"What's that? Hey! You're not Rockin' Ricky fans...!"

I'd forgotten how mean spirited this one really is. Billy's mom getting strangled w/ tinsel, and then the offending gremlin getting his head sliced off and thrown into a fireplace earned the hell out of that PG-13 rating. Chris Walas' goopy FX during Stripe's final moments are additionally truly gruesome. And that Phoebe Cates was able to deliver that absurd reminiscence w/ that straight of a face is a testament to her quality skills as an actress (for further evidence of this fact, everyone go watch "Princess Caraboo" and lament Ms. Cates' contention w/ being off the screen). Everything here subverts America's obsession w/ the holiday sharply, and director Joe Dante is able to maintain a tone that's both fear-based and tongue-in-cheek exceedingly well. He even pulls off the crowd-pleasing cuteness factor of Gizmo w/ appropriate heart-tugging (Mushroom, the dog who plays Barney, deserves some cute cred too. He's got some truly great reaction shots here. F*** those little furry bullies who hung him out the window tied up in Xmas lights). There are few filmmakers who can convey their encyclopedic knowledge and love of the movies quite as adeptly as the captain on this ship (I also adore that the Mogwai and Gremlins are big cinephiles, even if I don't quite understand the logic of it. Movies are reflected light. Aren't they allergic to that? The rules here are kinda confounding. Thank goodness the second one came along to make fun of them). Also, I spy w/ my little eye Eddie Quist's smiley face sticker on the Peltzer fridge. It's that attention to fan service detail that makes me adore Dante's work so much (he likens his habit of this to the way William Gaines and his crew inserted jokes into the margins between panels in Mad Magazine, and I much prefer this methodology to talking down to the tropes of your genre for the audience's benefit [I'm side-eyeing you, "Scream" series]. We also get cameos from Chuck Jones and Robbie the Robot. And it's very impressive that Father Spielberg's name was powerful enough to secure licensed footage from Disney's vault). A lampooning of holiday classics that has also endured to become itself a holiday classic.

P.S. Do taverns usually carry pint glasses that are THAT tiny...?

P.P.S. Dick Miller's crestfallen face when he finds out Li'l Abner is no longer in circulation should have earned him an Academy Award nomination.