Last night made it exactly 1 month before Christmas and the girlfriend and I decided to celebrate with a good old fashioned Christmas Movie, but with a twist…….  A horror Christmas movie.

We ended up settling with the 1984 classic Gremlins.  Written by Chris Columbus and produced by Steven Spielberg, Gremlins is a horror comedy movie that easily switches between the 2 genres.

Taking place in the small town of Kingston Falls, a father searching for a christmas present for his son discovers an animal called a Mogwai in a small store in Chinatown.  The shop keeper refuses to sell the pet saying it comes with great responsibility.  However, he ends up buying the Mogwai from the shop keepers grandson behind his back.

Owning a Mogwai comes with rules such as don’t get him wet and don’t feed him after midnight which the main character Billy does, and on the second day of owning him, COME ON MAN!

The results ends up creating a ton of new mogwai’s who end up being evil and turning into Gremlins.  The Gremlins then over take the sleepy town killing a few people, but mostly just wrecking general havoc on the town of Kingston Falls.

Now here is where it switches between horror and comedy.

There are ton’s of comedic scenes involving the gremlins.  Mostly with them getting drunk and terrorizing a bar and then in a second scene where they have taken over a movie theatre and are watching the Disney classic Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs.  All while singing the “Hi ho” song!

Those scenes definitely make the Gremlins less scary and quite comical.  But there are also other scene’s that are quite violent and horrific.

When Billy’s mom discovers the gremlins for the first time, she ends up killing one in a blender, stuffs one into a microwave and cooks it until it explodes and stabs another to death.  pretty violent stuff considering I originally saw this movie as a small child.  Even some of the scene’s in which the Gremlins kill their victims are a little intense.  For example a mall Santa ends up being mauled by a bunch of Gremlins which falls onto the deaf ears of the bumbling cops of the town.

Although it is a tad violent, Gremlins really is a classic Christmas movie.  Besides being a horror movie, you will find elements of other Christmas movies like Scrooge.

So be sure and gather the family and make sure you watch Gremlins this holiday season!