Editorials
5 Reasons ‘Gremlins 2’ Is A Masterpiece!!!
Those of you who read my work on the site know that I’m a huge fan of Gremlins 2: The New Batch. While I won’t go as far as saying I like it more than the original Gremlins (though I know people who do), I think it’s equally as good in different ways.
While the original film is a family horror classic, impeccably crafted and audience friendly – the sequel is a different beast altogether. Warner Bros. was so jazzed on the idea of continuing the franchise that they gave director Joe Dante carte blanche to do whatever he wanted with a $50 Million budget and he went bonkers in the best way possible.
Head below for 5 Reasons Gremlins 2 Is A Masterpiece!!!
Joe Dante has repeatedly stated that this film is about entropy, which is sort of self evident when you watch it. It’s interesting how effortlessly The New Batch imports the WW2 meaning of the word “Gremlin” from the first film and applies it to the more surface-y failings of late-stage capitalism. Clamp Center is a great, modern Wild West for one man only… where nothing works.
Even the Clamp logo is perfect, a giant “C” in the shape of a wrench – squashing the earth.
While there’s no shortage of zany characters and scenarios in Clamp Center, from “Microwaving With Marge” to Dr. Catheter’s lab “Splice Of Life,” it’s the Canadian restaurant that really encapsulates the film’s tone for me. It’s something that went totally over my head when I saw the movie as a child, but when I watched it a few years back it struck me as one of the more outrageous elements even though it’s pitched at a comparatively lower key.
Billy Peltzer and Marla Bloodstone being served by a waiter dressed as a mountie, dining on chocolate mousse molded in the form of a moose’s head. Perfect.
One of the coups of the film is making John Glover’s captain of industry Daniel Clamp sort of likable. Sure, he’s boorish and full of terrible ideas, but those qualities stem from a lack of self awareness instead of outright malice. It may seem like small potatoes but character reversals like this, when “the bad guys” are not at all what you’re expecting them to be, can really breathe fresh life into the experience.
After being tied to the train tracks and generally abused by the gaggle of Gremlins that have invaded the Center, poor Gizmo finally decides to stop being passive. The result? Some weight training, some punching bag work, the construction of a paper clip and rubber band hunting bow.
Moments later he’s wearing a Rambo-esque red headband and shooting flaming arrows at the Gremlin spider bearing down on Kate and Marla. As Billy puts it, “I guess they pushed him too far.”
Kudos to Gremlins 2 for addressing the audience’s natural questioning of “the rules” after the original film. It dares to have characters ask stuff like, “what if he’s eating in an airplane and the cross the time zone?”
It’s a great way of acknowledging the imperfect logic of the film while simultaneously reminding you to forget about it and enjoy the movie.
Actually, there are so many reasons to love this movie. From the different mutations and personalities bestowed upon the various Gremlins to the immortal line, “Mister, welcome to the Men’s Room!”
What’s your favorite?
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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