Editorials
[Script To Scream]: Gerald Dies And Gizmo Becomes A Butterfly In ‘Gremlins’!
A film lives many lives before it ever hits the screen. The script is usually revised multiple times before a single foot of film is exposed (or the digital equivalent thereof). I’m not just talking about smaller stuff like dialogue polishes and the addition or deletion of scenes. Many times the core story is reworked in profound ways. Sometimes it’s downright shocking how different the final film can be from the initial drafts.
In this new (semi-regular) feature for Bloody-Disgusting, I’m going to take a look at some early drafts of scripts for horror films that you may have already seen and discuss the differences, whether they took a turn for the worse, better or just different. There are also a handful of scripts for sequels and remakes that never happened that are worth checking out – just to see what might have been.
These aren’t script reviews, and only rarely will I be breaking the stories down on a beat-by-beat basis. I’m just going to point out some cool, interesting and/or disastrous choices that happened along the way. Each installment will be different, and each installment will be fun. I’ll also be including sample pages (when available)* so you don’t have to take my word for it!
*This applies only to older and previously released films that are already part of the culture. We’re not in the business of leaking or sabotaging projects in development.
First up is Joe Dante’s Gremlins, written by Chris Columbus. Hit the jump to check it out! For years people have talked about how dark Chris Columbus’ first draft of Gremlins was. Many of us have heard the story in which, after the kitchen confrontation scene, Billy arrives home to find his mom’s severed head tumbling down the stairs.
The version I have (Seventh Draft – February 18th, 1983) doesn’t contain that scene – Mrs. Peltzer lives. Suffice to say that brutally killing Mrs. Pelter wasn’t an idea that was going to stay around for more than a pass or two, especially considering that this is an Amblin film. However, some of that darkness is still very much on the page. For instance, it’s very clearly spelled out that The Futtermans die. Even though the film alludes to their demise (and Gremlins 2 obviously retcons their survival), it’s never explicitly stated*. It is here. It’s only a minor deviation (if you can even call it that) but it’s an interesting one.
*EDIT – Reader Adam Harmless has correctly pointed out that they are declared on the radio as surviving in the film. I can’t believe I forgot about that!
One of the huge differences in this draft is the character of Gerald, the douchey Junior Vice President of the bank where Billy works. In the film he’s an enjoyably smug dick played by Judge Reinhold at the top of his affable game. His character is there to provide a counterpoint to Billy’s current path in life, something that’s accomplished handily in the first act. After that, he more or less disappears.
In the February 18th, 1983 draft he has a much bigger role and a more completely developed arc. Not only does he join Kate and Billy in their plan to blow up the Gremlins as they watch Snow White…
… he also gets the monologue. You know what I’m talking about. That amazingly black lump of coal that someway found its way into a PG Christmas movie. In the film, it’s a revelatory moment for Phoebe Cates’ character. But in this script, it’s all Gerald.
In this draft, the speech provides a sense of damage and some motivation for Gerald’s overall profit driven and Grinch-like perspective. It’s much easier to understand why the banker is such a jerk around the holidays if he had to smell his dad rotting in the chimney as a result of playing Santa.
I think the decision to give this speech to Cates in the film (and basically excise Gerald) is a wise one. From the beginning moments we’re rooting for Kate and Billy to end up together, and the personal nature of her disclosing this information to him (along with them taking on the Gremlins sans Gerald) ratchets up the intimacy factor.
So Columbus redeems Gerald a bit, and then he kills him.
Another huge change occurs at the end, in which Gizmo DIES and is reincarnated as glowing butterfly-like creature.
This is a cool effect, but it undercuts one of the major themes of Dante’s film. That American society is too clumsy, irresponsible and exploitative to properly interact with anything delicate or beautiful. In short, “this is why we can’t have nice things”. Because we make them ugly.
This theme is largely diminished, at least as overt text, in the earlier iteration of the story. Here, he simply just flies away.
All in all, I think the February 18th, 1983 draft is a fascinating look at the development mechanics of the project. But personally I prefer the final film that we all know and love.
What about you? Do you think Gremlins is perfect as is? Or would you have liked it better with some of these original elements present?
Some movies are just so beloved that you can experience them through cultural osmosis without ever sitting down to actually watch them. From loving parodies to meticulous recreations of iconic scenes, memorable filmmaking lives on even after the curtains close on the silver screen. And when it comes to horror, few films can compete with the massive impact that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining had on popular culture as a whole.
Whether or not you think the flick is a good adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal novel, 1980’s The Shining slowly but surely grew into one of the most influential genre movies ever made, inspiring everything from surprisingly heartfelt sequels to classic episodes of The Simpsons. However, not all The Shining references are created equal, and today I’d like to shine a light on six unexpected homages to Kubrick’s iconic film.
In this list, we’ll be focusing on references and Easter eggs that either came out of the blue or came from creators that you wouldn’t expect to be fans of this classic ghost story. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite references to the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. A Nightmare on FaceTime – South Park (2012)
Regardless of the brand’s iffy reputation among former employees, the death of Blockbuster Video was a serious blow to fans of physical media. Of course, some folks were more affected by this than others, and South Park’s Randy Marsh definitely took things a little too far in the twelfth episode of the show’s sixteenth season.
Titled A Nightmare on FaceTime, the main plot of this 2012 story is a surprisingly faithful recreation of The Shining where Randy purchases an empty Blockbuster store and begins to go mad once he realizes that his investment may not have been a very good idea due to the rise of streaming and the now-defunct RedBox storefronts.
4. The Overlook Hotel Level – Ready Player One (2018)
I was never really a fan of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, so I viewed Stephen Spielberg’s divisive adaptation of the novel as an improvement over the source material despite having its own narrative issues. In fact, I actually prefer how Spielberg changed the story by removing several references to his own work and replacing a lengthy Blade Runner detour with an over-the-top homage to The Shining.
A CGI-heavy recreation of the film’s most iconic moments that feels like a big-budget ghost train ride set within the Overlook Hotel, this intense sequence is more of a recreation of the freaky aesthetics of The Shining rather than its mind-bending narrative. However, it’s still fun to see Spielberg make a heartfelt tribute to a filmmaker that was once his close personal friend.
3. IKEA Singapore Halloween Ad (2014)
It makes sense that commercials don’t typically borrow from the horror genre, as it might be a bad idea to scare away potential customers, but some references are just too much fun to pass up.
That’s probably why the publicists behind this Ikea ad from Singapore were allowed to turn their commercial into a genuinely unsettling recreation of Danny’s tricycle scene from The Shining. After all, nobody cares if your store is haunted so long as it offers late-night shopping hours and a large selection of merchandise that you can become lost in forever and ever…
2. The End of ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’ – Community (2014)
Community is no stranger to recreating iconic movie moments within the show, and the series had previously tackled horror tropes in episodes like the fan-favorite Epidemiology. However, the most laugh-out-loud moment on this particular list comes from a brief gag towards the end of the season five episode ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’.
The majority of this episode has nothing to do with scary movies, but there’s a brief subplot involving supporting character Chang and a possible encounter with ghosts that leads him to question his own existence. This subplot culminates in the episode’s hilarious ending where the camera zooms in on a black-and-white photograph of Chang in period clothing at some kind of celebration, just like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
However, the picture’s subtitle eventually reveals that it’s merely a conveniently placed keepsake from the ‘Old Timey Photo Club’.
1. The Overlook Hedge Maze Sequence – Zootopia 2 (2025)
Disney movies are pretty far removed from both the gruesome horror of Stephen King and the heady filmmaking of Stanley Kubrick, so I don’t think anyone was expecting the climax of last year’s Zootopia sequel to take place in an animated version of the snowy hedge maze from The Shining.
In this unexpectedly intense sequence, friend-turned-villain Pawbert Lynxley (an unhinged lynx cat played by Andy Samberg) chases our protagonists through a creepy labyrinth in a loving recreation of Jack Nicholson’s icy demise outside the Overlook Hotel. The actual ending here might be a little more child-friendly than what’s being referenced, but it’s amazing that the filmmakers were able to push the horror elements as far as they did – especially since the scene doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the movie.
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