ORGANISING CHAOS
IMAGINE THAT IT'S THE YEAR 1990
You’ve just got a ticket for Gremlins 2: The New Batch . You’re excited because you loved the first Gremlins when it came out a few years ago. You don’t know much about this movie, but the gang’s all here and, if it’s as scary as the first one, you’re in for a treat. The lights go down. The film starts.
And 106 minutes later, you stumble out into the foyer, dazed and confused by a sequel that has ripped up the rulebook. A sequel that zig-zags constantly, and is a great big colourful comedy, in complete contrast to the smaller, scarier original.
That was the general take on Gremlins 2 in 1990. Which is why Joe Dante’s follow-up is not regarded as fondly as the first movie. Why it took a third of the original’s gross. Why there was no ‘Gremlins 3’. “You don’t look at Gremlins 2 and go, ‘Oh, that destroyed the franchise you were a part of,’” says the series’ star, Zach Galligan. “But I do.”
Time, though, heals all wounds. And now, as turns 30, its critical renaissance is something to behold. And rightly so. Because Dante, producer Michael Finnell, writer Charlie Haas and the cast made the ultimate Trojan Horse of a movie — a chaotic, live-action Looney Tune that has a gag rate comparable with the likes of “I wanted to make a movie about why,” Dante tells . But there is and it’s glorious. So, here — with contributions from Dante and his key collaborators — are 30 reasons why we love .
