Midweek Mention.... Gremlins 2: The New Batch

Gremlins 2

Sidey:  right. We spoke last week at length about gremlins, the first one, and we enjoyed it so much. We thought we'd chat about gremlins to a new batch. We all seen it.

Dan: Back back when it came out.

Sidey: 1990. It came out 1990.

Reegs: So it took him six years to capitalize on the success of the gremlins. That sounds like quite a long time.

Sidey: yeah. Well maybe we could chat about that after we sort of go through the film a little bit, because it's quite a bit of key information. I think this film opens with evil property developer.  Daniel clamp, it sends his minions out to buy out the last piece of property that stopping is Chinatown development.

Reegs: Property mogul called Daniel clamp. It feels like a reference or.

Sidey: It had my, the cogs turning in my mind to think where have I seen someone that's similar disposition.

Reegs: Yeah. Yep.

Sidey: I couldn't come up with anything though. But surprisingly.

Howie: famous for that. It's a bit like him. He's quite big for his sort of ability, but yeah.

Sidey: John Daley. No, he's not here.

Howie: it could be Chuck

Sidey: But this this particular shop just happens to be the same shop. Can you believe it from the first Greenman's film

Dan: The

Sidey: Gizmo's still just stuck in a box on the on the counter?

Reegs: Which this time is located in New York, in a completely different street, which is good.

Sidey: Well, that happens in these sort of things.

Reegs: It does. Yeah. So Mr. Wing, the owner of said, shop to cut a long story. Short dies.

Sidey: Yeah, that he's given a, an ultimatum which he turns down and as they leave in the shop, he's coughed and spluttered and got COVID symptoms. The what's his name? Forrester. Is it the other, the minion? He just says O w we'll just wait, and then sure enough, he's dead. Like five minutes later.

Howie: did you recognize what other nineties film that the forest was from?

 Reegs: In a space.

Howie: Thank you. Well, down 10 points, visa, cowboy.

Reegs: I've only just realized now, but yes, you're right. Yeah. So. In a moment that I kind of missed somehow gives, ended up at Trump clamp Plaza.

Sidey: one of the twins grabs them. So in a really dodgy bit of CGI, it gives my runs down the street. And then one of those two twins. Finds that money. He says, when he's in the lab, that he was only one of his foraging expeditions or

Reegs: Oh, that's right. Yes. And they take him back to be come a Guinea pig at doctor catheters. Yes.

Howie: Terminate it too.

Sidey: Yeah. Yeah.

Reegs: And they, they bring them back to, to be experimented upon at the mercy of the chief researcher, Dr. Catheter which has been some price in the splicer life building in Trump Plaza, Christopher Lee.

Sorry. Who did I say?

Sidey: Vincent

Howie: price

Reegs: okay. Now. Yes. Christopher Lee. Yeah. What a prey.

Howie: Charles Lucas or whatever his name is, was director. Wasn't it.

Sidey: no, this is Dante peak.

Dan: So, when did you guys all revisit this?

Sidey: I watched it today as Athens.

Reegs: Prey pretty much straight off the gremlins. Yeah.

Howie: my kids want to just say it

Dan: and, and then what were your, your thoughts then? Is it, it's a, it's a 15, 12 boys at

Sidey: so PG 13, it was in the

Dan: 13.

Howie: My kids thought it was better.

Sidey: I think it's better it, but speaking of Christopher Lee, Dr. Catheter, I was immediately transported back to my own catheter related life experiences. Anyone else? Anyone else got involved with a catheter?

Reegs: Yeah,

Dan: fortunately not no.

Reegs: yeah. I have. Yeah, it's good.

Sidey: every bit as amazing as it sounds. I was in

Reegs: And then when they pull it out and you've got to stand there, having a Pierce in front of like three people as they hold you up.

Sidey: they preferred the removal to the insertion. I have to say because the, the male nurse came up to me and said that he didn't try and dress it up. You said, you need to have this tube down your Dick. And I was like, Oh, okay. I was 19. And just like, well, scalp with it. So he's

Dan: Somebody's touching your Dick at that

Sidey: So, yeah, he's just feeding this thing into my deck and the curtain of that cubicle bit just opened and this absolute knockout doctor, she was absolutely a 10 out of 10 to slot that staring at me like, Oh man, I just wish I was fucking

Howie: at least you go pay a blood into it.

Reegs: She's probably seen a really tiny penis before I w

Sidey: yeah, I know, but

Dan: is that why they brought her in? Was it like doctor,

Howie: it. Wasn't your, was it your

Sidey: micro penis. It wasn't a great experience, but I had to have that

Howie: Why don't you have

Sidey: seemed like I had gallstones and pancreatitis and stuff. So had they had but you keep, like, you find new ways to catch that fucking thing all the time. So I would like, I wear my watch and you just move and you just catch the tube and just yank it.

And

Dan: you have to wear it?

Sidey: fortnight, I think, or 10 days, something like that. Yeah, it was not cool. And when they take it out, it's not a whole lot of fun either. So that was a flashback to when when they said his name, Dr. Katz. I was like,

Reegs: No T capita. Meanwhile as gizmo is undergoing his experience What's his name? Cause I keep wanting to call him Donald Trump. What is his name? Daniel clamp. He goes on a tour of the office, which is sort of this hyper modern four 90, 90 environment.

Sidey: Absolutely. Everything is

Howie: Yeah, that was the thing was the eighties. Automation is going to be the way forward.

Reegs: Things automated, nothing works. And it's all got this weirdly sort of satirical type edge to it. There's a, there's a voice of the building in effect that kind of throws out edgy jokes and that sort of thing. Anyway, wouldn't, you know, it after gizmo is Left in the office. Water is spilled on his head from a broken drinking fat broken drinking fountain.

And of course we all know what

Dan: but I don't think you should let them near water.

Reegs: It's the first, it's the second rule, then it's the second

Sidey: the plot fucking hurt was along in this one. It doesn't, they don't take a long time to sort of reintroduce the characters. And especially as it's, like you say, it's been a bit of a gap between this and the first one, but literally it's like, boom, here's gizmo. Oh fuck. Here's some water and things just hot

Reegs: are the gremlins.

Sidey: rapid pace.

Reegs: Yeah. The actual gremlins are in this movie from about the half hour Mark on woods pretty much. I mean, they, they really get in and of course Having access to the splice of life laboratory. They, they do really have cause to, to celebrate and imbibe some wonderful and weird potions such as there's one that will turn one into a bat.

And then what else have we got the electricity gremlin?

Sidey: There's the one that changes sex to a really Foxy looking lady,

Reegs: I want to talk about her at the end. So.

Howie: a brain one. There's one that

Reegs: Oh, the brain Grambling.

Sidey: automatically generates a pair of glasses as well.

Reegs: Yes. Yeah. It's quite impressive.

Howie: And the electric and the electric one.

Sidey: Yeah, he's K

Reegs: I mean, it's just within seconds. It's absolute carnage and the carnage factor has been ramped up a little bit in that when there are the external shots of the floors there are literally gremlins everywhere. Jumping on, people bursting out of elevators. I mean, just getting up to the kind of gremlin mayhem that you would expect

Sidey: microwave with Marge,

Reegs: microwave with Marge.

Sidey: It's a bit of a disaster. That's how they trigger off the sprinkler system. They set a fire off by putting as a metal with the microwave

Reegs: Yes. And a little callback.

Dan: the basic theme gremlins take over and you've got to get him back in the box somehow.

Sidey: they just, they just turn everything up to 11, this one and just go all out mayhem. It's very meta in this film as

Reegs: Yeah, there's a load of reconstructions of first. There's a moment where I'm in the midst of the carnage. Kate is that her name starts to talk about a horrendous experience. She had. On

Sidey: it's like, we haven't got time for this

Reegs: Yeah. And she's going into this story where she's clearly been abused by an uncle or something, and they basically just shut her up so that they, I can move the

Sidey: he literally says, come on, we haven't got time for this and just shoved her off the, of the thing. Or they went, Billy's going through all the rules. And the cost happened to be around, just pull holes, you know, pick holes out everything he says like, Oh, what if they eat? And then go on a plane and go through a different you know time-saving and what if they have something stuck in their mouth and then they that later, and there's always midnight somewhere.

So it's just sort of lampooning itself for all the things that everyone said after the first one.

Reegs: I really like, and I don't always, but I really liked that meta quality to it here. In fact, it extends so much that there are actually, there's a break in the middle of the movie that famously, you know, you're watching it. And then it seems as if the gremlins themselves have. Broken the projection and you've, there's two different versions.

Right. So if you saw it in the cinema, you get a scene with Holt, Cogan ripping off his t-shirt and calling them grim stirs.

Howie: that's the bit that's so nice. So

Reegs: But there's also if you ever rented it, there was also a version where John Wayne also breaks the fourth wall and takes down the the grim sisters.

Sidey: that wasn't cause he was

Howie: Oh,

Reegs: It was, yeah.

Howie: The whole Kogan version I saw was the one that's currently on sky.

Reegs: Yes. I saw that as well, but there is a John Wayne one. Trust me, look it up on

Sidey: Yeah, there was, I read about that. And a lot of the VHS is at the time were returned. People believing them to be faulty. Yeah.

Reegs: There's I mean, there's numerous references to different Hollywood movies even What's his name? Mark White gizmo himself construct a sort of, yeah, he, he, he, he constructs what am I trying to say? Crossbow out of a paperclip and a rubber band. Did you ever try to do that?

Sidey: no, but I did have the Nintendo NES home entertainment system game of this and that you had to do that in the game.

Reegs: Love it.

Sidey: It was, it was a good game, actually, that one

Dan: I, you know, I'm, I'm saying thinking I watched this when it came out in 1990, 91, whenever I'm not a hundred percent, whether you're convinced me to revisit this shit. I mean, we should all watch a movie. Is it for,

Sidey: I'll get to enjoy this.

Howie: kids

Reegs: into it. You watch it,

Dan: is a PG 13. So

Sidey: it's just my habit. It's not scary. It's not scary. It's all. It's, it's more of a comedy. I mean, it starts with the Looney tunes. Animation

Reegs: Yes. And that actually sets the tone. Doesn't it

Howie: Yeah. And you've got like an entire concept piece of New York. Is it New

Reegs: Yeah. They're singing New York, New York. I mean, exactly about an hour of the way through this. There's a huge musical number.

Dan: and stuff.

Sidey: no, not even that.

Howie: even that. Not even that.

Reegs: even.

Dan: gruesome then that

Reegs: Even the really scariest one. So there's a sort of Stripe or spike equivalent

Sidey: Mohawk and this one.

Reegs: So he gets turned into this sort of hideous goblin gremlin, spider hybrid, but there's a scene where he's being shot from behind.

And you can tell that they've clearly not built the rear of the model. So it's only just stood there, like with its shadow and yeah, I mean, and he's dispensed within about two seconds. So. It's just mayhem lights. It says absolute gremlin, mayhem, huge musical number with a very eloquent brain gremlin sort of singing over the top of it.

And then somebody that I found out today is called Gretta. So Gretta is the female gremlin. She,

Dan: red lips. I remember

Reegs: there's a lot of questions. About Gretta. I always assumed that gremlins were essentially male asexual, at least from the first movie that they were all males.

Sidey: when I was watching it. I was thinking, so they're all, they're all males aren't they, they certainly behave like that and they. The reproduction is just by, by virtue of having water on them. So they're up, there's clearly no females up until this point.

Reegs: Exactly. So then Gretta takes the, what I assume were sort of female hormones.  But they, she definitely, after taking the female hormones manifests.

Sexual traits. She gets much more desirable, ears, eyes, lips, hair, and even big breasts, which would suggest that she's definitely female and not a sexual anymore. So this is a, you know, an evolution exactly. Of the gremlin reproductive.

Sidey: is the only survivor

Reegs: So , she shacks, what did you say his name was

Sidey: Forrester when he finds down at the climax of the film. And they've, they've basically wiped out all the, the the gremlins and, and Clamp gets a phone call from Forrester saying he's stuck presumably in the penthouse or whatever it is at the top. And he says, Oh, well, the doors are locked. You know, it would take us ages to get you down because you know, it's a locked down.

We'll look after it. Yeah. He says, but don't worry. It will be up to you shortly. And it cuts to the office and he's stuck in this room with, with Gressa and then the lights are dimmed and it's a, it's a wedding scene where he's, I don't know if he concentrated the, the marriage or not

Howie: we'll eat Dustin. Cause he goes, what as well?

Reegs: you see him sort of slide down the wall, don't you in any officer, some eyebrows light. So it's clearly like

Sidey: It

Dan: did they, do they

Sidey: up for it.

Howie: he does more than that. He goes down on the Graebel in clam.

Dan: Wow. Okay. So it's it's, it's more than would have, we would have needed for our top five kisses then

Reegs: Yeah

Howie: has pubes?

Sidey: Yeah, she had her,

Reegs: I don't think about it.

Sidey: there was a scene because, because there, the building has it. So cable network, TV station, and they play some footage, this this Armageddon footage under the world footage.

Reegs: amazing. Isn't it?

Sidey: but, but CNN. Confirmed that they have that they have this in their archive

Reegs: Yeah, of course.

Sidey: to play. If there was this not a gremlin star, but like some sort of apocalypse it's know that this

Reegs: Congratulations. It's the end of the world. We hope you had a lovely life.

Sidey: Yeah. It's not a thing. It's amazing.

Dan: wow.

 Sidey: have we sold it to you, Dan? Do you think you'd watch it again?

Dan: potentially, potentially, I think when you said that, it's because I remembered it being quite scary, you know, more of Friday, the 13th, four or Freddy kind of stuff. I would, I don't know if the first one was like that. Was it pictures in it

Sidey: first one's more. First one was a 15. First one was rated as a 15. They tried to get as a PG, but it was a 15, this one they've just dialed up all the silliness and it's, it's a lot more played for laughs. This one out and out. Laughs. In the first one.

Reegs: there's constant stream of gags. And most of them land landed at the time. And I have to say having watched this very recently, they still land. I thought it was really funny.

Dan: did you think you've benefited more because you'd seen gremlins just before watching gremlins two or

Sidey: Possibly, possibly, but it would stand alone. There's not a, you know, it's not a very sophisticated story, you know what I mean? They do. You could just watch them and enjoy it for what it is. There's loads of references in there. So if you're watching it You know, with the kids, you're going to get some things.

So there's a, there's a dentist chair scene, which has a, there's a math marathon man reference in there. There's all that kind of stuff throughout, but overall it's just chaotic just played for laughs. Well, I would say, I thought the grabbing has looked a lot better in this one than they did in the first one, because they'd been there had been a savory, if they've been a bit of a time gap between the two.

So they had been able to, to move this odd in terms of the animatronics. And also there's some CGI used in this one, not brilliantly by today's standards, but still it looks a little bit

Howie: they got, they got really small actors as well. Didn't they to get into the seats.

Sidey: play.

Reegs: that it's got to be made up, look at it. If they, and they almost never.

Howie: head. Yes.

Reegs: They almost inevitably will do this, I guess one day, but have a gremlins three, the only place.

Howie: still alive, it will be half human hybrids.

Reegs: Well, I think the only, the only place left to go for this now is to turn gizmo into a gremlin. That is the only, that's how it would have to

Sidey: opera uproar.

Reegs: Yeah.

Howie: space gives it'll be. Yeah,

Reegs: a

Sidey: They were, they did, they were talking about what to do with the location. And they did even talk about setting this on Mars, but in the end it was supposed to be New York, but that was just going to be too much to do. So they just made it one building in New York, which is why I said, raise the budget for it.

50 mill.

Reegs: Hm.

Sidey: lot,

Dan: a lot of bucks. Yeah,

Sidey: I don't know that you see that on the screen. Really? Maybe I'm being harsh, but 50. Do you think at one or at last, at the box office.

Dan: I think it probably one, because it was a. Much await it's equal,

Reegs: I would agree.

Sidey: It lost, it was only made 41 mill. This was this was a franchise killer. There was too much of a gap in the end. There was just, it didn't, it needed to strike earlier, you know, to ride on the wave of the popularity of the first one. They wait too long. Joe Dante he. Turned it down loads and loads of times it didn't want to make it and in the end it, so I went through a bit of development, how they came back to him and said, do you want to do it?

And he said, yeah, I'll do it. But only if I can do exactly what I want or anything that I want. So that's why the big budget that it did have. But it just, it was too expensive and

Dan: Yeah.

Sidey: which is a shame because I really enjoy it. I think it's a good, I

Reegs: It's a pretty weird sequel, really all things considered because tonally it's all over the place. It's just crazy. But,

Sidey: It's just bonkers.

Reegs: yeah, it is completely mad.

Dan: Well, if I fancy a bit of punk is fun with the kids over the Christmas holidays, then this might be something that I'll I'll turn to, or, yeah, I'm intrigued enough to. To watch to learn a little bit more or remember a little bit more because it's just so long. I, I forgotten too much about it. But having listened to you guys rattle on about it, I guess I I'll give it a, I'll give it a go.