gremlins

grabbers

Grabbers is a horror comedy about a bunch of squid-like Alien face-huggers that land off the coast of an Irish island. They live off of water and blood but seem to be allergic to alcohol. To survive the townsfolk must stay as drunk as possible as that makes their blood poisonous to the creatures. That’s a great premise. One the film struggles to live up to. It is a throwback to those old 1950s science fiction films like The Blob (1958) or The Giant Claw (1957). It takes its monsters seriously while also winking at the audience.

Garda Lisa Nolan (Ruth Bradley) volunteers her time on the remote island to allow the chief a couple of weeks off. She’s a workaholic and initially takes offense to Garda Ciarán O’Shea (Richard Coyle) who comes to work half-drunk all the time. But mostly she figures it will be a quiet stay and will impress her bosses for working on her vacation time. When some mutilated whale corpses wash up on the shore she gets a little worried, but Dr. Smith (Russell Tovey) a marine ecologist assures her that while unusual such things are not unheard of.

Then the aliens attack.

Well, first the town drunk, Paddy (Lalor Roddy) captures a small “grabber” and our heroes all have a good look at it. When it lays some eggs they realize it is a female and figure there must be a male version somewhere on the island. He’s the big one and soon enough he’s attacking everybody.

Eventually, they realize the whole blood alcohol thing and then they hustle the town into the local pub and have a big drunken party to keep everyone safe.

The film reminded me quite a bit of Tremors (1990), a movie I loved as a kid. It has those same comic horror sensibilities. But Tremors had Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Michael Gross, and Reba freaking McEntire. While the cast of Grabbers holds its own, they don’t have the same charm, nor comic timing. None of the jokes are as good either. I was mostly mildly amused throughout, but rarely did I really laugh. Made in 1990 Tremors used all practical effects too, while Grabbers uses the same CGI sludge we see in everything now. The Graboids in Tremors might not look as “real” as the Grabers but they sure do look cooler.

There’s quite a bit of Slither (2006) DNA here as well, and one scene is quite reminiscent of Gremlins (1984). All of those are better films than Grabbers. But the thing is, Grabbers isn’t a bad time at the movies. It is an entertaining hour and a half. It just could have been so much better.

gremlins poster

I was eight years old in 1984 when Gremlins came out. I saw it at least once in the theater, but I suspect I saw it more than that. Certainly, I remember talking to my friends about it at school and on the playground. We all loved it. Famously it was one of the movies that created the PG-13 rating (the other was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom). There is quite a bit of violence in the film including scenes in which Gremlins are pureed in a food processor and blown up in a microwave. Some audience members were disturbed by this, having taken their young children to the movie due to its PG rating. Steven Spielberg who produced this movie and directed Temple of Doom used his clout to suggest a rating between PG and R and thus the PG-13 rating was born.

As kids, of course, it was those very scenes that we loved and were talking about on the playground.

If you haven’t seen it, Gremlins is about how a father buys a cute little furry creature from a mystical old Chinese man (we’re gonna overlook the terrible caricature that trope has always been, but do note I am completely aware of it). for his son Billy (Zach Galligan). Well, technically he buys it from the man’s grandson, but that detail isn’t that important. The creature called a Mogwai and named Gizmo by Billy comes with three rules.

He doesn’t like bright lights, and sunlight will kill him.
Never get him wet.
Never, ever, feed him after midnight.

As a side note, I once bought the woman who would become my wife a stuffed Gizmo but made her recite the rules to me before I would give it to her. She still has it, and pulled him out while watching the movie.

Naturally, all three of these rules will be broken in the course of the movie.

When water is accidentally spilled onto Gizmo he spawns a bunch of other Mogwai. Unlike Gizmo these spawns are more mischievous and malevolent. They trick Billy into feeding them after midnight which metamorphosizes them into larger, nastier creatures with evil intent.

Mayhem and quite a bit of pretty bloody violence ensue.

Director Joe Dante directs Gremlins from a script by Chris Columbus with a wonderful mix of humor and gore. As a kid I loved it. As an adult I still do.

It takes place on Christmas Eve so technically you could call it a Christmas movie rather than a Halloween one, but I’m still counting it for my 31 Days of Horror scoreboard.