Film Analysis: Gremlins 2 (Critical Approaches: Task 4)

Gremlins 2: The New Batch, directed by Joe Dante, produced by Steven Spielberg and rated 12.  

 

GENRE AND USE OF ICONOGRAPHY

The film’s genre is a comedy/horror.  Originally, Joe Dante had no intention of making a sequel to the Gremlins as he thought that the movie already had a proper ending, so Warner Bros. continued work without him, but after several projects fell through, Dante agreed to work on the sequel after being promised full creative control.

Gremlins 2: The new batch was Joe Dante’s vision for a satire, basically taking the Mick out of the original movie. He even had Leonard Maltin, who had originally giving the movie a poor review; appear in the movie, re-enacting his original rant, but this time with the gremlins attacking him, cutting it short.

He also went all out by having one scene were the rule about not feeding a Mogwai after midnight was called into question. Dante included this as other film makers and fans had stated that this rule was irrational and impossible to keep, as it is always midnight somewhere. 
He also included a scene were it had appeared that the gremlins had taken over the movie theatre and destroyed the film, or video. It was risky to do it in the cinema as some may have believed the film had really broken initially, but there was no issue and Dante described it as one of the most enjoyed jokes of the movie. There were several deleted scenes as the film was too long and had ‘way too many gremlins’ in Dante’s opinion, although I don’t get that as isn’t that the point???

This film includes typical horror iconography, but not a huge amount in order to balance out the comedy parts as well.

The iconographies I notice were:

·         Unpleasant monsters running a muck, injuring people

·         Graphic death scenes, melting monsters

But as this one was more to satire the original gremlins, there were more comical elements in this one:

·   Inside jokes, meta-references and self-referential jokes , Leonard’s attack for  example

·  Film references like marathon man, phantom of the opera, Dracula (the bat gremlin scene with Christopher Lee), and featuring Frank Sinatra’s New York, New York song, sung by the Brain Gremlin. Basically he was taking the Mick out of these movies, having the Gremlins reenact them.

·     Black Humour, funny attack scenes on innocent people, the dentist scene were Billy is strapped to a dentist’s chair with Daffy gremlin dentist, Daffy (Mogwai) biting a security guard on the nose, Mohawk punching one of the workers on the nose, knocking him out, and so on.

Incorporating horror elements into the storyline and marketing the plot as such, drawed the right crowd to see the film in the cinema when it was released, good going on the directors part. Adding the comedy skits to the storyline also drawed the comedy lovers of the horror genre into the theatres.

TARGET AUDIENCE

The target audience for this film is thrill lovers, and indulgers of black humor and slapstick comedy; I being the slapstick lover.

I believe this to be so as Dante’s whole intention, as I said before, was to Satire the film and slapstick comedy is great for this, but still keeping ties with the original movie, it includes some graphic typical horror scenes, for the time at least, with one scene were a gremlin is shredded in the office, one being burned alive and the rest are electrocuted by a mutated electric gremlin and the melting scenes pretty graphic and horrific.
I personally love this film and am happy to enjoy the laughs with a bowl of popcorn. I loved this film because the puppetry, for the time, was realistic. The action was great and the inside, slapstick comedy elements were enjoyable. I loved every moment, and Gizmo is cute. I think out of all the scenes, the death scene at the end had the most impact. The imagery was horrifying and very graphic and even then they were including black humour, such as having a Wizard of Oz reference, with a Gremlin dressed in a witch’s costume saying the Wicked Witch of the West’s famous, ‘I’m melting’ line.

Adding the certain visual effects that lovers of Horror/COMs like, such as the graphic deaths and the slapstick jokes made the movie a great classic

NARRATIVE STRUCTURE

The Narrative or Plot for this one is pretty straight forward. Gizmo’s original owner dies and Gizmo gets picked off the street by two scientist guys who work in the Clamp Office Building, were Billy and Kate (Protagonists) work. A mail man over hears Gizmo singing/humming and eventually they reunite. He asks a reluctant Kate to take Gizmo home as he has to go to a ‘meeting’ with his flirtatious boss, Marla Bloodstone.

But before she arrives, Gizmo gets wet and spans a group of Gremlins, including a reincarnated version of Stripe, the main villain from the first gremlins, so Kate ends up taking the wrong Mogwai home.

The gremlins eventually eat after midnight; run muck in the clamp office building attacking its workers and tourists.

Eventually, after defeating Mohawk, thanks to Gizmo (burning him alive), Billy comes up with a plan to electrocute the gremlins who are planning to leave the building as they believe it is nighttime, which was part of their original plan, to fry them in sunlight. They use the electric gremlin, which is currently on hold in the telephone to fry all the gremlins.

The Structure of the narrative is closed as we have a clear ending to the film, with the gremlins being fried. The story’s layout is linear as we have a clear beginning with Gizmo getting lost and picked up by the scientist, a middle with the gremlins showing up and causing a mess, and an ending with the gremlins being no more

CHARACTERS

The characters in this movie are very typical. You have Billy, the naïve young man, and by naïve I mean, he doesn’t even notice Marla being flirty with him. He’s tall, thin with black hair and was played by Zack Galligan. Then there’s Kate, who is a lot more aware of Marla’s flirty ways than Billy. She’s strong and independent, and tends to be the wiser member of the pair, being more conscious about the Gremlins. She’s also tall and thin and has black hair. She was played by Phoebe Kates. Marla is very flirty; she smokes and looks similar to Jessica Rabbit, with the red curly hair, who was also very similar in personality. She can be very domineering. She was played by Haviland Morris. Mr. Daniel Clamp, the head of Clamp enterprises, was the villain, but not your typical villain, he was much more child like, particularly the way he spoke when Billy first met him; commenting on his art work saying ‘Warmth, I like Warmth’ and was very likable. He had fair hair, was the tallest of the lot and was played by John Glover. Foster, Billy’s very nasty superior, is very by the book, a bit too ‘about the book’, picking on Billy about ‘improper décor’ and his artwork. He eventually gets his karma when the girl gremlin hounds him for the rest of the movie. He has brown hair, same height as Billy, and was played by Robert Picardo. The Futtermans from the first movie also reappear, played by Jackie Joseph and Dick Miller. Mr. Futterman now suffers from nerve problems due to the gremlins driving a snowplow through his house. Shelia, his wife, thinks he’s crazy and tries to keep him from having a freak-out, sending him to a doctor (off screen).  The other characters are extras or untouched in the production, but there are so many credited it would take forever to go through them all, so I touched on the main characters.

Then of course, there’s the Gremlins themselves. They are all mostly the same except for a group that standout and are recognised individually.

There’s Gizmo, the cute little Mogwai Billy originally received as a Christmas present in the first film. He’s innocent and the nicest, correction, the only nice Mogwai of the bunch. The little brown and white bundle of fur with a good heart was voiced by Bill Murray.

Then there’s Mohawk, the Reincarnation of Stripe. He starts off as the leader of the gremlins, and tends to torment Gizmo through most of his appearance in the movie. He’s black and white with a mohawk hair style, hence the name, until he becomes a gremlin and his mohawk hair is replaced with a scaly fin and voiced by Frank Wellker.

Then there are the three stooges, Daffy, Lenny and George. These three are rarely scene apart.

Daffy is the wackest of the bunch and the closest resemblance to Gizmo, which is why Kate mistook him for Gizmo. Lenny is the silly one, the brown and white Mogwai and George is the one who reminds me of a mobster, grey and white. When they become gremlins, Daffy is a deep green, George is multi-tone, and Lenny is brown.

Then there’s the girl gremlin, Greta, who became a girl when she drank a gender change potion in the science lab, and develops an obsession for Forster. There’s the Electric gremlin, who becomes pure electricity after drinking a potion in the science lab, the bat gremlin, which was an in-joke for Christopher Lee, who played Dracula in the old movie, which eventually became a gargoyle on the Cathedral of Saint Eva Marie (St Patrick's cathedral in real life), and the Brain Gremlin, voiced by Tony Randell. He drank a brain hormone, making him intelligent and capable of proper speech, even speaking in a vocabulary that astonished the scientists. He became the leader shortly afterwards and appears to be a big fan of Frank Sinatra.

By adding the typical stereotype characters into the movie; characters that lovers of Horror/COMs like, such as the naive ‘hero’ and the sensible ‘heroine’ along with other characters that are the kind to get caught up in the typical horror movies makes this film so lovable. The naive type are always caught up in the middle of trouble which  makes for more opportunities to have typical horror/comedy scenes, and also it’s funny when the female has more sense than the male, great for us girl viewers; role-reversal, and classic comedy skit.

LOCATIONS/SETTINGS

The entire movie is set in New York. The main location for the movie is the Clamp Office Building, as the makers thought that unleashing an entire army of Gremlins on New York city was a bit risky in scenario and execution. There are also scenes in Billy and Kate’s apartment and a Canadian restaurant. but they aren’t as significant and dominant in the plot. The building locations include the frozen yogurt bar, Clamp’s office, his secretary’s office, the science lab and the main lobby. Having a bunch of green monsters run a-muck in a high office building is rather hilarious. I mean, A work office building full of people going along their normal everyday lives, working away, and suddenly it all goes pear-shaped when a horde of green little monsters show up out of nowhere, one word; classic horror comedy. It gives opportunity for alot of black humour to be used.

LANGUAGE

The language used in this film is very mellow. There’s no cursing in it as much apart from the odd ‘hell’ usage. As this film is a 12, I wouldn't expect alot of cursing to be used anyway. The language is easily understood and there’s no innuendo usage as far as I can tell. It’s a very clean movie in terms of language. There are some big words used in this movie such as ‘nachronism’ meaning highly aggressive or extremely rude, not to be confused with ‘anachronism’ meaning chronologically incorrect. This word was used during the science lab scene with Brain Gremlin, to show off how smart he had become.

There is no use of unappropriate language that isn’t suitable for the target age group that the director/producer is aiming towards. This also means that they won’t get ‘grilled’ for foul language use in a 12 movie, although some movies today break that mould, which I am rather suprised that they get away with that.

MODALITY

The film’s scenario was not meant to appear real, as the director said himself, the film gets rather cartoony during the course of the film. But as for the appearence of the creatures, their realistic  looking details on their skin and facial features make them look really great, hence why I still enjoy movies that use ‘well done’ puppetry in them. However, if the film had the technology we use today for the scenes such as the bat gremlin attack, the realisim would have been greater. They used stop motion which was well done and tricky to do so hats of to them but it just reduced the realism of the bat gremlin sadly.

Trying to attract those who enjoy light hearted comedy/horrors; Dante making the movie seem realistic would not have the same appeal to the target audience in question.

PERFORMANCES

The performances of the actors and actresses where well brought across. They really got into their roles and conveyed their character’s personality across to the audience. They put alot of emphasis into their lines and how they brought them across and their actions in that particular scene. Since this was a comic horror it wasn’t just full of laughs, there were tense scenes to, and they were also delivered across effectively, making the audience feel the tension and sit on the edge on their seat waiting for something to jump out.

Making the performances as light hearted as possible, as well as intense in your typical suspense scenes, like the web scene, is what makes the actors performances so effective.

We don’t take the scenes seriously and we get more laughs, while also having a mix of intense addresses of lines to create the appropriate tension.

MOOD AND TONE

The tone of the movie was a good balance of comic and horror feelings. There were moments were the audience knew that something  bad was going to happen and there were others were you were already sniggering under your breathe at the moment, particularly during the kitchen scene were the gremlins were throwing metal utensils into the microwave and you knew this wasn’t going to end well, but when they were throwing them and hit one of their own with a frying pan, it was funny and the lobby scene were they were preforming the musical number was very entertaining, but both these scenes were very good as straight afterwards you were tense again as the kitchen scene ended with the gremlins causing water to be poured on themselves when they caused a fire, and therefore making more gremlins, and the lobby scene ended with their horrific massacre.

By making the death scenes gorey and horrific, they cater for the horror seekers, while having a little light heart humour thrown in aswell, which caters for the comedy lovers.

LIGHTING

There was more dark scenes than bright scenes, hence the gremlins hate bright light, the only really bright scenes were the yogurt bar, the first lobby attack scene, the work office were Gizmo gets wet and the scenes outside the building. Other than those, the lighting for this film is rather dull and low lighting, to keep true to the gremlins hate of light.

As horror films, whether comical or not, tend to be dark, hence the dark lighting, it keeps true to the horror feel, aswell as throwing in a few bright scenes to keep with the light hearted feel of the movie which is why bright scenes tend to appear when comedy is involved. They do this deliberatively as having a dark comedy scene or a bright horror scene just wouldn’t work or appeal to the audience they are targeting, the only exception of this would be black humour, like the elevator scene, where dark lighting may be used.

CAMERA TECHNIQUES

There were a couple camera techniques used in this film. There were several times were there were close ups of the gremlins, particularly during the lab scene, in order for the audience to see what was happening to the changing gremlins. There were also a few medium and wide shots, especially during the massacre scene so the audience got a good look at how many gremlins there were and what  was being delt out on them when they were fried. These techniques helped get the viewer into what was happening in the scene and kept them on the edge of their seats.

When choosing the right angle to shoot the scenes in, I believe they did really great. By doing alot of close-ups, we get a clear view of how each character is feeling in terms of their facial expressions, adding to the tension or terror. They also use mid shots for comedy orientated scenes as facial expressions aren’t usually dominant in these kind of scenes. The also use wide shots to get clear views of certain scenes involving a huge amount of gremlins, giving the audience a clearer view of how big the problem is, manipulating the emotions of the audience, enticing them to watch on.

SOUND

The sound for this film was very good quality, the speech was clear and audible,  and the sound effects used were excellent in portraying what was happening in that scene and to the characters. The gremlins laughter was very well done, even after the movie s finished their diabolical laughter still runs through your head.

The Music in the movie is very light hearted, instrumental music that invokes the essence of the gremlins themselves. It tends to be very up-beat and the main theme almost sounds like the gremlins laughter captured in the music itself.

By using music that is up-beat yet quite unsettling and unnerving, we are enticed to watch the movie and our emotions are manipulated by the music’s style.

EDITING

The film’s editing was very well done. There were no scenes were the editing caused you to get lost. The scenes were very well structured out and well thought through during post-production.

The producer uses his codes and conventions to edit the movie in a particular way. His editing style causes the audience to sit on the edge of their seats in certain scenes such as the scene with the shredded Gremlin, were one minute we have a shot of the secretary’s office, were our ‘victim’ Daniel Clamp, is searching for the gremlin, which immediately cuts to a close-up of him right before the gremlin pounces. This scene is edited in such a way that it makes the audience jump as we can not see were the gremlin has come from, it was unexpected.

(audience disgretion; shredding gremlins is gross)



DELETED SCENES

Gremlins 2 contains around 30 minutes of deleted footage and extended scenes. As I mentioned, Dante said the movie had 'too many gremlins' (I still don't get it...) so these scenes where eventually cut from the movie for this reason and for time issues. Enjoy!

REPRESENTATION

Gremlins 2 is full of slapstick and light hearted humour, which makes room for alot of stereotyping of characters in the movie and breaking of traditional stereotyping. For starters there's the main characters, Billy and Kate. With these characters, the stereotyping is broken for humour purposes; painted as naive and a little gullible, Billy is not the typical strong hero that is usually painted in Horror movies or action movies. He is oblvious to Marla's flirting during the movie, while Kate is fully aware of her intensions, thus being painted as naive Meanwhile Kate is the more stronger of the pair, and the voice of reason. The reason these characters are painted this way is to allow for alot of humour and makes the slapstick more prominent in the movie. Marla is the stereotypical office boss; flirtatious and sexual appearence. This can be seen negatively to some women, as it emphasizes that women who are in high paid jobs are more likely to go after any man they see, whether he has a girl or not, and whether she has a man of her own or not. Her morales are painted negatively, but for humourous reasons as Billy's reactions to her flirting are funny to watch, especially when he starts to get nervous at their 'meeting'. You also need to remember when this movie was made; during the 90's, when woman where painted sexually in the media, whether for the male viewers eyes or for humourous actions. She was also seen as a chain smoker, carrying around a cigarette for most of the movie, as smoking on TV and movies had not yet been banned. This representation of smoking was to show the audience that well to do people in high position jobs where smokers, to appeal to the viewers to try it themselves, which was another negative representation on the producer's part. Mr. Futterman was painted as mental, but he wasn't really as the story about the Gremlins was real and Mrs. Futterman was the typical 'little old lady character' stereotype. Mr. Futterman, in particular, was a stab, from my view, at the way mental people are portrayed, and that even though the events are obviously fictional, some people that are painted mental, aren't really that mental at all. 

The movie also took a stab at scientists. In the movie the building had its own labratory, where they were experimenting on animals and splicing the genes of animals and plants to mutate and manipulate their natural traits. They eventually get their 'karma' when the Gremlins start drinking their formulas, one in particular becoming smarter than the scientists themselves, Brain Gremlin. This representation of science was almost like a humourous warning not to mess with nature, with the lead scientist swearing that he would never harm another living thing. "There are some things that man is not meant to displice"     

PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY

When it comes to the technology used in this production, the main notable usage was the style of puppetry used for the Gremlins. As this is a 90s movie, CGI was fairly new so puppetry was still perdominent in the media film industry. The puppetry used was very well done for the time, with the Gremlins looking very realistic in their outward appearence, something that CGI is still mastering, but if we look at Jurassic Park, it is close. I love puppetry, however, it has its flaws. One thing, although their movements at times are very well done, some movement, such as running can be clumsy and when it comes to wide shots, the animation switches to stop motion. Sometimes, this to is very well done, but other times, like the Bat gremlin, which I meantioned, the animation is so fake its laughable, which actually makes it more funny to watch.

 

CONCLUSION

So all in all, a great film and one of my favourite classics that I have probably watch hundreds of time but enjoyed every moment of it. Gremlins 2 is one of the 90’s funniest films that I love to enjoy again and again and again and...well you get the picture.

I believe that the director and producer have made a very successful and enjoyable movie. By sticking to the typical iconology and stereotypes of this genre they have successful appealed to the right audience. They have attracted the kind of viewers who enjoy this type of movie, have obviously enjoyed it and told a friend who has also gone to see it. By doing these things they have successful made a profitable movie that is still enjoyed today, again and again but young and old. A timeless classic that horror/COM lovers have enjoyed for decades. The only real shame was that the first group of Gremlins didn't actually get alot of screen time. Sure we see them at the beggining as Mogwai's and when they emerge from their cocoons and we see them in Gremlin form, but apart from punching a man in the face, trying to shoot Billy, blowing up a microwave and a few short scenes, they don't appear alot, compared with the gremlins that appear later, such as Brain. Also, in this movie, Mohawk (who is Stripe from the first movie), isn't focused on as much as his counterpart, which is a shame. Sure we see him torture Gizmo, then get fried later, but that's it really. I wish they had given him a more predominant role, especially when he became that spider hybrid (can probably tell who my favourite Gremlin is). Despite that it was a really good movie...It is just a shame they didn't make a third...