When Billy Peltzer is given a strange but adorable pet named Gizmo for Christmas, he inadvertently breaks the three important rules of caring for a Mogwai, and unleashes a horde of mischievous gremlins on a small town.
Dante is perhaps the first filmmaker since Frank Tashlin to base his style on the formal free-for-all of animated cartoons; he is also utterly heartless.
– Dave Kehr,
Chicago Reader,
27 Nov 2007
fresh:
What's confusing yet ultimately illuminating is the way his gremlins function as a free-floating metaphor, suggesting at separate junctures everything from teenagers to blacks to various Freudian suppressions.
– Jonathan Rosenbaum,
Chicago Reader,
27 Nov 2007
rotten:
The humans are little more than dress-extras for the mechanics.
– Variety Staff,
Variety,
27 Nov 2007
fresh:
A horror-comedy about cute little Christmas toy/pets who turn into murderous monsters wreaking havoc on a Norman Rockwellian town.
– Michael Wilmington,
Chicago Tribune,
4 Dec 2013
fresh:
A wildly original roller-coaster ride of hilarious mischief.