little bit of obviously like romantic drama,
you know, or sexual politics, you know, aspect grown in there.

(08:11):
But yeah, it's It's written and directed by Drew Hancock
and produced by the people that made Barbarian, you know,
Zach Krieger, the director, and a few other folks, And
it's starring the new horror it girl, Sophie Thatcher, who
I have loved and everything I've seen here so far,
like Heretic was great, and of course I liked her
in boogey Man, even though I didn't love that movie.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
But this is the role.

Speaker 3 (08:34):
I think that people will start to like ping her
on and be like, oh right, Sophie Thatcher. You know,
I think that if this hits, they're gonna know, like, Okay,
that's the new it girl for horror in the same
way that you know, Jenny Ortega was you know this
couple of years ago, or Melissabrero, you know, any of
these other gals who are up and coming.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
So, okay, I recognized her. I had to look her up. Yeah, yeah,
she's got angry girl face.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
She does.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
And jack Blade isn't it again with her? You probably,
I don't know if you did you get to see Heretic?

Speaker 2 (09:04):
I did not.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
Okay, Oh she's in yellow jackets and okay, when she's
in Book of Boba fet okay.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
Okay, yeah, so's Yeah, she's been around for a while.

Speaker 3 (09:15):
But yeah, I think Companion will be what I would
consider like her breakout. You know, it's not her debut obviously. Okay,
that's the one that might you know, get people.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
Did you like Heretic?

Speaker 2 (09:24):
I loved it?

Speaker 3 (09:25):
Yeah, okay, I'm a big fan of Becken Woods. I
know that some people are hot and cold on them,
but you know, obviously quiet place, you know, as a
concept is just lovely, which is fun for me.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
But but what if you fart in your sleep?

Speaker 2 (09:40):
I would be dead. We would all be dead.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
Somebody did an entire breakdown on how the corn that
John Krasinski was growing at his house is not First
of all, it would take him much longer to grow
that kind of corn, and then it was feed corn,
so it's not even corn that humans eat. Like the
guy just went off for like three minutes about how
the corn didn't make any sense, and usually like nipicky
stuff like that, I don't like. I'm like, oh, that's ridiculous.

(10:03):
This was hilarious.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
Oh yeah yeah, but you know, obviously Quiet Placed Krasinski
got his hands on it and rewrote the script and everything,
so who knows what he changed from their original script.
But when you see there the work that they directed,
like Haunt and uh sixty five and and this one, heretic,
you know, I really like that.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
I like Haunt.

Speaker 3 (10:20):
Yeah, they have a really fun sense of like play,
you know, with their concepts. They're very high concept ideas.
And you know what if this you know, you crashed
on the crash lated on the earth, but it was
dinosaur times, you know, Like that's yeah, that's fun.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
So I saw that Adam Driver movie.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
So yeah, so it's, uh, it's fun.

Speaker 3 (10:40):
But yeah, I think I think Companion will definitely get
people to sit up and take notice of Sophia Thatcher
in a big way.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
Cool. Cool, And that's all the news I have today.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
All Right, we'll be back with our feature film after
these miss ups. From the grave that we have no
control over. And now it is time for our feature film,
all right, So here we are for our holiday episode,
and we I feel like when we started doing this show,
we knew we would get to Gremlins. Last year's choices

(11:11):
were some of my favorite movies to talk about with you,
just because I love our We really went ham last
year for the holidays. So we're going to pull it
back a little bit, only do a couple. But Gremlins
released June eighth for some reason, nineteen eighty four.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
This I have a weird theory that this movie, for
whatever reason, started or I'm not sure. Okay, I can't
say that it started because I don't you know, have
the data on this in terms of really getting to
the nitty gritty of what might have started it. But
I have a theory it might have started this idea
in Warner Brothers mind, the studio that you know produced
and distributed it, that for some reason, they should release

(11:46):
Christmas movies in the summer. So not only do we
have Gremlins, right, but we also have Leath the Weapon
a few years later, and that few years after that
we have Batman returns.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
Oh yeah, you're right, Yeah, what's wrong with them?

Speaker 3 (11:59):
I don't know, But for some reason, for like a
good decade there, they were like, oh, definitely, if it's
a Christmas movie, it should be a summer release.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
Well, I guess at that point they were still like
Summer Blockbuster and then the Blockbuster, and they didn't think
people would go to the movies as much around Christmas.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
But I feel like people always did.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
Wasn't that Star Wars and The Exorcist and stuff.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
Right, So I think that yeah.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
And also there was a there's a little interview snippet
like behind the scenes snippet on the Blu ray or
DVD all the way back to DVD of The Gremlins
where they had like a little featurette ePK from the
time of you know, when it was being shot, and
Joe Dante, the director is talking to the kid who
plays the Boy in Chinatown and the Boy in Chinatown
actor is like, why is this a Christmas movie is

(12:42):
being released in summer? He's just flat out asked Joe
dantae for him, And Joe Dante is like, Uh, well, kid,
it's because, uh, you know, if you release a Christmas
movie at Christmas and Christmas ends then people don't want
to go see that movie anymore.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
But if you release it in the summer, anybody wants
to go see it anytime, you know, So.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
Okay, you know what, that's a great answer.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
Actually I agree.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
That's how it's a rewatchable.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
Yeah, and movie.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
But the movie wouldn't be in the movie theaters at
that time. And I didn't think that he got them
onto vhs that quickly back then, did.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
They No, they took like's not like no, but they
did stay in the movies for a long time, stay
in theaters for a while.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
For question, I mean, because this this grows to two
hundred and twelve million dollars, yeah, off of an eleven
million budget.

Speaker 3 (13:24):
Yeah, and if you look, I mean, we'll talk about
the marketing of this movie because it's just out the wazoo.
But like, even if you look at the newspaper ads
for the original release of Gremlins, it starts with just
you know, the ads of the poster and you know,
the regular graphics and everything like that, and then it
goes on through like Sea Gremlins for Independence Day, and
then it goes on to Sea Gremlins to go back

(13:46):
to school, and there's like an art of.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
A gremlin, you know, with his backpack and everything, which.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
Is my favorite thing to post when it's back to school.
It's like my timeline on Facebook's going to be filled
with this, my little angels going back to school.

Speaker 3 (13:56):
And it's like Sea Gremlins for Halloween. So like it
must have stayed in theaters at Les until October or
even November.

Speaker 1 (14:01):
I don't know, but yeah, that's you know, all right.
Let's do the plot in the beginning instead of at.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
The end of the movie.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
A gadget salesman is looking for a special gift for
his son and finds one at a store in Chinatown.
The shopkeeper is reluctant to sell it to him, but
a family member sneaks the sale of the maguai to
the dad, with the warning to never expose in a
bright light, water or to feed him after midnight. His
son inadvertently breaks the rules and unleashes a horde of
malevolently mischievous monsters on a small town on Christmas Eve.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
Woolf on the literation.

Speaker 1 (14:36):
Ash, yeah, you know I was gonna make it at work,
even if I can't say it.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
No, you said it, you said it. You got it
out there.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
Oh, so was it Ghostbusters released on the same day.

Speaker 3 (14:47):
Yes, that's why insane day of releases for I'm just say.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
In nineteen eighty four was pretty.

Speaker 2 (14:54):
Lit, pretty lit, pretty lit. And yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:57):
I also, I think somewhere in my my portfolio wrote
an article about how the double whammy of Gremlins and
Ghostbusters kind of cemented this idea of like, you know
how great the horror comedy combo can be, you know
where it's yeah, really enhance both genres with the other.
You know where it's like, the funnier it is, the

(15:17):
scarier could be. The scarier it is, the funnier it
could be your vice versa, like all that stuff. So
right off the bat, I want to say that, like,
I don't know how about you, Ash, but like I
definitely feel like I have in my mind a sort
of I don't know, because we were off camera or
off mike. We were just talking about our own Christmas
you know, movie watching traditions, uh, to the point where

(15:40):
like we know that each of us has like a
cannon for ourselves where it's like, you know, this is
a tradition for us, or this is you know, one
of our favorites of all time or whatever and so forth.
And I think for me, my cannon really wasn't established
until somewhere around when I was in college, because that
was when I really sort of established like my love
of you know, Nightmare, the Nightmare and franchise, which we

(16:01):
just talked about last week. But I will always remember
I definitely had seen Gremlins as a kid. I don't
remember when or how or where. Probably on television or
I don't think we owned a VHS, so maybe it
was taped off of HBO or something. But I definitely
had a knowledge of it enough that I bought the
DVD in college and for some reason I invited not one,

(16:26):
but two girls back to my dome room.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
I don't know how this happened.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
Ladies, you want to come back to my dorm and
watch Gremlins?

Speaker 2 (16:34):
What was I thinking, because like, I.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
That's a great one. Were they excited or no?

Speaker 2 (16:39):
No, they were not. They were horrified, that's the thing,
My god.

Speaker 3 (16:42):
They were like I don't know what they were expecting,
but I think I must have sold it to them
as like, oh, it's a really cute comedy from the eighties,
and I forgot like how hard it goes, which you know,
it's not for for horror nuts like us, like you
wouldn't say this is a particularly gory movie or anything
too disturbing, but for normies like Remlins is kind of
fucked up.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
Well that's I think who everyone who went to see
it also back then thought that they were going to
see ET and it had that ambulance Spielberg presentation to it,
but no one told you that all of a sudden
it turned into like this balls with the Wall horror movie. Also,
I think it's like dustile Don. I can't think of
another movie that kind of twists it on its ass
the way that this one does, like the bait and

(17:22):
switch to get to Gremlins, because I when I put
dustile Don on way way too young, just to you
assume it's another Tarantino movie, you're like, this is great,
and then obviously like where the fuck did all these
vampires come from? And it is very similar to how
crazy this gets?

Speaker 3 (17:38):
Yeah, well I think that really speaks to how I mean,
as much as Spielberg got his hands on it, as
much as the marketing machine got its you know, fingers
and claws or you know whatever into this idea of
like oh, it's going to be ET Part two. Get
ready because we're going to make ET money, Bros. Which
is clearly what the thinking was behind the marketing.

Speaker 1 (17:57):
They kind of did though, right or no. ET made
a lot. I don't know how much.

Speaker 3 (18:01):
Anymore, but like for this for definite reasons, like they
thought like, oh, this is going to be our license
to print ET money for sure. But this was you
got to remember, like, I feel like this is kind
of a turning point in well, it's definitely a turning
point for Joe Dante's career, but also for Spielberg in
the sense that I feel like Spielberg after this was
maybe a little bit more broader in his filmmaking and

(18:23):
whether it's you know, movies that he made or movies
that you know he was producing, because this feels like
the tail end of that early younger like Edgy Spielberg
because he optioned Chris Columbus's original specscript, which Columbus, who yes,
is the same Chris Columbus who went on to make
Harry Potter one and two and Home a one and.

Speaker 1 (18:41):
Two favorite story from him, And it was like I
rooted after a night. It sounded like a platoon of mice.
We're coming around and screwing around in the black darkness
of my apartment. I was like, okay, Chris Columbus with
the alliteration, but still I was like, I've lived that.
You've lived in New York, you know what it sounds like.

Speaker 3 (18:56):
Yeah, but I mean the The part of my favor
my favorite pieces of Gremlin's lore is that the movie
was originally written by Columbus aspec as a fully fledged,
like gross, really nasty horror movie.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
Oh I wanted I want that, yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
Right, you know, including bits where Billy's mom's head rolls
down the stairs after the Gremlins chop it off.

Speaker 1 (19:18):
You can tell that she was supposed to die in
that scene. Let's just put it that way.

Speaker 3 (19:22):
And then there's apparently another great scene where the gremlins
attack a McDonald's restaurant.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
Which they should have put in, and.

Speaker 2 (19:29):
They eat all of the people, but they leave the
McDonald's food.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
That's a well, I mean, the social commentary that's underlying
all of this is really fun, but that would have
been the best. And I also heard that Gizmo was
supposed to be the one that turns into stripe the
Gvo Gremlin.

Speaker 3 (19:45):
Because like, yeah, the whole point of the magua as
a creature, and like the metaphor the social commentary is like, oh,
it's this cute little thing and if you mistreat it, it
turns into the most vicious thing ever.

Speaker 2 (19:56):
You know.

Speaker 1 (19:57):
I'm glad that they didn't do that though, because now
my origins with Gremlins is kind of like Nightmare on
Elm Street. There's not a point in my life where
I don't remember having seen it. I had a gizmo
stuffed animal for my entire life.

Speaker 2 (20:11):
I can't like, it.

Speaker 1 (20:12):
Got very disgusting, but it was my favorite and he
was so cute. So I've always kind of had Gremlins
beer like around. Yeahs, like any like movies with animals,
like the dog being I think the best actor in
the movie, and I am putting that quote down. Just
little things like that. And my mom would be like, oh,
we'll watch all these movies together. So I always had

(20:33):
that that movie around Christmas and stuff, and friend like
my friends watched it too. I don't know, that's crazy
because we have such a different timeline with this stuff,
probably because I wasn't supposed to be you have a
good mom.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
Yeah, no, they my parents were definitely strict in that way.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
Oh, they were supposed to eat the dog.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
That was another thing.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there was supposed to be a lot
of nasty stuff that happens.

Speaker 1 (20:59):
I wouldn't have liked it as much if they ate
the dog.

Speaker 3 (21:01):
Right, And I think that one of the special qualities
of the movie is the fact that it can fool
you into thinking it's a cuddlier movie than it is,
you know, because as we just said, it's not the
nastiest thing ever made.

Speaker 2 (21:14):
It's not the goorioest thing ever made.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
And the kill counts at like five though, right, if
we do the driving kill count, if.

Speaker 3 (21:20):
We do the count, if we do the driving kill count,
and you know, in some of the effects are pretty
damn goofy, you know, I mean literally the demise of
Stripe at the end is oh he's so cool, pretty
much the end of Evil Dead one, you know, where
it's like melty and gross and all that stuff.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
Yeah. Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:36):
So it's the kind of movie where, like, just like
the Poor Girls that I brought back to my dorm room,
you can sell people on as being like, oh, look,
it's cute, it's cuddly. It's fun, it's Christmas ey, and
then you know, watching it, if people aren't prepared properly,
they'll be like, what the hell is this?

Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (21:53):
Well, Spiarbug got Dante because he directed The Howling, Yeah,
which is one of my fabies.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
Know.

Speaker 3 (22:00):
And so the Spielberg Dante relationship is interesting because Dante
started as an editor for Roderick Corman's New World Pictures,
you know. And this is all in the strength of
this thing that Dante did in college or as part
of like an art project that he was doing, called
the movie Orgy, where it's a movie completely made up
of clips from other existing media. So basically it's like

(22:20):
a long stit it's like a DJ yeah, but apparently
it's three hours long and it's just like crazy nonsense.
That is just a assault on the senses. From those
who've seen it. There's there's been some screenings here and
there over the years anyway, So he got hired as
an editor on the strength of that by Regick Corman's
company cutting trailers. Eventually met up with this guy named

(22:40):
Alan arkusho was also cutting trailers for Corman. The two
of them convinced Corman to let them make a feature
of their own, which they co directed call Hollywood Boulevard,
and then they split up and Alan Arkish went off
to do his own feature, Rock and Roll High School,
and Dante did Piranha, which was Corman's rip off or
you know, homage de Jaws. So that's when Spielberg took
because originally Universal Studios was trying to sue Corman and

(23:04):
Dante and Neural Pictures to stop Paranha from ever being
released because they were like, it's too close, it's too close.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
It's not it's fine, it's not even, it's not besides
the fact that the bad guys are in water.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
Right, it's not the same thing.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
And Spielberg was the one who watched Paranha and told Universal, okay.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
Back off, like it's great.

Speaker 1 (23:20):
I love Stephen.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
And so because of that, Dante was originally after Piranha's release,
which Prana did pretty well. You know, it wasn't a
huge smash like Jaws, but it was you know, it
made his money because it was cheap. Originally he was
gonna there was like a moment where he's gonna try
to do like a Creature from the Black Lagoon remake,
and then there was like a lawn like period of
development hell between him and Universal for Jaws three. They

(23:44):
tried to hire him for Jaws three, and originally the
name of Jaws three was going to be Jaws three
People zero, so it was gonna be like a more
obvious comedy. But in the midst of all that, he
and Michael fanel Is producing partner put together The Howling,
which they made with the Stone wall.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
I was like, one, yeah, and Wallace.

Speaker 3 (24:10):
Because of de Wallace being in The Howling that she
was hired for Spielberg's et as the mom.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
Oh she's such a good mom too.

Speaker 3 (24:18):
And yeah, So Joe was like languishing in this weird
development hell with you know, this whole like non starter
thing with Joe's three, which is when Spielberg tapped him
for the Twilight Zone the movie project to do write
the segment there and the strength.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
Well, didn't he want Tim Burton at first?

Speaker 2 (24:33):
What happened?

Speaker 1 (24:34):
How did he?

Speaker 2 (24:35):
How did I think Burton was busy?

Speaker 3 (24:37):
Because yeah, franken Weedi and obviously Burton hadn't directed Peewee
yet because that would come the next year, so he
didn't have like a feature under his belt to show
to the executives be like an directive feature. But yeah,
Spielberg was emption interested in Burden, which just tells you
about Spielberg's good taste. But yeah, I think it was
on the strength of the Twilight Zone segment, and obviously

(24:58):
his relationship is his friendship with Dante were he was
just like, yeah, give it to Joe, you know, because.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
Yeah, they got a couple of people from The Howling,
like Michael Fanell. What else was it there was just
it's just fun when they all work together.

Speaker 3 (25:12):
Yeah, well obviously, and now so you know, Dante had
already by this point started to put together his his
repertory company. So Belinda Bulaski, who was in Piranha and
The Howling, she comes back as this destitute mother of
two children in this movie. Obviously, the great Dick Miller,
who was a staple of Roger Corman pictures. He's here
as Murray Futterman and Howie Mendel Dell like like like, yeah,

(25:37):
Dante was casting boy like really up and coming like
voice actors like Howie Mendel and I think Frank.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
Welker, uh and.

Speaker 3 (25:46):
Uh oh somebody else too as well as you know,
some sort of homages to his you know, beloved like
fifties B movie actors like Key Luke as as the
guy who runs the shop that the Magway is in.
Oh yeah, uh yeah, and uh why can't I think

(26:08):
of his name? The guy from the original of the thing,
Ken Toby, Ken Toby. He plays the gas station at time.

Speaker 1 (26:16):
Oh yeah, he's in there at some point. I love
that the gremlins are smoking. Everybody's smoking. He has the
smokeless ash.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
Ray yea and yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:28):
And then like you know, like like eighties hips, like
he basically casts two of the leads of Fast Times
originally high in this movie too, bb kateson.

Speaker 2 (26:35):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
People were like, I don't know, is that girl gonna
be okay in this family friendly movie? And like that's
where we got you. You thought this was a family
friendly movie.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah, And I mean, you know, they.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
Had a lot of different really famous people who who
auditioned for this, and he gave it to to that guy. Yeah,
that whoever? God, what's his name, Zach Gallaghan, Zach Galligan.

Speaker 2 (27:02):
Yeah, Zach Gallaghan.

Speaker 3 (27:04):
I think before this he had done some interesting like
experimental comedy genre film called Nothing Lasts Forever, directed by
the guy that did the mister Bill short films for SNL,
which is why if you watched The Last Forever, which
is technically a lost film, it has cameos by like
Dan Ackroyd and Bill Murray and a bunch of other

(27:24):
SNEL you know names, because like they were all friends
with him from the show. But yeah, Zach Allagan is
the lead of that movie. And I don't know if
Spielberg saw that because of his friendships with you know,
the SNEL crowd.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
Well, what I read was that his test with Phoebe Gates,
he was like, oh, he's in love with her immediately,
and that's how he got the part, is because they
read so well together. And I mean he beat out
Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon. Macciolio asked ifez Rob Low, John Nelson,
And yeah, I don'm okay with it. I'm glad that,
you know. I like when they pick you know.

Speaker 3 (27:57):
Just a and you know, on the strength of this,
Zach and be a part of the repertory company of
Anthony Hitcocks in both Waxwork movies and a couple others
that that he did with him. But yeah, so, and
I think Gallagan is obviously I think he makes a
great pair with Phoebe, but also he doves have part

(28:18):
of the esthetic that Dante seems to be going for,
which is to make fun of the whole like small
town America, Norman Rockwell, you know, perfect amazing town.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
Sort of which that town sounds like yeah, yeah, and
this is well, it's like, what are the gremlins. It's
like they're the absolute worst aspects of humanity and you
just see him like that's why I like one of
my I have two favorite scenes. It's definitely the kitchen
with the mom and then the bar at the end
with Phoebe, And it's just like, I've been to that bar.
While all of those gremlins were older people that I

(28:47):
used to have to go to the bars to hang
out with with my mom. When you will go to
a CD bar like that, each one of those people
are somebody that I've seen, you know what I mean,
maybe not the you know that's happened before, though, you
know the exposure one, which sure, yeah, the best gremlin,
he's so funny, but no, I mean it's very realistic

(29:07):
to like you're like, oh, I see exactly what they're
doing here as an adult. As a kid, that shit
was hilarious. They had the flash dance one.

Speaker 3 (29:14):
Yeah. Yeah, so I guess let's let's talk about Chris
Wailis a little bit, because God bless him. You know,
without his efforts and his team on this movie.

Speaker 1 (29:25):
It probably for the special effects.

Speaker 3 (29:27):
Yeah, it probably would have been dead in the water
because they obviously you know what both Spielberg Dante, anybody
who read the script was, you know, kind of realized
quickly that like, if the creatures don't work in this movie,
like there's no movie, Like it's just yeah, well, I.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
Love that you can go all the way back to
raal Dahl to where the idea of the story came up,
and I love for some reason, I really paid attention
to the drunk neighbor, being like gremlins were part of
the you know, they're they're here from the army or whatever,
like in the notion of gremlins reserves conceived during the
nineteen twenties when mechanical failure, we're hitting the RFA aircrafts
and they were jokingly blamed on small monsters. The term

(30:04):
gremlins was in a nineteen forty three roll Doll book,
which is you know, mischievous little creatures. So it's fun
that there's always kind of been this little thing and
you say, like, oh, the computer's not working at Gremlins.
This is broken at the house at Gremlins.

Speaker 3 (30:18):
Yeah, and it's definitely part of this interesting trend during
the eighties of culture kind of understanding that technology is
starting to like encroach on our daily lives in a big,
big way. Yes, like we could never we could never
have predicted exactly iPhones, you know, laptops, you know, social.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
Media whatever, but like TikTok, right, TikTok.

Speaker 3 (30:38):
But it felt like, you know, human beings kind of
had as a sixth sense of like something's coming down
the line that we don't know yet, but it's going
to be a lot. And so you can pair this
with obviously Poltergeist, Videodrome, you know, Tron even like these
movies that like definitely are trying to either warn or
promise that, like, you know, there's this electronic future or

(31:00):
this this technological future that's coming down the line, so
be ready otherwise we could really screw ourselves up with it.

Speaker 2 (31:06):
And we have, yes, we have.

Speaker 3 (31:09):
But I just wanted to mention too that, yeah, the
cultural idea of Gremlins, you know, which I guess was born,
like you said, the roll Doll book, but also like
legends urban legends of like World War two soldiers. Originally,
writer Dan O'Bannon wrote a specscript of his own, which
I think he may have titled Kremlins, which was about

(31:32):
a World War Two bomber that bombs Japan and then
gets infected on the you know, on the way back,
with gremlins that like work their way up from the
back of the plane to the front of the plane
and the survivors have to stop it. And it was
that script that Ronichussette told him, Hey, you should just
take that idea and put it onto this other script
you're working on and make it alien so alien without

(31:54):
this idea of gremlins that's in the air.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
So I like it.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
You can kind of see it.

Speaker 3 (31:59):
Yeah, So it kind of feels like there was always
gonna be a Gremlin's movie, if that makes sense, you know,
something to do with that idea or that you know,
that concept. And obviously we'll talk about this later, but
like you know, because this movie was so successful, we
had a slew of imitators that came, you know, pretty
much trilies, so they're they're just in the culture, you know,

(32:20):
and it's there, you're gonna do it.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
But yeah, so they were going to use monkeys.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
Talk about that because so.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
They were going to use monkeys, but the monkeys freaked
the fuck out when they tried to put little gremlin
heads on them and have them run around, So like,
you know what, maybe we should use puppets and marionettes.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
I cannot imagine the shit show that would have been
if they had gone ahead with the idea of using animals.

Speaker 1 (32:44):
You can see it though, because they're like the way
the primates looked, like the hands come all the way
down to the like where their little feet are, and
I never really put that together and I was like,
oh you can, like, okay, I see what you guys
are doing here.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
Oh yeah, No, in terms of design, it could have
worked really well.

Speaker 3 (32:59):
In terms of like meaning the bailables curtain cats, absolutely not,
like that would have been a complete mess.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
Yeah. So so wayless you know, was tapped. He'd already worked.

Speaker 3 (33:11):
I think he was like one of the crew members
of Phil Tippett's crew on Burana, so he had some
sort of relationship with Dante.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
Well, if he didn't work on a little bit on
the Howling, I'd be surprised because at the end when
they all get all weird and gooey, like, it looks kind.

Speaker 3 (33:25):
Of Yeah, and Howling was rab Boutine, who also worked
a little bit on Barano.

Speaker 1 (33:31):
So and well, Rob Boutine was busy doing one of
my favorite movies of all time, which always seems to
come up on this podcast. Nineteen eighty five is a legend.
Hell yeah, which come on, and the effects on that
movie is there. It's mind blowing. I'm like, you do
you do what you're doing? This will just fine without you?

Speaker 2 (33:53):
Yeah, no, I mean and obviously he was.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
Yeah, that movie needed all his attention, so it was
all of it, and this movie just needed some somebody
dedicated to it because, like I said, like the creature
demand for this movie is not small. It. You know,
there's only one shot in the movie that like features
a horde of gremlins and that was done with stop motion.

Speaker 1 (34:11):
Oh, going down the street. Yeah, and then in the
movie theater.

Speaker 3 (34:14):
But yeah, but even that, like you know, like that's
you know, you can hide the puppeteers behind the scenes
and everything, but that's that's required. Probably, like you know,
probably twenty thirty ruppeteers. But yeah, the Gizbil, whether it
was Gizmil or Stripe or any of the puppets, they
were always breaking down.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
Uh, there's so small.

Speaker 3 (34:32):
There's so small, and Dante did insist on keeping the
size small to enhance, you know, the cuteness, the cutes.

Speaker 1 (34:39):
Of course you have to. And I'm not going to
tell you something. All of those big ones look just
like my cat. Like every time I see them, you
hear the noises are cats, yeah, monkeys, but definitely like
the my cat does it in the morning when it
wants food. It did it literally this morning, And I
always am like, all right, Stripe, because that's exactly what
my cat reminds me of. There's no Gizmu. He's a

(35:00):
little stripe and he met like they make those noises
and it's so funny to watch it and like you're
just like, that's an angry cat.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
Yeah, no, it totally is. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:12):
The the metaphors are the layers of you know, commentary
in this movie is great because you can equate the
gremlins to pets, you equate them to technology, you can
equate them to like nature gone wild, you can equate
them to even you know, spiritual like demons or if
you want, you know that sort of like.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
Which is fun, which is fun, Christmas Demons, Christmas Stevens.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
But yeah, so it's it's that thing.

Speaker 3 (35:39):
It's fun to watch the movie knowing where like the
Texas switches are then that the tricks are, like I'm
thinking of there's one shot where Billy is having to
like put a bandage on Gizmo after he's been hurt somehow,
and you know, he brings in like a puppet, puts
it down on the table. The camera like moves over
with him to get like a bandage or something and
moves back, and by the time it moves back, it's

(36:01):
another puppet who's been you know, secured to the table
with like a puppeteer's hand up its wherever, you know.
So it's like or wires whoever they did it, and
it's it's every trick in the book, like even and
the close ups are like big size puppets, so like
if you saw like behind the scenes photos of them,
like they're frequently large heads.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
Yeah, because they even look a little like wet to
get them. They look real every time I watch this,
they look real. Yeah, they look realer than most of
the shit that we see nowadays, and they nailed it
and it was a really hard thing to do. Consequently,
I like to satisfy the crew, the scene was included
with the gremlins hanging Gizmo and they all were throwing

(36:40):
darts at them, and that was included on the list
because the crew wanted to do horrible things to the puppets,
and so they had this list called like horrible things
to do to Gizmo, and then they got to do
their scene.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
And as for the actors, like, it's fun because you
I personally feel that, yes, because you know they were
actually physically there in front of them on set. You know,
the actor's performances were enhanced by the fact that they
could actually see the creatures instead of just imagining in
their heads. But at the same time, if you listen
to you know, Gallaghan or Cats or anybody interviewed about
working with the puppets, like nobody had a good time, Like,

(37:14):
oh the damn things are always breaking down and there
was always like zach Alla think in particular, he's funny
on his commentary where he's like complaining constantly, like you know,
he was given like one take for his close up
and gives Mike out like twenty or something.

Speaker 1 (37:26):
Oh my god, oh sit down the girl.

Speaker 3 (37:29):
He was like, I could have done this better, Joe,
but oh no, we had to give the puppet more time.
And then like the Gote's like, well the pictures called
Gremlin's kid.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
Yeah, well then you go to nineteen eighty four style,
I guess eighty three when they were doing this practical
which is like the furry balls where they started to
grow as just balloons that expanded, and the same with
the microwave gremlin. It was just a balloon that explodes,
and you're just like, I never knew that, and I
will watch that differently from now on because that's so
freaking cool.

Speaker 3 (37:58):
It's so cool. So let's talk about that. So as
you just mentioned that the infamous kitchen slaughter scene, which is.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
Great favorite, a favorite scene all the way to the like,
the movie is so smart that in the beginning everybody
keeps knocking the sword off of the wall when they
come in and out of the house, and it's just
like one of those things that that's used way later
when the scene's taking place to save the mom, the
sword comes into play and you're like, god, that's brilliant.

Speaker 3 (38:25):
Yeah, which is a Chris Columbus special because if you
see that gag again in the Home Alone movies where
they keep knocking over the statue front of the house,
Oh yeah yeah, but it's it's great because it's such
a it's obviously such a payoff for like, really the
whole concept of the movie of like, hey, what if
there were these evil creatures that were running loose, you know,
throughout your town.

Speaker 1 (38:43):
Like you know, that's who came out of little alien.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
Pots and little alien pods.

Speaker 3 (38:47):
It's the best like version of that in terms of
like the visuals of these things popping up out of
everywhere and you know, then having to throw them in
the microwave or spray them with stuff or whatever sword them.
But most famously this was a scene combined with the
heart ripping of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,
which I think we've talked about before.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
It Yeah, they're like weedy PG.

Speaker 3 (39:09):
Thirteen where the MPAA and I don't know other advocacy
groups were like, h this was too hard for our kids,
like you know, this is too mean, pig is not
good enough and rs too hard for this movie is
They're not ours. So yeah, this was This is one
of the two movies that helped the PG thirteen rating.

Speaker 2 (39:27):
Get yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
I'm also like, it's a gateway horror film. It's a
movie that's fun to watch for the whole family, and
it's good for your kids to watch horror so that
you can process fear or physical mental level, Like your
kids should be a little scared. You should watch stuff
like this with your kids so that they get a
little bit. The real world is very scary, and that's
what all of this is kind of based off of

(39:48):
real world things that you will have to deal with
in an analogy, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (39:52):
Oh yeah, absolutely no, it was.

Speaker 1 (39:54):
I mean you came out okay, but I did.

Speaker 2 (39:56):
It was movies like this.

Speaker 3 (39:57):
Well that's the thing though, ash, is that even though
I was like, quote unquote sheltered from you know, you
can't see anything are rated, you know, until you're however old.
I was fourteen or fifteen whatever, I still saw a
lot of these gateway things myself because you know, by
virtue of the fact that they were you know, rated
PG or PG thirteen. You know where it's like, and

(40:17):
I think this is the perfect type of like you
just said, you just you said it perfectly right there,
where it's like it's there to give you an introduction
into the genre, but into also more adult themes or
more adult ideas or just more you know, nuanced or
gnarly things, not necessarily nasty, not necessarily like offensive, but
just like you know, not so cuddly and not so cute,

(40:40):
not so whatever.

Speaker 1 (40:42):
Perfect segue to talk about the urban legend that Kate
reveals about her father, which completely is like so out
of left field, and I know that everybody fighted at
to like have this fight in. I know everybody fought
to have this taken out of the movie.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
And it's the urban level.

Speaker 1 (40:59):
The urban legend where Kate reveals that her father died
at Christmas when he was dressed as Santa Claus and
he broke his neck while climbing down the family chimney. Yeah,
in the studio, execs for like, get this the hell
out of there, and they were like no, Dante said
absolutely not, And at that point Spielberg was like, you
know what, this is sand movie. I'm going to back him.
This is a little weird, but it brings the horrific

(41:20):
and the comedic elements together perfectly, I think, yeah, but
it does like taking it. I love when she's like
I hate Christmas and everybody should stop blah blah blah
blah blah, and he's like, wow, girl, like that's really harsh.
It's a beautiful time a year. And then later you
find out what happens, and it's like the most horrific thing.
You start asking questions like, well, how many days later

(41:41):
was it?

Speaker 2 (41:41):
How long you up?

Speaker 1 (41:42):
What do you mean you thought it was a bird?
That's a dead body.

Speaker 2 (41:44):
A lot of questions, a lot of questions.

Speaker 1 (41:46):
But geez, what a weird, random mid story thing to
put it with this lovely, sweet character who you wouldn't think.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
Yeah, I had this horrible background.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
But that is such a good analogy because you never
know what people are going through. It's just really it's interesting.

Speaker 3 (42:00):
That speech was written for a side character, like a
random side character who was the manager of that McDonald's,
which we talked about, which is the original.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
Scene, not Jude Reinhold, No.

Speaker 3 (42:09):
No, it was so it was gonna be sorry, so
it was gonna be yeah this this you know, Jay
did manager of McDonald's, who just saw you know, the
gremlins eat his entire customer base, be like, oh, actually,
this isn't the worst thing that happened to be out chrismins.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
Oh my god, that's so funny.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
It's really funny.

Speaker 3 (42:22):
But yeah, it's such a you like you just said,
it's such a cool choice to give it to Kate's
character because it just, you know, without that monologue. First
of all, then that character becomes totally bland and just
like background girl who's like, you know, just the trophy
for the male hero. So like, you know, she absolutely
needs that for her character. But also another point for

(42:43):
mister Spielberg because for as much as you know, we
give him shit about like you know, the way that
he can sort of you know, make things cuddlier when
they don't need to be. Uh, we will get to
the ending maybe a little bit, but you know this
idea that like GisMo has to be the hero, he
has to save the day and like Billy can't do it.
He was he was really cool when he stood by

(43:04):
his fellow filmmaker's guns, especially as a producer, because apparently
Warner Brothers was really putting the pressure on Spielberg to
be like, look, you know you're the producer here, Dante
is not budging on this stupid monologue.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
We want it gone.

Speaker 3 (43:18):
You have the power to say it's out of the
movie the end, like you know, he will you have
it was basically Dante did not have a final cut
like it was Spielberg.

Speaker 1 (43:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (43:27):
So so it was really Stephen to be like, you know,
like you just said that. He said, hey, it's his movie,
it's not mine. I don't because even Spielberg at that
time didn't like it. Apparently he was like, yeah, I
don't really feel like it's good, you know, to have
in there, but it's not my movie. So and and
Dante is one hundred percent right that it absolutely has
to be in the movie for reasons that we just said,

(43:48):
but also, like you said that, the tone of it.
Because there's another aspect too, which I wanted to bring up,
which is that this movie interestingly introduces a lot of
side character in the town who all had particular fates,
you know, in terms of what the.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
Wicked Witch to the West, I mean missus Deegal.

Speaker 3 (44:08):
Yeah, and Deagle's the only one we get to see,
and I think it's deserved because she's the most evil.
But the bank manager, Judge Rdhold, you know, a couple
other folks. It's interesting because we see them set up
in the first half of the movie and then we
never see what happens to then once the Gremlins.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
You know that's true, And I do love that it's
the priest. Yeah, because the priest is like, you should
put your hen in there and see what happens. I
was like, you son of a bitch?

Speaker 2 (44:31):
No, what a what a jerk?

Speaker 3 (44:34):
The cops too, we sort of see that what happened, Well,
they die die. Yeah, we have to assume that.

Speaker 1 (44:39):
They deserved it.

Speaker 2 (44:40):
They were not listening, they were drug.

Speaker 3 (44:44):
And but yeah, so Gerald, the Judge Drydhold character, who's
the assistant bank manager whatever?

Speaker 1 (44:50):
Is he the star of the second one? I haven't
seen a long time. He's who's running who's running that building?

Speaker 3 (44:56):
Does he look just like Judge Ryn looks a little similar.
His name is John Glover. He plays Danielle clamp Uh
in Them.

Speaker 1 (45:03):
From Office Space? Is he in Office Space?

Speaker 2 (45:05):
Is he in space?

Speaker 1 (45:06):
I don't know. I feel like him and John Drying
Homebooking exactly. They look like no, no, no, no, no, no,
that guy's a ginger. Never mind.

Speaker 3 (45:12):
Yeah, but so just to finish the thought that Judge
Grenenhold's character is has locked himself in the bank vault.
And so originally, after you know Phoebe's monologue, you hear
like a banging in the bank vault and they open
the vault door and they see him in there. He's
locked himself in there to like protect himself from the gremlins, right,
and he's gone crazy, and it's he's not dead when

(45:33):
they leave him, but like it's pretty clear like he's never.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
Coming out of that vault.

Speaker 3 (45:36):
So like that's why you'd ever hear from him again.
So yeah, like this movie, there was you know.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
An easy I wish they went a little bit more
even darker cut.

Speaker 3 (45:43):
Yeah, like there's there's definitely like it's for as much
subversive you know, weirdness and nastiness that it's still there.
Like there's stuff that they cut out that like it's
not gore or anything, but it's still like they could
have left in maybe some more like you know, nitty gritty.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
For sure.

Speaker 1 (45:57):
Wish they had that PG. Thirteen writing before we start.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
Yeah, if they had the PG.

Speaker 3 (46:01):
Thirteen already, maybe they would have you know, allowed it
for because I'm sure they were trying like hell to
be like, Okay, we have to try and keep this PG.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
I think another little star of the movie is the
city because it's like, that's the back of the future city.
It looks like like the same little town on the
Universal back loot. Yeah, and they did a really great
job of making it look snowed in Christmas y like
that is when you think of suburbia, Christmas perfectness, like

(46:30):
that is exactly what you see. And I wonder if
it's because of movies like this, like not to jump,
but the last shot of this movie might be one
of my favorite ones because it just fills me with
so much holiday Christmas nostalgia.

Speaker 2 (46:44):
It's like, it's just a beautiful painting.

Speaker 1 (46:45):
Yeah, it's do they do that at the end of
Christmas Vacation. I feel like it's just this painting but
the lights are on and everything's covered with snow, and
the moon is in the back and there's somebody talking
over like this making you feel real comfortable, you know
what I mean? Yeah, and you're just like, oh, I
just want some gnog.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
You know.

Speaker 3 (47:04):
Well, you're gonna laugh at me because I know I've
mentioned this on the show before. At least once, I think,
probably on our Monster Squad episode. But this movie is
one of the i'd say handful of movies that in
my mind, just for whatever reason, became I should try
and eat Burger King during this movie movie because at
the beginning of the movie, when Billy's walking into the

(47:26):
town square to go to the bank to go to work,
he passes a bunch of stores and one of them
is a Burger King, And I don't know, there was
obviously some deal, some marketing deal that Burger King did
with I don't know, Warner Brothers or you know, just
whoever to put themselves like in as many like town
facades in during the eighties as possible. That's why they

(47:46):
show up in Monster Squad. Okay, they show up in
a couple others too that I'm not thinking of, but
like they were having a moment during whatever span of
years this was, you know, eighty something to eighty something.
I don't know what did it in my head. I
guess I must have just haven't been having Burger King naturally.
While watching Gremlins one year and it was just like

(48:07):
such an interesting bit of synergy. I was like taking
a bite of a whopper and I saw the sign
for bur king. I was like, oh, I wish I
was a hot town. I wouldn't be in that town
having a burger king in the snow, you know or something.
So it's funny that you mentioned that, like, you know, oh,
I'd love to go there, because it is so clearly
a backlot, you know, it's so clearly like you know,
a set, even though.

Speaker 1 (48:25):
Where they filmed Alvira, like it's all of these it's
the same town that that, yeah, Midwest, I guess is
what it's supposed.

Speaker 3 (48:32):
To be, even like the Montgomery Ward that they they
you know that the last act takes place in, like
what a cute little department store.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
It's so cute with that. It was like the one
Gremlins me because she's like milk duds and then the
guy goes because that's my favorite movie candy and Stripe's like,
all right, babe, I got you. And then he's like,
oh no, they already mess this up, but there's a
candy shop next door. Let me go be the hero
yet again and get all this candy. And then meanwhile,
while he's gone, all his friends get killed and he's like,

(49:02):
you know, and it's so funny. You actually feel a
little bad for him. Yeah, yeah, because they just love
snow White.

Speaker 3 (49:09):
They love snow White, which, by the way, in nineteen
eighty four, I guess that's that that speaks to how
like Disney was on a low ebb during that period
of time, because Disney today would never allow snow White
to be licensed for a movie like this, right, but
like back then they were like, okay, piss, you can
use it, you know, and it's great, what a great visual.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
Hard creatures after they're so goddamn funny. He's like, they're
watching snow White and they love it.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
Oh, it's great. There's so much to talk about this movie.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
Speaking of shots, I also love the shot at that
rest like at the restaurant at the movie theater, when
they're behind and like they all start to jump down
and it's very obviously animated, but it still looks pretty cool.

Speaker 3 (49:56):
I mean that is one of the two like most
horrifying visuals in the movie for me, where it's like,
you know, just knowing that there's tons of those things
behind that screen, they're coming.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
At you, They're coming, oh shit.

Speaker 3 (50:06):
And I love the bit like a few seconds after
that where they're getting out in the alleyway and they
have to close the door and all their little hands
or like little fingers.

Speaker 1 (50:13):
Yeah, she's like, are you gonna help me or what?

Speaker 2 (50:17):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (50:20):
Yeah, And I guess you know, we can talk a
little bit about the the I don't know why it
makes me want to talk about it now, but I will.
Just the the death of the science teacher, you know,
and the fact that it's he had.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
It come in.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
He only happened himself to blame.

Speaker 3 (50:36):
But it's happening during that really you know, cheesy health
film about parts and blood beating or something like that.

Speaker 1 (50:44):
Oh they're watching like the uh yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 (50:49):
And the fact that, yeah, it's not just like a
typical death because he's he's stabbed with a needle.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
Which is that what it needles him?

Speaker 1 (50:56):
Right?

Speaker 2 (50:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (50:57):
Yeah, again with my intro, how do these things know
how to do all this shit?

Speaker 2 (51:00):
You know what I mean? Yeah? Yeah, Now that's the
thing too, is that? Yeah? Oh god, Ash, we have
to talk about the rules.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
Yes, so we go back to the rules which were
put there just to be broken so that we had
a movie. Yeah, okay, so you keep them away from
water because obviously don't ever feed them after midnight, which
I also said, So then like when can you feed
them again? Like what when the sun comes up?

Speaker 2 (51:26):
Where does that rule end? Where does that end? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (51:29):
Okay, and then keep them away from bride lights, briade.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
Lads, yeah somehow.

Speaker 3 (51:36):
Yeah, the first two feel okay, sure, because you know
there's such a thing in this world as allergies, and
you know certain fluids can hurt, so you never and
certain like light, you know, because obviously.

Speaker 1 (51:49):
Like chinchillas, the dust back.

Speaker 3 (51:51):
So I love that those first two rules are like
kind of okay, maybe there's some basis in reality here,
but yeah, never feed anyone after midnight, which is why
of course in the infamous Gremlins too.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
Who knows what we'll talk about that someday.

Speaker 3 (52:04):
You know, Dante had to send that up, you know,
with his you know jokes about like okay, what does
it ever stop? And you know what if you're on
an airplane you cross the equator or.

Speaker 1 (52:13):
Something exactly, but like, don't ask questions.

Speaker 2 (52:15):
Yeah, don't ask questions.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
And like the broad lights thing, go ahead.

Speaker 3 (52:19):
I was gonna say, that's the thing, Like this movie
really works because of how much of a you know,
fable it is. I guess you know it wants to.
It definitely is like there's grounding, there's like reality in it,
you know for sure, because obviously the satire wouldn't work
as well if it didn't have that. But at the
same time, because everything from the look of the town,
to look at the creatures, to you know, even casting

(52:42):
the actors.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
You know a Zach Grey Feldman is the cutest kid
next door ever, Yeah, right, them tying the dog up
in the Christmas lights, you know, cute stuff.

Speaker 3 (52:51):
And I think it's also important to mention the Hoyd
Axxton character, who is technically our narrator in Billy's Dad,
you know, Randall Peltzer there. It's such a key choice
to have him be a kooky inventor because.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
That's what we don't that's bad.

Speaker 3 (53:09):
Well also also because like yeah, he's he's it's fun
because he's got like a can do spirit. It's fun
because like you know, he obviously means well, but voice
and he's such a great voice. Also, did you know
this Hoyde Axton was a songwriter and I think even
still was at the time he filmed this, and he
wrote some hits for like three Dog Night, like Mama

(53:31):
told me not to come.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
You know.

Speaker 3 (53:34):
That was a song he wrote, So no ship but
uh yeah, so's he's so lovable and yet he just
keeps sucking up and like the Peltzers can't even get
anything done in their house, like can't into the phone,
they can't make coffee, to.

Speaker 1 (53:48):
Get coffee, and they know. He's like, I'll crack the eggs,
like you guys, just crack the fucking eggs.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
You know. Yeah, come on.

Speaker 1 (54:01):
Jumping to Jerry Goldsmith real fast, because god, the score
is so good and we won a couple of awards,
but the main score that was composed of like conveying
the gremlins, the mischievous humor and the mounting the suspense,
but then having like the adorable Gizmo song so that
you know that he's cute. And he's actually in the
film with Steven Spielberg when rand is on the phone

(54:24):
when he calls him the Salesman's convention. Yeah, they're in
the background.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
Yeah, yeah, Steven's driving like a little golf cart thing. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:31):
He's like, I feel like all of this is a
lot more in depth than I was ready for or whatever.

Speaker 3 (54:36):
He Dante loves his jokes in the margins like Mad Magazine.
There's the time machine from the nineteen sixty movie the
time Machine that's going off like right behind them. When
they're doing that scene, you cut away to the mom
and you cut back in the time machines gone.

Speaker 1 (54:48):
You know.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
Robbie the robot replaces Jerry Goldsmith at one.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
Yeah, I am making a phone call.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
I've never use it myself, so it promotes rust.

Speaker 3 (54:58):
Yeah, So it's it's just, yeah, it's so fun to
like watch this movie over and over every year just
to pick up on the.

Speaker 2 (55:04):
I never get hold of it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:06):
I mean we've been doing it for a very long time,
and it's always as funny. The jokes always land. There's
little things like I feel like not that you get
something new every time, because honestly, I've seen this movie
probably like four hundred times million times.

Speaker 2 (55:20):
But god, I love it.

Speaker 1 (55:22):
I love it. Is this the little jokes, the milk
that's the crossbow and driving around in Barbie's dream Corvette
which I had.

Speaker 3 (55:31):
Yes, even the dog actor who's I think his name
is real name at the time was Mushroom.

Speaker 2 (55:36):
He plays part.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
Mushroom is the best actor in this food. He that
dog was locked in ready to go, let's do this
jumping out of the way. Look surprised when he got
smashed by the barber.

Speaker 3 (55:46):
Honestly, I think you could probably say that one of
the reasons he's the best actor is he totally believed
that GisMo was real.

Speaker 2 (55:52):
Well, I feel like, yeah, that's so true.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
He was like this thing is that thing just told
me to sit? Does anybody else think that's weird?

Speaker 2 (56:00):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (56:01):
When he drives buy him in the car and he
does this little jump, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
Let's talk about degele because god damn if that's not
like the most iconic scene I would say maybe of
this thing is this woman with a hundred cats. She's
obviously an analogy for Wicked Witch at the West. She's
coming in on her bike. She wants to kill his
little dog. She hates everyone in the town. Have to say,
filled a little evil myself. When when the girl the
people were like, we just can't pay our rent. I'm like, well, girl,

(56:28):
how's that my fault? I'm like, oh shit, am I
you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (56:32):
That's wrong. It's wrong.

Speaker 1 (56:33):
But it's also like pay your fucking dollspy my bills.

Speaker 2 (56:36):
How fun is it too?

Speaker 3 (56:36):
The Deagles whole beef with Billy is like, hey, could
you keep control of your pets, and like she's absolutely
fucking right.

Speaker 2 (56:43):
Like she's absolutely fun.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
That dog attacked her at the back as yeah, Billy,
they were they were not ready for them, as he says,
what has your society done with all of the gifts
of nature? Not ready? So again like breaking her snowman,
you don't kill the dog, bitch, You don't kill the dog.

(57:07):
But you know you don't bring your dog to work.
If I could bring my dog to work, I would
have brought my dog to work every goddamn day. Yeah,
and obviously Fluffy is what's the dog's name in there.
Barney is real pissed. And I also understands that that
bitch was talking down to him because then he took
her arm out. He was like I heard what you said.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
Yeah, But also like moms.

Speaker 1 (57:29):
Stick up for them, you know. The mom's like missus
Diggle called again, Like if I was Billy's mom, I'd
be like Missus Diggle, meet me at the ballpark at
one am, bring the knives and dress like ninjas. Let's go.
I'm gonna kill you if you keep talking about my
son like this. This is why I'm not a parent,
but god damn that scene. She's like, I hate carolers

(57:52):
and she gets her whole bucket of water, which is
such an evil thing to do, and then it's just
all of them like black Lata and she's like, what
are they? And then they send her up her chair
and out the window to a horrific death.

Speaker 2 (58:05):
The chair was just shoots her out of the window
in the top.

Speaker 1 (58:09):
And the cops are like Jesus Christ.

Speaker 2 (58:14):
Oh man.

Speaker 3 (58:15):
And it's so great if you if you're a fan
of you know, obviously his later work in Breaking Bad
and Better Carl SOULI, it's so great to see a
young Jonathan Banks here be you know, the goofy deputy
and uh and Dick Miller we mentioned it, but I
love his his whole because in any other movie, uh,
the racist, you know, annoying neighbor would be not a

(58:39):
really fun character at all, Like it would just be, yeah, okay,
well this guy sucks.

Speaker 2 (58:42):
He should die. And like he makes him really charming.

Speaker 1 (58:47):
He's saying, yeah, he's just like this nice. He's like
he's damn for you know, I know, and you're just like,
I know that guy, I know the guy, his name's Ron.
You know, he was right, he knew exactly what the
gremlins were. Yeah, and then they died horrific.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
Deaths and they do.

Speaker 3 (59:05):
What's funny though, is that his poor wife they do
turn up in the sequel and right Bury the more
they did. The more you watch the first movie, when
the news report is on TV, when they're sort of,
you know, everyone's recovering from the mayhem, you could hear
the news announcers say off screen like, you know, we
talked to Murray Futterman Downe at the hospital general or
whatever they say, you know, Okay, so they did, like

(59:27):
so like they they always right, I got to.

Speaker 1 (59:28):
Take a couple of numbers off my death count.

Speaker 2 (59:30):
Then, yeah, I do feel that I don't know how
they lived.

Speaker 3 (59:33):
I don't know how either. I do feel like in
an original cut of the movie they probably did die.
And then they added the eight R line and post
where it's like, all right, well maybe we won't feel.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
Them off, you know sort of thing.

Speaker 1 (59:42):
He's just so mean, his his poor wife.

Speaker 2 (59:45):
His poor wife Jackie.

Speaker 1 (59:46):
Season two, be jolly right, Mary, He's like, shut up, Yeah,
you have the remote, stop blaming everything on me. Get up,
there and you know, god, it's so funny though, but
perfect like and then the the foreign car is the
only one that works when everybody else's cars broke down.
That's right, Volkswagen, what were you doing in nineteen thirty five?

(01:00:08):
What are you doing in nineteen forty five?

Speaker 3 (01:00:11):
Don't investigate too quills? Gosh yeah, so yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
I mean when it came to release, I think, you know,
a lot of moms were like, what the hell was this?
I'm very upset? Yeah, but everybody else liked it, even
garbage Roger.

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
Ebert me, he loved it. Yeah, he did love it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
He gave it a three.

Speaker 3 (01:00:31):
Yeah, well comparatively, And that's that's the thing. Like it
it It does seem like, in kindsight, kind of a
surprise that it did as well as it did. I
do think obviously the marketing campaign, like leaning on Spielberg's
name and leaning on the whole like you know, hey,
this isn't et, but like it's probably gonna be another et,

(01:00:53):
like obviously helped a bit of life.

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
So smart, yeah, very smart.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
Of them, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
Even though it didn't quite sell the right film, it
was like, yeah, this works.

Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
Well. Then that's where you get into Okay, this's just
a depiction of violence and greed. Yeah, you know, you
have Kate's speech, the gremlin gluttony. It's like uh us,
you know. And then there's the in contrast, mister Wing
is shown to have a distaste for TV and technology.
You know, the Gremlins are anti technology. I guess.

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
If you want to look at it that way, you
can look at it that way.

Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
I do think that there's a really powerful you know,
commentary and metaphor in this movie about basic like Western
society exceptionalism being a fallacy where it's like, you know,
we've given three rules. It's just three rules you got
to follow, and you screw those up, you know, And
it's like it shouldn't be too hard to follow these
instructions because they're pretty clear. They don't make sense in

(01:01:50):
the sense that like we you know, can debate like
when's midnight, like what mid night means exactly? Well, like
they are clear, like it's not like vague language or
anything like that. It's like, no, like this is the rules,
and everybody you know can't follow those and so things
turn shit.

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
Well that's why I feel like it's meant to be
a number of oh, yeah, observations like because at any
different time, the Gremlins can represent teenagers or the wealthy
or fans of Disney films, you know, just throwing it
in there. There's a reason that all that is in there.

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
So I don't know, that's funny. I like that. I
like that.

Speaker 3 (01:02:27):
Yeah and yeah so anything from yeah, from technology to
exceptionalism to appetites to reed to yeah. I mean, it's
just the Gremlins are are unleashed. Did you know, run rampant,
which is why.

Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
And they're smart. They fucked with the clocks. They fucked
with the clocks and tricked that sixteen year old who
somehow works at a bank and a bar. I don't
understand the age of anybody in this movie.

Speaker 2 (01:02:53):
No.

Speaker 3 (01:02:54):
I think at one point Judge Ronhold says he's like
twenty three or something, yeah, and.

Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
He's like, you need to make something of yourself, and
what is you don't working at a bar.

Speaker 3 (01:03:01):
We should mention that because I think in Chris's original script,
Billy was younger. I think Billy was supposed to be
like in grade school along with Corey Feldman's character. So
that's why like they're friends, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:03:12):
Okay, Well that makes more sense. But like I get
like their neighbor kid hanging out with you.

Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
Sure it does have a you know, especially in a
small town like okay for for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:03:20):
Yeah my best friend's twelve.

Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
But yeah, definitely, like you know, studio execs, Spielberg, whoever,
Dante even probably you know, we're like, hey, you know,
if we age these characters up, like we can get
a teenage audience in too. So like there's definitely like
you know, some studio or not even studio, like some
you know, savvy marketing or you know, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:40):
Well they're still buying their kids. Like however old the
son's supposed to be like in his stocking was like
a transformer. Yeah, and you're like, wait a minute, are
you six? Are you sixteen?

Speaker 2 (01:03:51):
I don't know what's happening. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:03:54):
So it's this, like I said, but it all fits
because of the three rules, because of the tone, because
of the look of it. Oh you know what I
do want to shout out. I think the cinematographer is
John Horror right, yes, and again, like the way this
thing looks, it's not like pristine. It's almost like one
of those like old tiny fifties movies. With like vasilina

(01:04:15):
on the lens. I don't think they literally used it,
but like it has that sort of sheen to it
where it's like, well it looks cold, it looks cold,
it looks kind of warm. It looks very like this.
I'd say this movie the Original Black Christmas. You mentioned
another one, what was yours? It wasn't that many returns,
was it?

Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
Oh? Christmification, Christmas Christmification.

Speaker 3 (01:04:38):
Yeah, like those I'd say, like those movies are ones
that you would want to put on just for the
visual vibes, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:04:43):
Yeah, they feel very similar.

Speaker 2 (01:04:46):
They feel very similar. I think it's just nostalgia. It's nostalgia.

Speaker 3 (01:04:49):
In one review, I wrote that this looks like if
you have ever heard of what the Sears Holiday look
book or wish book used to.

Speaker 1 (01:04:56):
Oh, absolutely the Sears catalog.

Speaker 3 (01:04:58):
Yeah, this thing looks like that come to life, where
it's just like, you know, a bunch of toys, bunch
of items.

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
Every one of those house has a fruitcake.

Speaker 2 (01:05:05):
Absolutely free cake. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:09):
So there's just there's there's such a a weird kind
of wholesome is not the right word, I don't know,
homeminess to it, and certainly a holiday you know, vibe
to it. That is so great to conflate with and
subvert with, you know, the nastier aspects of things.

Speaker 1 (01:05:28):
Yes, yes, well nast year. At the end they have
literally the one has a handgun.

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):
What is a handgun? And a chainsaw he gets at
one point, Yeah, crossbow.

Speaker 1 (01:05:37):
I was like, oh my god, it has a gun
just where you think you can't get any crazier.

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):
Yeah, yeah, what's up with that? Gizmocca?

Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
How do you also speak Spanish? I know where did
they come from?

Speaker 3 (01:05:52):
I would love to It's too bad they weren't running
a camera in the voiceover sessions for this movie, because
I would love to have seen one of the conversations
they must have had about Okay, what sort.

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
Of stuff should we say? You know, well they I
did read that.

Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
They were like, there's no script. They kind of told
them to just go for it. And that's why I
like the One of my favorite scenes is when all
of a sudden, the one, the angry one, is sitting
there and all of a sudden a little toy comes up.
It's like beep boom, bobby boe boo, and you're just
like what the.

Speaker 2 (01:06:27):
Fuck, and like the Humphrey Boguard, Frank Sinatra. One sitting
there's like.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
They're playing cards. Oh, I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:37):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (01:06:37):
It's it's just I think a great a good word
for it would be demented. There's something demented about this movie.

Speaker 1 (01:06:43):
Well that's why it's like you and I enjoyed The Demented.
Because you think horror comedies, we think American Werewolf in
in London, but I also think that, uh, the Santa
Claus one that I just Silent Night, Deadly Night, that
one is I would say a horror comedy in a
different kind of way. But there's this middle ground that

(01:07:05):
is Gremlins, and it's so perfect.

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
It's just perfect.

Speaker 3 (01:07:08):
Yeah, it's idiosyncratic, it is its own thing. Like it's
something that I think the reason why there's only two
of these movies. I know that they've kind of rebooted
it into an animated series, which I have not seen yet. No,
but really it's not an extensive franchise of like there's
twenty movies and there's two TV shows, you know, or
twelve million comic books. It's pretty small in terms of

(01:07:29):
how much content there is. And it's forty years old
and it's forty years old, and it still endures until
you know this day of like people watching it every
year or coming to it for the first time.

Speaker 1 (01:07:40):
You know, okay, to hear, one has only to listen.

Speaker 2 (01:07:48):
All So if your washing machine goes on the for
it's be careful. Turn on all the lights.

Speaker 1 (01:07:59):
Oh perfect, I never know.

Speaker 2 (01:08:00):
There just might be a gremlin there.

Speaker 1 (01:08:06):
I feel like that was perfect recommendations.

Speaker 3 (01:08:10):
All right, you're gonna roll your eyes because it is
a really obvious one. But I will say that if
you like the Gremlins movies, it is worth checking out
the Critters movies because.

Speaker 1 (01:08:23):
I do like mine's Critters too.

Speaker 2 (01:08:25):
Oh shit. Specifically, I'll go Critters one then, because.

Speaker 1 (01:08:29):
I just like mc garris. I love him so.

Speaker 2 (01:08:31):
Charis is great, and I do love Critics too.

Speaker 1 (01:08:33):
I think even maybe a little bit more than one
of the main course Happy Thanksgiving bitches.

Speaker 3 (01:08:37):
Hell yeah uh oh, Critics two is so good.

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:08:41):
But I will say one directed by Stephen Harrick I
think is his name. He's the guy that did the
first Bill and Ted later on as well. It it it.
I would say Critters is to Gremlin's what Piranha is
to Jaws.

Speaker 1 (01:08:57):
Okay, you know I liked Critters better than Likelies.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
Yeah, because Goolies was actually first. Goolies was actually two
or something.

Speaker 1 (01:09:05):
I should have said basket Case, but I feel like
we just talked about that a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:09:10):
We did.

Speaker 3 (01:09:10):
We did talk about basket Case. I mean there's a ton,
like we said, like, there's a ton of Actually Goolies
might have been the same year as Gremlins, so eighty four. Anyway,
they were like contemporaries. But and weirdly, if you watch Goolies,
like the Star of the first not the second Goolies,
but the first Goolies aren't the Goolies. Like the Goolies
are just kind of there because Goolies the first movie
is kind of about like Satanists or something, Yeah, doing

(01:09:33):
like weird spells or whatever in.

Speaker 1 (01:09:34):
The base and then they they're like came out of
the toilet.

Speaker 3 (01:09:38):
But yeah, Critters feels like the horror version of Gremlins
that they're scary. Yeah, but maybe Greandmains was maybe originally
gonna be you know where it's like they but there's
still like some really clever things that they do in
those movies. It's not as soteric, but there's a little
bit and it's certainly there's there's definitely some great jokes too.

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
I'm thinking of when the critters like swear at each other.

Speaker 1 (01:10:01):
I know, Oh my god, isn't Leonardo DiCaprio in one
of them?

Speaker 3 (01:10:04):
He is?

Speaker 2 (01:10:05):
He's in the third one three.

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
Yeah, yeah, that's what the old people right.

Speaker 2 (01:10:08):
In the Yeah, the high Rise or the party. Yeah.
Watch all the Critics movies.

Speaker 3 (01:10:12):
Watch at least the first four, because they they really
do form I feel like a good, like fun arc
of like in the you know, because they are they
they are told. Unlike the Gremlins, where it's kind of
like magical fantasy land, the critics are from space, like
they're alien.

Speaker 1 (01:10:27):
Yeah, they fell out of this they fell out of
the sky.

Speaker 2 (01:10:30):
Uh huh.

Speaker 3 (01:10:30):
So like by the time we go into space and
Critics four in science fiction world, it's like it's cool. Yeah,
but Critters two has that ball of critters which is
just a great.

Speaker 1 (01:10:41):
Oh god, that's why. Yeah, come on, Mick, Mick love Mick,
God bless babbles hair.

Speaker 3 (01:10:48):
So yeah, who knows, maybe one day we'll talk about
the other Gremlins movie and the other Critics movies. You
never know, on bet never know but holidays everyone, and uh,
you know, make sure to follow the rules.

Speaker 1 (01:11:04):
Yeah, keep it scary.

Speaker 2 (01:11:06):
I'm sorry lost the fuss speech.

Speaker 3 (01:11:15):
Thank you all for joining us for this episode of
Bill and Ashley's Terror Theater, part of the Stranded pan network.
You can find my work in the show notes links below.
Check us out on social media. You can find the
show at strandedpana dot com and everywhere.

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
Else you get your podcasts.

Speaker 3 (01:11:30):
If you have questions or comments, please feel free to
write to us at Bill and ash Terror Theater at
gmail dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:11:37):
We're dying dear, see you in your lif

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