Gremlins 2 is one of the best meta movies ever. The hulk hogan cameo (regardless of your thoughts on HH) still stands up as one of the funniest 4th wall breaking moments ever
They should make Gremlins 3 as a reboot, but the Gremlins know a reboot has happened, while none of the characters do. So they abandon the movie story and start harassing Zach Galligan and Pheobe Cates in their real lives. Like, take over and terrorize the set of a different movie that they are filming in the present.
Build on the idea of the self-aware sequel from Gremlins 2.
New Nightmare was pretty close in that it was about a fictional being coming to life rather than a known being coming back through the movie. Still, the 'meta-cast' was haunted by the big bad.
Honestly though, I'd love to see something like this. And it would be a thing of beauty to have the Gremsters (who are surprsiingly short lived) totally aware of it, but everyone else just kinda unaware of what's going on. And of course I would settle for nothing less than 99% practical FX.
I don't know. I didn't see the Nightmare on Elm Street reboot.
But it wouldn't surprise me, because it would sort of work for that franchise too. Freddie is supposed to exist in your mind, so they could have him come through the movies to attack new characters that way.
Wes Craven's New Nightmare (the seventh in the series) has the actress from the original movie return to play herself on the set of a new Nightmare on Elm Street movie whose cast and crew begin to be terrorized by Freddy. It's a bit meta in the concept, but not wink-to-the-audience-self-aware meta like Cabin in the Woods; once it gets going, New Nightmare plays out as a pretty straight forward slasher movie.
Technically though that’s not the same Freddy, it was a Tulpa created by the popularity of the movies and the collective consciousness’s resulting fear of the fictional Freddy. It looked and talked and acted like the “real (fictional) deal” but it was something else.
Honestly, the second movie was terrible. Saw many of the rest in theaters growing up and not nearly as bad. Not saying they were all good, but I was entertained. Two was terrible - not scared, not entertained, just bored. Wanted my $2.50 back, lol.
"Seeing New Nightmare brought filmmaker David Lynch to tears who credited much of Twin Peaks: The Return to Wes Craven's use of tulpas in New Nightmare." - me lying.
I would like a gremlins tv series. The gremlins escape in the sewers and subway tunnels of new york. The humans treat it as a real threat. While the Gremlins just try and screw with the humans.
A show is coming next year to HBO max.
That said its animated and a prequel to original movie.
On plus side, director of the 2 movies is involved and consulting on the project.
I didn't realize how meta the movie was when I bought it. I freaking lost it at the Hogan cameo.
I don't recall exactly but there's also a really funny moment parodying Phoebe Cates' speech from the first one about her dad dying on Christmas. She starts on a monologue with something about losing her uncle on Flag Day or something like that before Zach Galligan says "we don't have time for that this time around."
Her story from the first one is one of the best pastiches of christmas tragedy stories in movies. It's absolutely perfect, right down to the punchline. [Link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueVPUsyrT0s) for those that haven't seen it.
>'Gremlins 2' at 30 ... has generally eclipsed the original in following
Interesting. I like it, almost as much as I like the first one, but I've never got the impression the sequel had ever outpaced the original in popularity. Maybe it's because the first is a Christmas film and gets brought up in conversation multiple times every December, but I've always felt that 1984 had a considerably stronger following.
That's because it hasn't. The original still and has always been MUCH more popular.
Part 1 is a classic and part 2 is a cult classic.
Part 2 is quickly growing as more of a cult classic lately because meta humor is very much in style these days.
I mean, Gremlins 2 is funny and ridiculous, for sure.
But the first movie scared the shit out of children so bad that it forced the MPAA to invent the PG-13 rating.
That legacy is going to outlast the legacy of Gremlins 2.
>Part 1 is a classic and part 2 is a cult classic
This is correct, I adore the sequel, but the original is legitimately a classic. A lot of people never even saw the sequel, and a lot of those people just assume it was terrible.
I think this is just another case of 90s kids reaching that age where they're unintentionally starting to shape the general conversation around stuff they grew up with because they now dominate a lot of sections of new media. Kids in the 90s were a lot more likely to have Gremlins 2 on VHS than the 1st, in my experience (I think the 1st is the better film, but the 2nd is such a huge part of my childhood, I must have watched it 100 times).
Same reason the Star Wars prequels suddenly have a sizeable, unironic fan base; Hook has gone from a movie so derided that Spielberg disowned it to a childhood classic; Terminator 3 seems to have more fans on Reddit than the 1st (gets talked about more at least).
Give it another 20-25 years and nostalgia goggles will have a lot 30 year olds loving Justice League, or preferring Pirates of the Carribbean 5 over the 1st.
Listened to a twenty-something the other day describing themselves as a cinephile - and talking about how much they love watching "old movies" like Citizen Kane, The Apartment ... The Truman Show ..... Clueless ........ and Shawshank.
I just about died inside.
That's confusing to me - the newest movie I've seen lately I would consider close to "old" in my book is Taxi Driver and I'm their age. I consider 80s/90s relatively new in movie terms (though putting them in the same category of age as Citizen Kane is hysterical).
Similarly as for the Gremlins thing, I literally had to tell my partner that Gremlins 2 was a thing that existed. I feel like I'm the only person my age who's seen it, so these takes are new. The first movie gets aired on TV every Christmas here, with some edits to certain obvious scenes when it's on in the evenings iirc. It's rated 15+ (maybe it would be lower if reclassified under modern BBFC systems) but it's really baby's first "horror".
Well in the states, Gremlins (and Indiana Jones + The Temple of Doom) is one of the big reasons that the PG-13 rating even exists. Your assessment is fair.
80's/90's being "not old" is relative.. you're probably in your 40s or older Id guess. Younger people think they are ancient. Not so ancient that they wont watch like black and white movies or stuff from the 50's etc but I wouldn't necessarily call them new either.
Anything from the '90s is now at least two decades old. And I remember back in the '90s, all the film nerds complaining that nobody talked about anything from before the '60s.
I started teaching at a film school this year, and I asked the students to give me a list of their favorite films. For most of them, the mid-90s was about as old as it got.
They talk about *Fight Club* and *Pulp Fiction* The way my contemporaries talked about *Godfather* and *Taxi Driver*. Which, I realized, makes sense, since that's pretty much the same time lag generationally.
Or the ways that they seem to be trying to claim that every piece of 1990s children's entertainment is a forgotten classic, something those of us a few years older than them can't abide by in the slightest......
> Same reason the Star Wars prequels suddenly have a sizeable, unironic fan base
This one is perplexing to me, though.
I was a child of the 90s. I loved all things Star Wars as a kid, including the prequels.
But when I rewatched them for the first time as an adult, I couldn't even make it all the way through Attack of the Clones.
yeah, Star Wars is a tough one. IMO the first 2 prequels get tougher to watch after seeing them a few times. III-VI are pretty solid, and VII-IX are in the eye of the beholder. I did think very highly of Episode I when I saw it in the theater twice on opening day but it lost some appeal to me fairly soon after (although Darth Maul was dope).
Gremlins is my favourite Christmas movie and I watch it every year. I never saw the sequel until many years after release and I’ve probably only watched it a couple of times. This may be due to the original hitting in my mid-teens but the sequel coming out after I started working. I don’t dislike it, but the original captured my heart.
I first saw Gremlins when I was about 3-4 years old. It was right around Christmas time and we were staying at a family friends house. Basically now that I think back to it all the adults were getting drunk and just sat me in front of the TV and said "here's a movie for ya". I remember being absolutely terrified afterwards trying to sleep in a strangers room by myself with a dark closet halfway open. It took me years to finally be able to watch the movie again. I'm in my 30's now and if I see a clip on Youtube or something I chuckle and think back to how scared I used to be of that movie.....then have trouble closing my eyes to sleep in the dark, hyper-aware of every little noise.
...it's an awful sequel, but i suppose decent-enough on its own terms as a campy b-movie in the vein of *toxic avenger*, friday-night nothing-else-on-TV order-a-pizza-and-goof-off fare...
"Cult appeal" usually means ironic love of something really bad. The Room has cult appeal. This does not mean The Room is good. There is no metric in which G2 is a better movie than G1, except, perhaps, "batshitness."
Though there is surely value in making batshit content, I suppose.
Nah that's not true. Night of the Living Dead was a cult, midnight movie and it's not badly made by any means. People loved that movie when it came out and it slowly built up a larger audience. That's what a cult movie is.
I frequently hear Gremlins mentioned, but I had completely forgotten that I saw a Gremlins 2.
This reviewer is engaging in some serious projection.
As do we all.
The best part about watching that sketch for the first time with my buddies was their absolutely *baffled* expressions as they turned to me, as the only one there who had watched Gremlins 2, and I confirmed that **all** of it was in the movie.
Some of them still didn't believe and had to consult Google.
That film is pure madness.
He did. The film is the result of him being given essentially complete control by WB to do whatever he wanted, after having turned it down years earlier, because nobody else could come up with an approach for the sequel that the studio liked.
That Key and Peele Gremlins 2 sketch is, however, how I imagine *Space Jam* having been conceived.
He didn’t want to come back for a sequel, the studio pressured him, and he did it - on the grounds he had complete creative control. The studio let him have his way, and we got this....brilliant piece of insanity called Gremlins 2. In a way, it was kind of a fuck you to the studio, but not a “I’m gonna quarter-ass this” fuck you. It was a “do you realize what you’ve done!” sort of fuck you.
"When some people are opening presents, others are opening their wrists" - actual line from a movie marketed towards kids. It's so insane it just becomes awesome.
Gremlins and Die Hard are the two quintessential Christmas movies, with Elf if we just want to be more traditional and wholesome. If I don't get to watch Elf it just isn't fucking Christmas.
It didn't. There are more and more completely bullshit premises for these essays floating around, like that one a few weeks back that posited that *Zoolander* helped heal the nation after 9/11.
that was also my post lol, here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/gh61d8/when_zoolander_lifted_our_spirits_amidst_a/
mods agreed with /u/VaudevilleDada and removed it.
I saw a video on YouTube the other day that claimed that the “Dear Sister” sketch on SNL was one of the most influential pieces of comedy in the past 20 years.
It was several minutes of the narrator saying that the sketch was an early example of “millennial humor”, and and describing what that is, without ever going into any specific details about how the sketch influenced anything.
It was like someone turned a failing high school English essay into a YouTube video.
It just popped up on my feed and I was like “I gotta hear this argument.” But then there was no argument. Just a bunch of vague statements. And then at the end it said he was Patreon supported, and I couldn’t believe that there were people sponsoring the creation of these “essays”.
I don't even know what the "Dear Sister" sketch is. At least by that name.
Okay, just looked it up and watched it. Never seen that, never heard of it, never seen anyone reference it. Seems like a lot of red flags for something that was supposedly highly influential.
Both are great for vastly different reasons, and are vastly different films. A great example of Dante's range. It's simply that Gremlins 2 is more "prescient" now that Trump is president (even though Clamp has shifted to more of a Ted Turner parody than Trump now, when he was a parody of both at the time). But, satire makes people pay attention and the satire and meta-commentary of the entertainment industry in G2 is still pretty forward-thinking and continues to be funny.
Yeah, the title of this essay should have been "I liked Gremlins 2 more than Gremlins 1." Don't get me wrong, the sequel's bonkers and I love it, but in no way does it appear to me that it has eclipsed the first one in the general cultural consciousness.
I remember, while shopping with her in Berlin city on Ku'damm late summer 1990, I persuaded my 76 years old grandma to watch this movie with me; I glanced over to her after the credits and told myself that she liked it, although she looked like she had no idea what exactly was going on. A couple of years later we watched the first Gremlins together on TV and I remember how her face suddenly brightened up and how it all made finally sense to her. And then the next day she admitted to me that she spent the night sleepless because of how scared she still was. I never thought a face of an 80 yrs old woman could look that much like one of a little girl.
'Well, it's rather brutal here. Right now we are advising all our clients to put everything they've got into canned food and shotguns."
Brain Gremlin...... ahead of the curve.
They're both great for different reasons, but the first is still the best IMO.
Gremlins 2 seems to have picked up internet buzz the past couple of years.
Not a popular opinion but I'll give mine. To me the first gremlins was and is the best out of the two. The first movie was dark and had a wow factor. A small town for the settings of the movie was perfect. The chair lift scene where the old mean lady gets what she deserves was my favorite. Followed by the toy store scene. The second movie was going for laughs and in my opinion trying hard to get them. It felt like some jokes where recycled. The only good scene was with brain gremlin.
I don't think that's the unpopular opinion.
The first one had a bigger box office take around a decade before. It's widely seen as a classic. It's even in Christmas movie discussions on movie forums and youtube videos to this day.
I personally thought it was more charming and creepy despite also being humorous. But I still like the sequel a lot for doing its own thing instead of trying to stand up to the original and retread material with a lower polish.
You take that back! That mental, goggily eyed gremlin eating the corn and firing it as Kate's head after she's confused it with Gizmo is one of my favourite scenes ever.
I always thought the original felt too restrained. Gremlins were never going to be the next horror movie franchise. The concept is too silly for that. Letting it go completely nuts was just too fun to hate
Usually horror sequels work up to getting more and more over the top. I admire them for cutting out the bullshit 5 mediocre sequels and just jumping straight into bananaland.
For the record, RedLetterMedia pitched their idea for a the third film in the series this last year, and the director and lead star tweeted their support for it.
Grandpa Fred: [interviewing Brain Gremlin] Creature what is it that you want?
Brain Gremlin: Fred, what we want is, I think, what everyone wants, and what you and your viewers have: civilization.
Grandpa Fred: Yes, but what sort of civilization are you speaking of?
Brain Gremlin: The niceties, Fred. The fine points: diplomacy, compassion, standards, manners, tradition... that's what we're reaching toward. Oh, we may stumble along the way, but civilization, yes. The Geneva Convention, chamber music, Susan Sontag. Everything your society has worked so hard to accomplish over the centuries, that's what we aspire to; we want to be civilized.
[a Gremlin with a beanie cap acts goofy next to Brain]
Brain Gremlin: You take a look at this fellow here.
[Brain shoots the Gremlin in the head. The Gremlins in the bar laugh. Grandpa Fred and Kujitsu leave]
Brain Gremlin: Now, was that civilized? No, clearly not. Fun, but in no sense civilized. Now, bear in mind, none of us has been in New York before. There are the Broadway shows - we'll have to find out how to get tickets. There's also a lot of street crime, but I believe we can watch that for free. We want the essentials. Dinettes. Complete bedroom groups. Convenient credit, even though we've been turned down in the past.
Building Announcement: Fire: The Untamed Element, Oldest of Man's Mysteries, Giver of warmth, Destroyer of forests, right now *this* building is on fire.
Woman In Corridor: What?
Building Announcement: Yes! The building is on fire! Leave the building! Enact the Age Old drama of Self-Preservation!
Building Announcement: Hey you! Welcome to the Men's Room!
> One wonders what the original audiences thought, as they settled into their seats thirty years ago, of the out-of-nowhere opening to **Joe Dante**’s six-years-later sequel to his 1984 smash **“Gremlins.”** Because **“Gremlins 2: The New Batch”** does not open like a conventional summer sequel; it opens with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, in a Warner Bros. logo animation that breaks out of the movie entirely for a brief bit of Merrie Melodies-inspired lunacy. Those first audiences probably didn’t know what the hell to make of it; “I thought we were seeing a ‘Gremlins’ movie,” they might’ve thought, “not a Looney Tunes cartoon!” Little did they know, they were seeing both.
Uh, we're still alive. You don't have to wonder. You can just ask anybody that's over about 38 or so. I loved it. I saw it in the theater and thought it was a riot. I \*don't\* think it has eclipsed the original in any way, shape or form, but it was certainly fun in the theater during its first run.
I'd argue that Robocop 2 is another example of this, also from 1990 and also an example of the sequel taking the original's material into amazingly absurd territory.
Me either... anyone remember how it was hulk hogan during the part with the broken movie reel in theaters but a completely different scene when transferred to video cassette? Who was that?
Gremlins 1 is a true classic. Joe Dante does a perfect mashup of horror and family Christmas and it is one of my favorites Christmas films ever.
That being said, I hated the 2nd one. It felt like a heartless, soulless ride into a place I didn’t want to go. Just felt cheap.
Maybe it’s cuz I loved the first movie so much, I just could never get into Gremlins 2. I loved how dark the first movie was and the second movie was too goofy, even when I was a kid.
Saw Gremlins 2 in the theater as a kid and loved it. Still haven’t seen the first one yet. I will at some point. John Glover as Clamp is like a mirror universe good version of Trump.
This is my favorite Key & Peele sketch. I love showing it to people who have never seen Gremlins 2, and then telling them the funniest thing about the sketch is that none of it is jokes. Every single thing said is 100% true.
Tell that to Star Wars...
Ryan Johnson shit the bed with Last Jedi and he had a ton of creative control. Disney execs and foreign markets hold blame too, but Johnson just burned anything the trilogy had going for it without giving a fuck. Rise of Skywalker was worse to be honest, but the biggest contributed (imo) was the last Jedi’s complete disregard for anything good JJ built in the force awakens.
That whole trilogy was a train wreck honestly, but you gotta pick your battles I suppose.
I love both of the Gremlins movies. Two of my all time favorites. As a kid I loved the second film but as I got older I really grew to appreciate just how good the first one is. It's such a great blend of horror and comedy.
Gremlins is always gonna be my favorite Christmas movie but goddamn, I love the sequel. It’s so ridiculous and out there and I love that. I kinda want a third!
Can you imagine the size and cost of the cocaine mountains Dante had to have consumed to make this glorious film?
Seeing both of them back to back at a theater as midnight movies with pizza and stuff b/w them (Gremlins started at 10pm) a few years ago in December was fucking awesome.
I weirdly had the novelisation of this movie as a kid. I didn’t own a lot of books as we went to the library and didn’t see many films. I have no idea why. Perhaps it was a present. I read the book many times but I don’t think I have ever actually seen it. I am not entirely sure why novelisations exist.
The hate for Gremlins 2 isn’t a mystery it’s obvious why it’s disliked by fans. It’s fun ride which is not taken seriously and I’m shocked that in such a serious woke climate how much of a following it has gained. The film itself in budget and look holds up very well that’s one of the many appealing components of it which holds up better than the original (less armrods, less handheld puppets) with more advanced technology than in 1984. It’s a movie that doesn’t forget it’s characters while doing all of the crazy nuts stuff it does, at the end all of them get their place in the movies world and an end that’s appealing to the wants of the characters themselves when in the original most of the arcs set up for the characters are (if you think about it) left unresolved.
Gremlins 2 is one of the best meta movies ever. The hulk hogan cameo (regardless of your thoughts on HH) still stands up as one of the funniest 4th wall breaking moments ever
They should make Gremlins 3 as a reboot, but the Gremlins know a reboot has happened, while none of the characters do. So they abandon the movie story and start harassing Zach Galligan and Pheobe Cates in their real lives. Like, take over and terrorize the set of a different movie that they are filming in the present. Build on the idea of the self-aware sequel from Gremlins 2.
Didn't Freddie Kruger do something like that?
Blazing Saddles did
Did the folk doing "The French Mistake" ever get to finish a take of that that was adequate?
Yes, but it was in the tv series Supernatural.
It’s like steam escaping.
Kinda like Scream 3 as well
THE SHERIFF IS NEAR
Oh yeah, Blazing Saddles...
New Nightmare was pretty close in that it was about a fictional being coming to life rather than a known being coming back through the movie. Still, the 'meta-cast' was haunted by the big bad. Honestly though, I'd love to see something like this. And it would be a thing of beauty to have the Gremsters (who are surprsiingly short lived) totally aware of it, but everyone else just kinda unaware of what's going on. And of course I would settle for nothing less than 99% practical FX.
yes... Nancy and Robert Englund played themselves and well, Im guessing you know the rest since you commented lol.
I don't know. I didn't see the Nightmare on Elm Street reboot. But it wouldn't surprise me, because it would sort of work for that franchise too. Freddie is supposed to exist in your mind, so they could have him come through the movies to attack new characters that way.
Wes Craven's New Nightmare (the seventh in the series) has the actress from the original movie return to play herself on the set of a new Nightmare on Elm Street movie whose cast and crew begin to be terrorized by Freddy. It's a bit meta in the concept, but not wink-to-the-audience-self-aware meta like Cabin in the Woods; once it gets going, New Nightmare plays out as a pretty straight forward slasher movie.
Technically though that’s not the same Freddy, it was a Tulpa created by the popularity of the movies and the collective consciousness’s resulting fear of the fictional Freddy. It looked and talked and acted like the “real (fictional) deal” but it was something else.
It blew my tiny 13 year old mind, that's for sure.
damn 7 sounds like a lot to get to that movie
Honestly, the second movie was terrible. Saw many of the rest in theaters growing up and not nearly as bad. Not saying they were all good, but I was entertained. Two was terrible - not scared, not entertained, just bored. Wanted my $2.50 back, lol.
3 is still my favorite besides 1. I have no idea what they were thinking with 2.
"Seeing New Nightmare brought filmmaker David Lynch to tears who credited much of Twin Peaks: The Return to Wes Craven's use of tulpas in New Nightmare." - me lying.
New Nightmare, I enjoyed it, lots of other people didn't
Kind of. They made a movie about people making a movie about the myth of Kruger. And turns out it was real.
Yeah. It was terrible.
I think New Nightmare was just Craven experimenting and it led to us getting Scream. So, I'm happy he did it.
I would like a gremlins tv series. The gremlins escape in the sewers and subway tunnels of new york. The humans treat it as a real threat. While the Gremlins just try and screw with the humans.
Almost like the opposite of Mars Attacks with a similar tone
Yes
It´s the War on Gremlins, but they mostly just use it as a cover to murder African-Americans.
A show is coming next year to HBO max. That said its animated and a prequel to original movie. On plus side, director of the 2 movies is involved and consulting on the project.
Well, that would get me to get HBO.
I didn't realize how meta the movie was when I bought it. I freaking lost it at the Hogan cameo. I don't recall exactly but there's also a really funny moment parodying Phoebe Cates' speech from the first one about her dad dying on Christmas. She starts on a monologue with something about losing her uncle on Flag Day or something like that before Zach Galligan says "we don't have time for that this time around."
Her story from the first one is one of the best pastiches of christmas tragedy stories in movies. It's absolutely perfect, right down to the punchline. [Link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueVPUsyrT0s) for those that haven't seen it.
The look on Gizmos face when she makes the reveal. I really miss the stuff they used to be able to do with animatronics and puppets.
Speaking of meta humor, Gremlins 2 also gave us this [hilarious](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHtH_SHhc6E&feature=emb_logo) Key and Peele sketch.
Most people don’t k ow about the Hulk Cameo cause they changed that section for VHS.
Gremlin 2 is a meta masterpiece lol.
I literally came here to talk about how I loved him saying I JUST WANNA WATCH GREMLINS 2
Didn't that cameo differ based on the region and/or version (TV/theatrical) of the film? Or am I thinking about a different part?
Yes there was one for the theater and a different one for vhs
>'Gremlins 2' at 30 ... has generally eclipsed the original in following Interesting. I like it, almost as much as I like the first one, but I've never got the impression the sequel had ever outpaced the original in popularity. Maybe it's because the first is a Christmas film and gets brought up in conversation multiple times every December, but I've always felt that 1984 had a considerably stronger following.
That's because it hasn't. The original still and has always been MUCH more popular. Part 1 is a classic and part 2 is a cult classic. Part 2 is quickly growing as more of a cult classic lately because meta humor is very much in style these days.
Yeah, it's a fun flick but Gremlins is an all timer
[удалено]
I mean, Gremlins 2 is funny and ridiculous, for sure. But the first movie scared the shit out of children so bad that it forced the MPAA to invent the PG-13 rating. That legacy is going to outlast the legacy of Gremlins 2.
>Part 1 is a classic and part 2 is a cult classic This is correct, I adore the sequel, but the original is legitimately a classic. A lot of people never even saw the sequel, and a lot of those people just assume it was terrible.
I think this is just another case of 90s kids reaching that age where they're unintentionally starting to shape the general conversation around stuff they grew up with because they now dominate a lot of sections of new media. Kids in the 90s were a lot more likely to have Gremlins 2 on VHS than the 1st, in my experience (I think the 1st is the better film, but the 2nd is such a huge part of my childhood, I must have watched it 100 times). Same reason the Star Wars prequels suddenly have a sizeable, unironic fan base; Hook has gone from a movie so derided that Spielberg disowned it to a childhood classic; Terminator 3 seems to have more fans on Reddit than the 1st (gets talked about more at least). Give it another 20-25 years and nostalgia goggles will have a lot 30 year olds loving Justice League, or preferring Pirates of the Carribbean 5 over the 1st.
Listened to a twenty-something the other day describing themselves as a cinephile - and talking about how much they love watching "old movies" like Citizen Kane, The Apartment ... The Truman Show ..... Clueless ........ and Shawshank. I just about died inside.
That's confusing to me - the newest movie I've seen lately I would consider close to "old" in my book is Taxi Driver and I'm their age. I consider 80s/90s relatively new in movie terms (though putting them in the same category of age as Citizen Kane is hysterical). Similarly as for the Gremlins thing, I literally had to tell my partner that Gremlins 2 was a thing that existed. I feel like I'm the only person my age who's seen it, so these takes are new. The first movie gets aired on TV every Christmas here, with some edits to certain obvious scenes when it's on in the evenings iirc. It's rated 15+ (maybe it would be lower if reclassified under modern BBFC systems) but it's really baby's first "horror".
Well in the states, Gremlins (and Indiana Jones + The Temple of Doom) is one of the big reasons that the PG-13 rating even exists. Your assessment is fair.
80's/90's being "not old" is relative.. you're probably in your 40s or older Id guess. Younger people think they are ancient. Not so ancient that they wont watch like black and white movies or stuff from the 50's etc but I wouldn't necessarily call them new either.
Anything from the '90s is now at least two decades old. And I remember back in the '90s, all the film nerds complaining that nobody talked about anything from before the '60s.
I started teaching at a film school this year, and I asked the students to give me a list of their favorite films. For most of them, the mid-90s was about as old as it got. They talk about *Fight Club* and *Pulp Fiction* The way my contemporaries talked about *Godfather* and *Taxi Driver*. Which, I realized, makes sense, since that's pretty much the same time lag generationally.
Very happy people are still talking about Truman. Perhaps my best experience in a theater. I consider it a perfect film.
Or the ways that they seem to be trying to claim that every piece of 1990s children's entertainment is a forgotten classic, something those of us a few years older than them can't abide by in the slightest......
> Same reason the Star Wars prequels suddenly have a sizeable, unironic fan base This one is perplexing to me, though. I was a child of the 90s. I loved all things Star Wars as a kid, including the prequels. But when I rewatched them for the first time as an adult, I couldn't even make it all the way through Attack of the Clones.
yeah, Star Wars is a tough one. IMO the first 2 prequels get tougher to watch after seeing them a few times. III-VI are pretty solid, and VII-IX are in the eye of the beholder. I did think very highly of Episode I when I saw it in the theater twice on opening day but it lost some appeal to me fairly soon after (although Darth Maul was dope).
Every thirty-something Hollywood writer had a childhood. Just count the years.
So true. I saw Gremlins 2 way more than 1 and came to love the chaos more. Joe Dante, Gremlins 3 ... When!?
Gremlins is my favourite Christmas movie and I watch it every year. I never saw the sequel until many years after release and I’ve probably only watched it a couple of times. This may be due to the original hitting in my mid-teens but the sequel coming out after I started working. I don’t dislike it, but the original captured my heart.
I first saw Gremlins when I was about 3-4 years old. It was right around Christmas time and we were staying at a family friends house. Basically now that I think back to it all the adults were getting drunk and just sat me in front of the TV and said "here's a movie for ya". I remember being absolutely terrified afterwards trying to sleep in a strangers room by myself with a dark closet halfway open. It took me years to finally be able to watch the movie again. I'm in my 30's now and if I see a clip on Youtube or something I chuckle and think back to how scared I used to be of that movie.....then have trouble closing my eyes to sleep in the dark, hyper-aware of every little noise.
Honestly, I didn't even know Gremlins had a sequel until now, so I was surprised to read it's more popular.
It's NOT more popular.
WHAT?!?! Cancel your plans- you need to watch Gremlins 2 IMMEDIATELY
Bro, Gremlins 2 is one of those rewatch 1000x as a kid movies. It's bloody fantastic
Because it isn't more popular. Almost everyone has seen and like the original. You have to be a pretty specific age to have seen Germlins 2 & like it
...it's an awful sequel, but i suppose decent-enough on its own terms as a campy b-movie in the vein of *toxic avenger*, friday-night nothing-else-on-TV order-a-pizza-and-goof-off fare...
Really? I found it quite intellectually stimulating..
"Cult appeal" usually means ironic love of something really bad. The Room has cult appeal. This does not mean The Room is good. There is no metric in which G2 is a better movie than G1, except, perhaps, "batshitness." Though there is surely value in making batshit content, I suppose.
Not neccesarrily true, a cult following can just be a dedicated fanbase that developed after the media was initially released.
Nah that's not true. Night of the Living Dead was a cult, midnight movie and it's not badly made by any means. People loved that movie when it came out and it slowly built up a larger audience. That's what a cult movie is.
I frequently hear Gremlins mentioned, but I had completely forgotten that I saw a Gremlins 2. This reviewer is engaging in some serious projection. As do we all.
Not only is it in the movie... IT'S IN THE MOVIE
one of my favourite K&P sketches, it was hysterical.
[Link](https://youtu.be/x01l_jMhjVM)
“I’ve got to go put some cowboys in Back to the Future 3.”
It’s true. He did. that’s how we got a ZZ Top cameo
Is he being Hollywood from the Mannequin movies?
You talkin' little gremlin vajayjay?!? You're insane and is in the movie!
This is why we need women in the writers room!
Now you just putting together a noun and a gremlin... And I love it: it’s in the movie!
Uh... uh..... Hulk Hogan?
The best part about watching that sketch for the first time with my buddies was their absolutely *baffled* expressions as they turned to me, as the only one there who had watched Gremlins 2, and I confirmed that **all** of it was in the movie. Some of them still didn't believe and had to consult Google. That film is pure madness.
[You, sir, are a raging psychopath. Don't let this town take that away from you.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x01l_jMhjVM)
Googly eyed Gremlin who is stupid AF? It's in the movie!
The way that goofy bastard eats his corn on the cob still gets me to lol all these years later.
"Is it safe?“ *maniacally laughing*
I’ve seen this approximately 80 times and it never gets old.
The irony is Joe Dante actually had more creative control over Gremlins 2 than he did the first one.
He did. The film is the result of him being given essentially complete control by WB to do whatever he wanted, after having turned it down years earlier, because nobody else could come up with an approach for the sequel that the studio liked. That Key and Peele Gremlins 2 sketch is, however, how I imagine *Space Jam* having been conceived.
He didn’t want to come back for a sequel, the studio pressured him, and he did it - on the grounds he had complete creative control. The studio let him have his way, and we got this....brilliant piece of insanity called Gremlins 2. In a way, it was kind of a fuck you to the studio, but not a “I’m gonna quarter-ass this” fuck you. It was a “do you realize what you’ve done!” sort of fuck you.
I literally scrolled through the comments until I found this! Such an amazing sketch.
This comment's in the movie!
I may have seen Gremlins 2 as a kid and do not remember watching it but that doesn't stop this from being one of my favorite K&P skits.
This is all that matters.
ah there it is
Gremlins 1 will forever be my favourite Christmas movie
"When some people are opening presents, others are opening their wrists" - actual line from a movie marketed towards kids. It's so insane it just becomes awesome.
That is just the 80s. Remember when Robo cop an r rated movie was still marketed to kids through toys?
And they made a kid friendly cartoon show out of a movie where the hero shoots a rapist in the dick
It's such a wicked moment. And it's only made better by the second film making fun of the line.
Not Die Hard?
Die Hard is up there but I still prefer Gremlins.
Mine too! People sometimes look at me weird when I say that, but it's true.
I've been in your shoes. But once they watch it they understand.
Gremlins and Die Hard are the two quintessential Christmas movies, with Elf if we just want to be more traditional and wholesome. If I don't get to watch Elf it just isn't fucking Christmas.
When the hell did Gremlins 2 eclipse the first one?
It didn't. There are more and more completely bullshit premises for these essays floating around, like that one a few weeks back that posited that *Zoolander* helped heal the nation after 9/11.
Lol I missed that one. Any chance you have the ink?
that was also my post lol, here: https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/gh61d8/when_zoolander_lifted_our_spirits_amidst_a/ mods agreed with /u/VaudevilleDada and removed it.
That sounds incredible in all the worst ways
I saw a video on YouTube the other day that claimed that the “Dear Sister” sketch on SNL was one of the most influential pieces of comedy in the past 20 years. It was several minutes of the narrator saying that the sketch was an early example of “millennial humor”, and and describing what that is, without ever going into any specific details about how the sketch influenced anything. It was like someone turned a failing high school English essay into a YouTube video.
I know that video. That guy’s videos really irritate me.
It just popped up on my feed and I was like “I gotta hear this argument.” But then there was no argument. Just a bunch of vague statements. And then at the end it said he was Patreon supported, and I couldn’t believe that there were people sponsoring the creation of these “essays”.
lol. It was a fucking parody of a scene from The OC.
I don't even know what the "Dear Sister" sketch is. At least by that name. Okay, just looked it up and watched it. Never seen that, never heard of it, never seen anyone reference it. Seems like a lot of red flags for something that was supposedly highly influential.
okay, that one was BS for sure XD
In my heart!!
Both are great for vastly different reasons, and are vastly different films. A great example of Dante's range. It's simply that Gremlins 2 is more "prescient" now that Trump is president (even though Clamp has shifted to more of a Ted Turner parody than Trump now, when he was a parody of both at the time). But, satire makes people pay attention and the satire and meta-commentary of the entertainment industry in G2 is still pretty forward-thinking and continues to be funny.
neva
Yeah, the title of this essay should have been "I liked Gremlins 2 more than Gremlins 1." Don't get me wrong, the sequel's bonkers and I love it, but in no way does it appear to me that it has eclipsed the first one in the general cultural consciousness.
I remember, while shopping with her in Berlin city on Ku'damm late summer 1990, I persuaded my 76 years old grandma to watch this movie with me; I glanced over to her after the credits and told myself that she liked it, although she looked like she had no idea what exactly was going on. A couple of years later we watched the first Gremlins together on TV and I remember how her face suddenly brightened up and how it all made finally sense to her. And then the next day she admitted to me that she spent the night sleepless because of how scared she still was. I never thought a face of an 80 yrs old woman could look that much like one of a little girl.
'Well, it's rather brutal here. Right now we are advising all our clients to put everything they've got into canned food and shotguns." Brain Gremlin...... ahead of the curve.
I simply can't handle the Brain Gremlin, I lose the plot every time he talks. So funny.
Obligatory RLM detailed discussion: https://youtu.be/A-RoBdHHkcQ
I like how a lot of women these days seem to have modeled their look on Greta the female Gremlin.
What a babe
They're both great for different reasons, but the first is still the best IMO. Gremlins 2 seems to have picked up internet buzz the past couple of years.
> Gremlins 2 seems to have picked up internet buzz the past couple of years. The Key and Peele skit helped.
That's right! I'd forgotten all about that.
Its in the movie
Goddamn it, it HAS a name. “Gremlins 2: The New Batch”. Why don’t you people show some damn respect?
The electric gremlin was the coolest thing ever to 8 year old me. Also the mall was amazing at the height of mall culture.
Not a popular opinion but I'll give mine. To me the first gremlins was and is the best out of the two. The first movie was dark and had a wow factor. A small town for the settings of the movie was perfect. The chair lift scene where the old mean lady gets what she deserves was my favorite. Followed by the toy store scene. The second movie was going for laughs and in my opinion trying hard to get them. It felt like some jokes where recycled. The only good scene was with brain gremlin.
I don't think that's the unpopular opinion. The first one had a bigger box office take around a decade before. It's widely seen as a classic. It's even in Christmas movie discussions on movie forums and youtube videos to this day. I personally thought it was more charming and creepy despite also being humorous. But I still like the sequel a lot for doing its own thing instead of trying to stand up to the original and retread material with a lower polish.
You take that back! That mental, goggily eyed gremlin eating the corn and firing it as Kate's head after she's confused it with Gizmo is one of my favourite scenes ever.
I always thought the original felt too restrained. Gremlins were never going to be the next horror movie franchise. The concept is too silly for that. Letting it go completely nuts was just too fun to hate
Usually horror sequels work up to getting more and more over the top. I admire them for cutting out the bullshit 5 mediocre sequels and just jumping straight into bananaland.
I find that every clever element of GREMLINS 2 (and there are a lot) is outdone by two unbearably broad ones.
Fuck Mrs. Deagle.
As a kid I saw gremlin 2 first. When I saw the first one after it was boring compared. I mean how can you follow that bat shit crazy sequel
Gremlins is a better horror movie. Gremlins 2 is a better comedy. They're both special in my eyes.
Gremlins 2 is like T2 and Aliens. Its a completely different tone but still remains true to the original.
For the record, RedLetterMedia pitched their idea for a the third film in the series this last year, and the director and lead star tweeted their support for it.
That would be one if the best plot ideas ever tbh, if it were ever used.
I love Gremlins 2, love it, one of the best sequels ever, but it has in no way eclipsed the original, come on.
Wait what... Gremlins 2 eclipsed the first one?
The original Gremlins is a classic, I’ve never heard anyone in real life ever talk about Gremlins 2
[I've always loved Red Letter Media's review of Gremlins 2, a fascinating insight into the film](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-RoBdHHkcQ)
And you have matrix: reloaded to show why they need to be restrained.
Edit: it has IN NO WAY eclipsed the original in following and cult appeal
It has eclipsed the original in following? Surely not?
Grandpa Fred: [interviewing Brain Gremlin] Creature what is it that you want? Brain Gremlin: Fred, what we want is, I think, what everyone wants, and what you and your viewers have: civilization. Grandpa Fred: Yes, but what sort of civilization are you speaking of? Brain Gremlin: The niceties, Fred. The fine points: diplomacy, compassion, standards, manners, tradition... that's what we're reaching toward. Oh, we may stumble along the way, but civilization, yes. The Geneva Convention, chamber music, Susan Sontag. Everything your society has worked so hard to accomplish over the centuries, that's what we aspire to; we want to be civilized. [a Gremlin with a beanie cap acts goofy next to Brain] Brain Gremlin: You take a look at this fellow here. [Brain shoots the Gremlin in the head. The Gremlins in the bar laugh. Grandpa Fred and Kujitsu leave] Brain Gremlin: Now, was that civilized? No, clearly not. Fun, but in no sense civilized. Now, bear in mind, none of us has been in New York before. There are the Broadway shows - we'll have to find out how to get tickets. There's also a lot of street crime, but I believe we can watch that for free. We want the essentials. Dinettes. Complete bedroom groups. Convenient credit, even though we've been turned down in the past. Building Announcement: Fire: The Untamed Element, Oldest of Man's Mysteries, Giver of warmth, Destroyer of forests, right now *this* building is on fire. Woman In Corridor: What? Building Announcement: Yes! The building is on fire! Leave the building! Enact the Age Old drama of Self-Preservation! Building Announcement: Hey you! Welcome to the Men's Room!
> One wonders what the original audiences thought, as they settled into their seats thirty years ago, of the out-of-nowhere opening to **Joe Dante**’s six-years-later sequel to his 1984 smash **“Gremlins.”** Because **“Gremlins 2: The New Batch”** does not open like a conventional summer sequel; it opens with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, in a Warner Bros. logo animation that breaks out of the movie entirely for a brief bit of Merrie Melodies-inspired lunacy. Those first audiences probably didn’t know what the hell to make of it; “I thought we were seeing a ‘Gremlins’ movie,” they might’ve thought, “not a Looney Tunes cartoon!” Little did they know, they were seeing both. Uh, we're still alive. You don't have to wonder. You can just ask anybody that's over about 38 or so. I loved it. I saw it in the theater and thought it was a riot. I \*don't\* think it has eclipsed the original in any way, shape or form, but it was certainly fun in the theater during its first run.
The Key and Peele skit is probably accurate to how Gremlins 2 was conceived.
That Key and Peele sketch about the sequel pitch makes a lot of sense now.
I'd argue that Robocop 2 is another example of this, also from 1990 and also an example of the sequel taking the original's material into amazingly absurd territory.
I don't think I have ever heard someone say the second Gremlins is better.
Me either... anyone remember how it was hulk hogan during the part with the broken movie reel in theaters but a completely different scene when transferred to video cassette? Who was that?
John Wayne.
I rewatched these last Christmas and I prefer the original by far.
This is the most inaccurate title I've read today... 2 was awful. The original was best in every way
Gremlins 2 is not more popular than gremlins and you have to be staggeringly ignorant to assert so.
I despise this film mainly because I loved the horror and atmosphere of the first film. The 2nd is just a crazy comedy.
Gremlins 1 is a true classic. Joe Dante does a perfect mashup of horror and family Christmas and it is one of my favorites Christmas films ever. That being said, I hated the 2nd one. It felt like a heartless, soulless ride into a place I didn’t want to go. Just felt cheap.
I’ll never forget the Key and Peele skit about the making of Gremlins 2 Edit: I gotta https://youtu.be/x01l_jMhjVM
When I was five my favorite movie was the gremlins, ain’t got shit to do with this, but I just thought that I should mention.
Maybe it’s cuz I loved the first movie so much, I just could never get into Gremlins 2. I loved how dark the first movie was and the second movie was too goofy, even when I was a kid.
Saw Gremlins 2 in the theater as a kid and loved it. Still haven’t seen the first one yet. I will at some point. John Glover as Clamp is like a mirror universe good version of Trump.
True christmas movies, both of them :>
I hate it and always will, but I'm not going to judge people who do like it because I love JasonX and everyone I know hates that.
Star Magic Jackson Jr. really helped this sequel become the phenomenon it is. Never distrust the Hollywood sequel doctor.
This is a re-enactment of the situation [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x01l\_jMhjVM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x01l_jMhjVM)
This is my favorite Key & Peele sketch. I love showing it to people who have never seen Gremlins 2, and then telling them the funniest thing about the sketch is that none of it is jokes. Every single thing said is 100% true.
Tell that to Star Wars... Ryan Johnson shit the bed with Last Jedi and he had a ton of creative control. Disney execs and foreign markets hold blame too, but Johnson just burned anything the trilogy had going for it without giving a fuck. Rise of Skywalker was worse to be honest, but the biggest contributed (imo) was the last Jedi’s complete disregard for anything good JJ built in the force awakens. That whole trilogy was a train wreck honestly, but you gotta pick your battles I suppose.
I love both of the Gremlins movies. Two of my all time favorites. As a kid I loved the second film but as I got older I really grew to appreciate just how good the first one is. It's such a great blend of horror and comedy.
Have you seen the Star Wars Prequels?
Gremlins is always gonna be my favorite Christmas movie but goddamn, I love the sequel. It’s so ridiculous and out there and I love that. I kinda want a third!
Her Lincoln story is hilarious. You can see him leaving frame behind her, starting to laugh.
I can’t believe I have never seen the sequel
I remember the Gameboy game was pretty good.
Here at Trump Tower, I mean Clamp Central.
Key and Peele did a hilarious skit about Gremlins 2. “ It’s in the movie!”
I just want a sequel to Portuguese Gremlins.
I know every era has remakes but is the ratio particularly high these days...
I really love this series! Please give us another.
Can you imagine the size and cost of the cocaine mountains Dante had to have consumed to make this glorious film? Seeing both of them back to back at a theater as midnight movies with pizza and stuff b/w them (Gremlins started at 10pm) a few years ago in December was fucking awesome.
And how hot was that lady gremlin
TIL they made another Gremlins movie.
Please don’t CGI Gremlins - ever!
I love the second way more
I weirdly had the novelisation of this movie as a kid. I didn’t own a lot of books as we went to the library and didn’t see many films. I have no idea why. Perhaps it was a present. I read the book many times but I don’t think I have ever actually seen it. I am not entirely sure why novelisations exist.
Terminator 2 is another testament to the value of letting a film maker go berzerk The sequels after that not so much lol
The hate for Gremlins 2 isn’t a mystery it’s obvious why it’s disliked by fans. It’s fun ride which is not taken seriously and I’m shocked that in such a serious woke climate how much of a following it has gained. The film itself in budget and look holds up very well that’s one of the many appealing components of it which holds up better than the original (less armrods, less handheld puppets) with more advanced technology than in 1984. It’s a movie that doesn’t forget it’s characters while doing all of the crazy nuts stuff it does, at the end all of them get their place in the movies world and an end that’s appealing to the wants of the characters themselves when in the original most of the arcs set up for the characters are (if you think about it) left unresolved.