Halloween is right around the corner, so I figured the best way to get in the spirit of the greatest holiday ever would be by reviewing some classic “horror/monster” films that I have thoroughly enjoyed through the years.

The plan is to get through at least three of these following four films. I’m going to start it off with today’s review of Gremlins 2, but I am also planning on making my way through and reviewing Return of the Living Dead, Monster Squad, and Poltergeist 2.

Enjoy.

I really don’t remember the year that I first watched Gremlins 2 with my younger brother Bryan, but let me tell you, it was the seminal moment in my young life.

This film blew my mind the first time I saw it. The year must have been between 1990 (it’s release year) and 1992, putting me between the ages of 8 and 10 for that first, magical viewing. What more could I ask for in a movie? This thing had tons of bizarre creatures running around, a Hulk Hogan cameo, and to boot, the producers banked in on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle craze by making some of the Gremlins mutate!

I was in heaven.

Granted I was probably dumbfounded by the movie, just sitting in front of the screen with my mouth gaping open and drool pouring out while having no real clue of what the hell was actually going on, but that’s besides the point. This clusterfuck of everything I believed in as a child was as close to heaven as I was going to get. Well, except for this video that they showed in 3rd grade. But that’s for another day.

The film opens with a so-so sky shot of New York City, and then the title Gremlins 2: The New Batch covers the city.

As the credits roll, we see the list of “stars” appearing in the movie, headlined by the amazing duo of Zach Galligan and super-fine Phoebe Cates (the girl that comes out of the pool in Fast Times at Ridgemont High).

Even I was caught off guard by the name “Christopher Lee” appearing in the credits. I totally did not remember that Saruman himself was in Gremlins 2. This should be interesting to see his role in the film.

When the movie finally begins, we find ourselves in what seems to be Chinatown as some rich prick-looking guy gets out of a limo and heads into a quaint little store. When he gets in, we find out he is a worker for the Clamp Corporation and he wants to make a purchase from this dude.

No, he doesn’t want to buy the finest opium that money can buy, he wants to purchase our good friend “Gizmo.” You remember Gizmo, the fuzzy little Mogwai from such films as Gremlins, don’t you? If you don’t, this should bring back some old memories of this doofy, furby-looking teddy bear creature.

Now, that’s star power baby. Gizmo rules the world! They need to bring this fucker back for some more films. He would have been great in Lord of the Rings, and even could have buddied up with Christopher Lee again!

What the fuck am I talking about.

Anyway, Confucious refuses to sell his little buddy out, but the rich prick, or Forester as we will soon come to know him, comments to his companion about Confucious’ cough and how they will just wait out his death to come and snatch Gizmo away. Interesting plan. I think I’m going to do that with Zubaz writer Ian Kardys. He has a nice pair of Zubaz Pants as you can see on the main page, so I’m just going to wait till he dies so I can take them away from him.

As the two death-waiters leave, we see Gizmo watching television. This is what we call foreshadowing, because the fucker is watching Sylvester Stallone in Rambo tearing through some motherfuckers.

The phrase “Six Weeks Later” appears on the screen, and guess what, a wrecking ball comes smashing through Confucious’ shop. Apparently, Confucious was the last blockade in the way of the Clamp Corporation taking over all of Chinatown, if you believe it or not. Bullshit, you’re telling me some pawnshop was stopping a guy from taking over all of Chinatown? That’s like the Lisbon Mart (now called Buff City Xtreme), the little corner store where we bought Silver Thunder 40’s and Crystal-flavored Blunt Wraps in the ghetto I lived in when I went to UB, stepping in the way of Donald Trump if he wanted to take over the University Heights.

Gizmo realizes that shit is going down and makes a break for it as the wrecking ball comes flying through. This is quite hilarious, because of the way they filmed it. Gizmo looks ridiculous running, which is quite obvious because he is nothing more than a teddy bear with a movable face. The little fucker hides out in the alley, where some guy comes up and grabs him while muttering, “Well Lewis, it’s like I’ve always said, if you want to find something weird, you have to go downtown.”

Something weird? SOMETHING WEIRD?!?!?! If I saw fucking Gizmo hiding behind a garbage can next to my house, I wouldn’t call it “something weird,” I’d think aliens have landed and I would try to bash the motherfucker’s head in with a blunt object.

Finally, we’re introduced to Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates as Billy Peltzer and Kate Beringer. Phoebe looks like her money self, while freaking Zach shows off his wooden acting ability that earned him the ability to star in such amazing films as 1994’s Cyborg 3: The Recycler.

These two are apparently having a hard time adapting to the rigors of NYC, which is hard to understand considering they fought off a wave of little monsters in the original Gremlins. I don’t get it, they can handle gremlins that are out to kill and maim an entire town, but they can’t handle some schmuck that walks into them in the crosswalk? Pussies.

Billy is in his office, and we learn what he does for living, which apparently is draw sketches of the China Restaurant in Epcot. Forester, the prick from the beginning of the movie appears, and trashes on Billy’s plants and drawings. Marla, who I guess is Billy’s supervisor, tells him to do better in her thick Long Island accent.

After that, we cut to the Grandpa from The Munsters on the set of some monster movies show. And yes, he is dressed exactly the same as he is in The Munsters. What the hell he is doing in this film, I do not know.

Interestingly enough, Grandpa Munster, or simply “Fred” as he is called in this film, ran for mayor of New York under the Green Party. I’d bet good money the guy would have worn the outfit even if he were the mayor. I guess it is better than the alternative, though.

Fred, or Grandpa Munster, whichever you prefer, is hosting the monster show on Clamp Cable, and seems really depressed in saying after the show is over that the only people that watch his shit at 3 a.m. are folks afraid of getting sober and finding work.

…

Sadly, I am looking for work, afraid to get sober and it was 3 a.m. when I watched this. Fuck off, Freddy.

Well, anyway, Billy is buddies with Fred for some reason and he visits him on the set. This is like Chipper Jones of the Atlanta Braves being friends with Psychosis of the old WCW since they both worked for Ted Turner and TBS. I just don’t buy this friendship. The Clamp Corporation has thousands of employees, and somehow Grandpa Munster and some guy that designs things for Epcot Center buddy up?

These two chat it up about the genetic lab in the company, which leads us to the next scene, one which is chock full of stars.

First off, the mailman, or the guy that always plays some sort of Army-dude in movies like Alien Resurrection and Clear and Present Danger, walks into the “Splice of Life” office.

There, Julia Sweeney, better known as “It’s Pat” from SNL, greets him and finally Saruman himself, Christopher Lee walks right on in. Talk about a showcase of the immortals. “It’s Pat” sneezes and Christopher Lee takes the tissue for examination. Who the fuck does this guy think he is, Egon?

Lee walks into the office and meets up with the guy (We will call him Bowtie No. 1) that snatched Gizmo from the alley. Lee asks him how the cloning is going, and in response, Bowtie No. 2 turns around and says great or something like that. The two then proceed to show Lee Gizmo, who looks pretty sad.

“Cute,” is all that Lee can muster. The bowties then turn on some music and Gizmo starts dancing in one of the most asinine scenes in movie history.

This, to me, is a blatant rip off of the dancing toaster scene in Ghostbusters 2, which by the way, is far more believable if you are one of those people that needs to see “believable” things in movies. I hate those people.

Gizmo tries to break away but Lee grabs him, throws him back in the cage and then proceeds to talk about cutting his ass up.

Billy is back in his office while he hears the mailman from before whistling what we will call “Gizmo’s theme.” Probably the most unintentionally hilarious spot of the movie ensues next when Billy asks the mailman where he heard that song.

“Yeah, isn’t that by Sting?” the mailman blurts out in an attempt to get Billy off of his ass. Billy finally gets the guy to confess that he heard it up in the Splice of Life office, and immediately Billy takes off like the wind.

It doesn’t take long before Billy finds the little critter, and on his way out of the place he lets free a couple of monkeys. What a great kid this Billy is.

Billy and Gizmo share a tender moment in the bathroom, and no, Gizmo did not go down on Billy, you fucking perverts. Back up to the office they go, where Billy hides “the Grizza” (my friend Frank, moot the hoople on the forum, has a dog named Gizmo, and he has called it Grizza in the past. I don’t know why, but I just like that name. Maybe it’s because he likes Wu Tang and “the gza” is in there, or maybe the name came out because Frank used to have a really bad speech impediment. I don’t know, ask him) in a file cabinet.

A random lady bursts into the office and proclaims, “It’s him, he’s here!” Of course, she is talking about none other than Mr. Clamp himself. Much to Billy’s joy, Clamp loves Billy’s renderings of stupid crap and even his magic file cabinet which randomly opens and closes (HINT: IT’S REALLY GIZMO DOING THAT!!!!111 LOL!!!!1).

Billy is forced to go to dinner with that redhead fuck Marla now, because Mr. Clamp was all over his shit, and she got all hot and bothered because of it. So, Billy tells Gizmo to stay put in the file cabinet. You dumb shit, you know that isn’t going to turn out well! Dumbass Billy then tells Phoebe about Gizmo, who is NTP’d (None Too Pleased for the layperson) to say the least and responds, “that furry thing?!?” Billy makes a joke about his penis being “that furry thing” and hilarity ensues. Okay that didn’t really happen, but it would have been funny.

Once again, Billy has to go over the three Cardinal rules for Gremlin upkeep since Phoebe has to go and pick up the little fucker from the office …

1) NO BRIGHT LIGHTS!

2) NO EATING AFTER MIDNIGHT!

3) NO GETTING WET!

Well, Phoebe can get wet, but that’s about it. NO GREMLINS GETTING WET! BAD! On a side note, rule number two always confused me. When is the cutoff point when the Gremlins can eat again? 5 a.m.? 6 a.m.? This always confused me. Obviously, the writers didn’t think too hard when coming up with the rules.

Meanwhile, Gizmo is roaming around the office when he sees a custodian trying to fix a broken WATER fountain. It doesn’t take a genius to see where this one is going. As the custodian tries to fix the fountain, water is shooting out of it like a bazooka. Bursts are flying 10 feet through the air, and in Gizmo’s general direction, which is going to be a major problem. The Grizza is successful in dodging most of these blasts, but one stream of water lands on Billy’s drawing of Jesse Katsopolis and runs down the desk onto Gizmo’s back.

I only wish that Rowdy Roddy Piper were calling this movie, because he undoubtedly would be shouting either “YES! YES! YES!” like he did when Jake “the Snake” Roberts DDT’ed Brother Love or “Oh NO, NOT LIKE THIS, NOT LIKE THIS!” like he did when Sgt. Slaughter beat the Ultimate Warrior for the world title after Macho Man clobbered Warrior over the head with his royal scepter.

Gizmo starts flipping out as things begin to rumble in his back. Four furballs shoot out of his back and begin to bounce all over. MADNESS HAS BROKEN OUT!

We then see three of these four new Gremlins, one being a mean looking one and the other a bucked tooth motherfucker. The third is one that is goofy as fuck that can’t stop laughing or rolling its eyes. Needless to say, these fuckers are the shit! They start pushing Gizmo’s ass around and then we are introduced to the baddest motherfucker this side of Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction. Why, it’s Spike, the leader of the crew, transformed by the norm of the nuclear goo! Sorry, that TMNT song just busted out there.

Spike snarls like Elvis and then tosses Gizmo into a vent as the others close the vent back up. The nutbag gremlin is going wild on the Epcot design and the screen fades out.

COMING SOON: Part 2 of the Gremlins Review!