Sean Fennessey’s review published on Letterboxd:
Just realized my podcast persona is the Smart Gremlin Who Can Talk. Sad.
EDIT. Had to say more.
“I was never crazy. I’m fine. Lemme in there!” —Dick Miller forever
This movie is still so crazy and so fun. The Key and Peele sketch doesn’t even do it justice. Sight gag mania, total gaga affection for Looney Tunes and B-pictures, beautiful creature design and lighting; making a skyscraper a kind of SHINING-sequence maze is a stroke of genius. The best creature work maybe ever? Capturing the Lightning Gremlin in the phone! The burping Vegetable Gremlin! Spider-Gremlin! Bat-Gremlin covered in quick-drying cement! Hulk Hogan sharing a scene with Paul Bartel! A Busby Berkeley tribute with a Babe Gremlin! The friendly Trump Figure played by John Glover smiling so hard his face is going to pull a muscle! Why is there a Dentist Gremlin quoting MARATHON MAN???
It’s all a bit like THE TOWERING INFERNO if the fire were a laboratory full of scientifically-altered reptile-ghouls. Bit after bit stuffed with more bits. This movie has become a totem for 30-something film critics and podcast hosts who “got it” at an early age—all of its free market cynicism, entertainment-age overload, gentrification commentary, ethnocentrist shame, etc. The smart Gremlin cites Susan Sontag and then shoots one of its own on camera. America eats its young! Madcap anarchistic goofball satire posing as franchise IP—my favorite flavor. Joe Dante has made a lot of movies that rewired my brain, but none more than this. As always: If you get a little money to make what you want, take the chance.
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