Gremlins (1984) — Does It Hold Up?

On this episode of The Regular Guy Movie Show, we’re decking the halls with chaos, mayhem, and tiny green murder goblins as we revisit Gremlins (1984) — the Christmas movie that broke the MPAA, traumatized a generation, and proved that maybe some pets should come with an instruction manual.

What starts as a cute, fuzzy holiday gift quickly turns into a full-blown small-town disaster, complete with barroom brawls, exploding microwaves, and a body count the movie never really bothers to address. Along the way, we ask the important questions:
Who’s actually the hero here? Why does the main character barely speak? And how did Lynn Peltzer become the most competent action hero of the 1980s without anyone noticing?

What We Talk About

• Why Gremlins feels less like a complete movie and more like a collection of incredible scenes stitched together
• The movie’s wild tonal whiplash: cute → gory → goofy → deeply dark → back again
• How Gremlins (along with Temple of Doom) directly led to the creation of the PG-13 rating
• The baffling lack of agency and dialogue given to Billy, the supposed main character
• How random side characters — including snowplow drivers — get more personality than Billy
• The complete absence of consequences after Kingston Falls is basically destroyed
• Whether chaos alone is enough to carry a movie… and how much beer helps

Other things we talk about:

• The Gremlins Worst-Case Survival Quiz — real scenarios pulled from The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook, because if gremlins took over your town, you’d better know how to jump into a dumpster correctly
• Pick Your Poison — would you rather rewatch Gremlins or go head-to-head with some of its most obvious cinematic cousins?

Final Verdict:

Gremlins is messy, chaotic, inconsistent, and occasionally brilliant.
It doesn’t always know what it wants to be, doesn’t bother tying up loose ends, and shrugs off the fact that a lot of people probably died.

It's not a great movie...but it gets a whole lot better if you start with a six-pack.

Thanks for listening, drinking along with us, and surviving another cinematic disaster.

If you enjoyed the episode, make sure to follow, subscribe, and leave a review.

And remember: be kind, don’t spill water, and never feed anything after midnight.

Listen to The Regular Guy Movie Show wherever you get your podcasts, and visit regularguymovieshow.com to suggest the next questionable classic we take on. While there, check out our blog or listen to previous show episodes.

You can also follow us on the socials!

• Facebook
• Instagram
• X
• TikTok