Gremlins (1984)

“Now I have another reason to hate Christmas!"

I’m 41 and I’d never seen this film until now. Yes, I know. And, er, I still haven’t seen The Goonies, which Mrs Llamastrangler tightly rebuked me for last night. Sometimes I’m not a very good ‘80s kid.

At least I’ve seen it now, though, and obviously it’s awesome. The Mogwai and Gremins look ok and are delightfully animatronic and stop motion, the script is fun and the cast (made up almost entirely of character actors rather than stars) is rather good. I do rather wish Spielberg hadn’t used his name to promote films he didn’t direct, but this at least feels like his “brand”. It’s a fun little tale and passes quickly and enjoyably, although for me what really lingers in the mind is poor Kate’s horrible childhood Christmas tragedy. Because this films is a classic Christmas movie, just like Die Hard.

Mind you, this whole thing of “wise old stereotypical Chinaman in his little shop with his vague Eastern Wisdom” would probably raise more eyebrows today than it did in 1984. The whole casual attitude towards getting a pet for Christmas is also perhaps a little dodgy. Drink driving is treated as a little joke. And yes, things do get a bit silly towards the end, with the Gremins smoking and drinking and enjoying Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. But the film is fun enough and plays things real enough to get away with it.

What’s really weird, though, is this is 1985, my childhood, and that can be eerie st times. The kid Pete looks and dresses much like I did, and everything was “neat”- never cool. This film, then, is very, very neat.

The Terror (1963)

"Mark you, you are getting yourself into things beyond your understanding!"

Roger Corman, O Roger Corman, you have your tropes. I mean, this film isn't even based on a Poe story but it might as well be. It's all typically gothic, set in "the remains of a noble house" and full of the sinister suggestion that the sins of the past may come to find us. Oh, and we have Boris Karloff and Jack Nicholson in the same film, a witch, a bloke getting his eyes pecked out by a bird, and Nicholson being delightfully excessive throughout in really trying to find motivation in the cipher of a character he's playing; he actually manages to imbue his shitty lines with some depth. Wow.

But let's not be too harsh; this is a fun film and exactly what you'd expect from Corman. It's a precious artifact from those last few years of Boris Karloff's life in which he was again fashionable, and both he and Nicholson are excellent in a competent film, if a cheap one and formulaic in the best possible way. This is pure distilled Corman, with two excellent performances from its leads, so much so that we can avoid the unfortunate continuity error about when Ilsa is supposed to have died, and the frankly implausible twist about the Baron that comes at the end. What counts is atmosphere, and Karloff, and Nicholson. Typical Corman in the best possible way.