With the arrival of the Christmas season, so begins the time when film lovers start rewatching their favorite holiday classics. Many of the usual names make this list, likeIt’s a Wonderful Life,National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, andElf. There’s also more edgy content such as the slasherBlack Christmasand the much argued aboutDie Hard(yes, it is a Christmas movie). Another title, one that leans more traditional but with a more tense structure, isJoe Dante’sGremlinsfrom 1984. It’s regarded as a family friendly classic, loved by nostalgic parents and children alike, but it’s also filled with many frightening images, and is one of the boundary pushing PG films responsible for creating the PG-13 rating.
As scary as it can be, with creepy creatures running amok, and even causing a few deaths, the original screenplay was even more terrifying, with an even higher body count.Gremlinswould have been a straight-up adult horror film had producerSteven Spielbergnot intervened with his own ideas.
‘Gremlins’ Started as a Monster Movie
The screenplay forGremlinswas written byChris Columbus. He’s a big name now, having made his name in family-centered fare by directing the first twoHome AloneandHarry Potterfilms, as well as writing the screenplay forThe Goonies, but in the early 1980s he was a twenty-something trying to make a name for himself. While living in New York, he would hear mice running around on the floor at night. When a friend said to him, “You love monster movies so much, why don’t you write a monster movie?” It sparked an idea.In 2020, he told Collider, “I was thinking about these mice running around at night, they would scurry by my finger if my hand was hanging over the bed, it was really creeping me out and that’s how I came up with the idea ofGremlins. So I wrote it as a straightforward horror film. Hard R, mom’s head comes rolling down the stairs, Billy and Kate go into a McDonald’s and none of the food is eaten but all of the people are eaten (laughs). So it was very dark.”
In the biggest stroke of luck, Columbus’Gremlinsscript was noticed by none other than Steven Spielberg. He saw the potential, but he also saw that it could be more than just another gory monster movie. “Steven was very instrumental,” Columbus told Collider, “because I was a young writer and I was like a kid in a candy store getting to work with Steven Spielberg, and he steered me into – he said, ‘This needs to reach a wider audience.’ He goes, ‘What you’ve done could be great, but it’s an R-rated horror film. There’s a way that what you’ve written can reach a much wider audience.’ So we worked on several drafts of the script.”
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Chris Columbus’ originalGremlinsscreenplay is an interesting read and could have been a fun and very scary film if left the way it was. Billy’s mom does die, and there is the discovery of a scene of mass murder at a McDonald’s. Those aren’t the only differences, however. Gone is a lot of the humor that would come out in the rewrites.Gremlinswas intended to be a serious film. Everything is much darker and the characters are less charming and developed because of it. Most notably, there was no Gizmo.
Gizmo Existed, but He Was Scary
In Columbus’ screenplay, a Gizmo-like Mogwai does still exist. Billy, as in the released film, gets a Mogwai as a pet for Christmas, but the similarities stop there. The friendly relationship that carries the film isn’t seen here because, shockingly, Billy’s pet is just as sinister as the Mogwai that will come from him, as he too becomes a malevolent gremlin. He morphs into the gremlin Stripe that is the mohawked leader seen in the final product. That huge difference makes the two iterations completely different beasts. The cute and heartwarming relationship between Billy and Gizmo is arguably the best and most memorable part of the film. Without it,Gremlinsloses its heart and soul.
Spielberg knew this and came up with an idea that would change the entire personality of the film. He didn’t want Billy’s pet to become a monster, butas director Joe Dante once put it with The Guardian, “to have him carried around in the backpack of the hero Billy (Zach Galligan), like in a ‘boy and a dog’ movie.”
This change was the film’s biggest and the one that works the best.Dante agreed, telling Variety, “Steven Spielberg decided in his wisdom that Gizmo should stick around and be the hero’s pal. If we had made the movie the other way, nobody would remember it. The addition of Gizmo made the difference. In his own way, he’s the star of the movie.”
It put some emotion intoGremlins, turning it into a picture that tugs at the heartstrings rather than tearing them out. Audiences now had another reason to be invested. The romance between Billy and Kate (Phoebe Cates) works, but it’s been done so many times. To have a boy befriend a strange and wondrous creature, and develop such a strong bond that the two would risk their lives for each other, was something audiences hadn’t seen much of. It raised the stakes and harkened back to Spielberg’s own ‘boy and a dog’ type movie,E.T.the Extra-Terrestrial, but with Gizmo being much cuter than Elliott’s (Henry Thomas) abandoned alien pal.
What Would the New Gizmo Look Like?
That brings us to another instrumental change brought about by Spielberg; Gizmo’s look. Just as crucial as the choice to completely change the tone ofGremlinsby turning Gizmo from foe to friend, was making sure that the design was right. Creating such a mysterious creature with no rules gave the filmmakers free rein over the design, but it still had to be something that connected with moviegoers. Make it look too alien, too bizarre, or too creepy, and viewers wouldn’t buy it. They’d either laugh at the failed effort or turn away in disgust, rather than leaning in, wanting to see more of Gizmo, and therefore, more easily connecting with him.
Special effects artistChris Walaswas the man behind the design of the reptilian styled monsters that the mogwai morph into. He knocked the design out of the park. They looked so lifelike, with big eyes, and sharp, razor-like teeth, all packed into a two-foot tall frame. Their facial expressions could show anything from menace, to curiosity, to fear, making them equal parts hilarious and nightmare fuel.
The real struggle came in trying to figure out Gizmo’s look. In the screenplay, he’s no bigger than a hamster. One idea had him being the size of a child. Walas kept coming back to one idea,as he told Empire. “After reading the script, my first idea was to take the tarsier, a little primate, and give it cartoony proportions. I wanted the big eyes to make it cute.” That resulted in a Mogwai that looked similar to the final design but with almost black fur. “I showed it to Mike [Finnell] and Joe [Dante] and they asked for some tweaks, so I made the next one. This is more like a puppy. Big, floppy ears. It’s not based on any one dog in particular — just a Cocker Spaniel or something.” The second attempt at a Mogwai was lighter colored, but its long, droopy ears looked more silly than realistic.
“The final Gizmo from the first film,” Walas said, “I’ll be honest: the project was a nightmare. They just kept making changes, so when we had all the puppets we thought we were going to need to make of the Mogwai, Joe called up and said, ‘Steven [Spielberg] is wondering if you can match the color of his dog…’ So we had to look at photos and match the fur of his beagle.”
That gamble turned out to be the right one. Making Gizmo the color of a dog made the film more true to the ‘boy and a dog’ vision, while also making it easier for the audience to accept this strange being. By having something so alien look so familiar at the same time put the viewer on his side. We were instantly rooting for him because he was so adorable, just like a puppy, that we wanted to pick him up, hold him, and protect him ourselves.
In an alternate world, it would be fun to see Chris Columbus’ originalGremlinsidea play out. What we got though was so much better. Through Steven Spielberg, we were given a film where the characters and their journey matter just as much as the clever premise. We’re given a creature in Gizmo that audiences adored so much that he has become a pop culture icon. And, most importantly, we’re given a film for everyone that dared to go beyond simple tropes and become something magical rather than horrific, both funny and scary, and completely unforgettable.
