Gremlins - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Gremlins



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
Gremlins is a bit of an iconic film for several reasons. Not only was it the film that kicked off a lot of the “little monsters” films like the Critters, The Munchies, The Ghoulies, and all of the associated sequels of the 80s and 90s, but also due to the fact that it (along with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) was the movie that prompted the MPAA to come up with the PG-13 rating as it pushed the PG rating JUUUUUST a bit for the times. I have a huge fondness in my heart for Critters, but Gremlins will always be one of the go to films I’ll pull out around Christmas time (along with Die Hard of course, I do have class) to get in the “spirit” of things. It’s a highly entertaining movie by Joe Dante, and has more than a few subversive subtexts about greed and excess that was so rampant in the 1980s.

Inventor/Salesman Randall Peltzer (Hoyt Axton) stumbles across a mysterious fluffy creature called a Mogwai in an old Chinese artifact shop, and ends up slipping it out under the owner’s nose (against his recommendation) as a Christmas present for his son Billy (Zach Galligan). Billy is ecstatic about his gift, and even accepting of the strict rules that the shop owner’s son gave Randall. Don’t subject them to bright lights, don’t get them wet, and DO NOT feed them after midnight. However, as these things go, the new pet (dubbed Gizmo) is soon subjected to a little bit of water, prompting a form of mitosis wherein Gizmo spawns dozens of fluffy little clones. These clones are not exactly nearly as nice as Gizmo is though, and after Billy sends off one of the clones to a lab where it is subjected to the before mentioned feeding after midnight, things get out of control.

The little creatures soon turn into gremlins (quite literally), who have a vicious personality and violent tendencies. Terrorizing the town from top to bottom, the gremlins are on their way to hacking, slashing and generally munching everyone in sight. Now it’s up to Billy and his girlfriend Kate to get rid of the town’s violent pests before there’s no one left to stop them.

Gremlins is goofy fun that actually has a lot more going for it under the surface than a light hearted monster movie. Back during the 80s we had several films satirizing the greed and excess that was rampant during said decade (Robocop being one of them), as there are a lot of tie ins to money in the film. Mrs. Deaker is the town richy rich that everyone wants to be, especially with her wealth, while varying other people are trying their best to get rich quick to BE like her. Randall Peltzer is the failed inventor who desperately wants to make it big, Billy’s boss (played by Judge Reinhold) is stomping over everyone on his way up the corporate ladder, and Billy himself is just trying to get by and support his family (since his father can’t). Even the gremlins themselves seem enamored with the material things of this world, getting caught up with movies, toys and other carnal delights along their way of wanton destruction.

All of this “deep” thought aside, Gremlins is a wildly fun movie, and one of my staple Christmas watches for the last 20+ years. The movie gets better and better with age, and the new 4K UHD release only sweetens the pot. Sadly I really was hoping for Warner to release Gremlins 2 at the same time on 4K UHD, but I guess we’ll just have to make do with the original for now.



Rating:

Rated PG by the MPAA




4K Video: Video:

One of the biggest banes of Gremlins fans existence was the fact that for the last 10 years the Blu-ray transfer that we’ve had to put up with from Warner is absolutely ABYSMAL. It was one of the worst catalog titles I’d seen from a big name studio except for some of Universal’s old waxfest DNR messes like The Jerk. The whites were all blasted and washed out, there was crush in some scenes, and washed out blacks in others, coupled with excessive grain in low light conditions. Colors were pushed heavily towards a ruddy red/orange tint, and there was artifacting from the low bitrate VC-1 encode.

Fast forward to the 4K UHD (which was supposedly struck from a native 4K master) and it’s a night and day comparison. The colors are neutral and well saturated, getting rid of that nasty ruddy look that permeated the blu-ray, and the black issues are nearly completely gone. What was once a mass of black crush in low light sequences actually shows off tons of fine detailing along the gremlins bodies, allowing us to see the individual stripes and textures instead of a black “mass”. There’s still some grain in low light shots, but that’s natural grain and not swarming like we once had. There’s still some inherent softness to the picture, which seems to be intentional as every master or 35mm print I’ve ever seen has been soft and hazy (something which was talked about in one of the commentaries in fact), especially around Gizmos face. The 4K UHD is not the end all be all of 4K discs, and it IS a bit soft, but comparing against the abysmal Blu-ray, it’s a literal revelation.







Audio:

Warner Brothers recycles the same decent 5.1 mix from the Blu-ray release, but just repackages the mix in a DTS-HD MA encode instead of the TrueHD from Dolby Digital. Simply put, it’s a solid track, but it doesn’t really stretch the limitations of the format that much. Dialog is strong and clean 99% of the time, although there is a MILD background hiss that comes out at higher volume levels. It’s not a massive issue, as it takes high volume levels to really be noticeable, but you can detect it if you’re listening for it. Also the music sometimes is a bit muted compared to the rest of the track. That being said the rest is purely enjoyable, with strong surround support when the gremlins start tearing up the town, and a few solid LFE bumps (such as when Billy blows up the theater with the gremlins inside near the end) to give it some excitement.








Extras:

• HDR PRESENTATION OF THE FILM
• Filmmakers' Commentary with Director Joe Dante, Producer Michael Finnell and Special Effects Artist Chris Walas
• Cast Commentary with Director Joe Dante, Zack Galligan, Phoebe Cates, Dick Miller, and Howie Mandel
• Gremlins: Behind the Scenes Featurette
• Additional Scenes with Commentary
• Photo Gallery
• Theatrical Trailers
• Additional Scenes

Digital Extras
• Cute. Clever. Mischievous. Intelligent: Making Gremlins
• Gremlins: The Gift of the Mogwai (motion comic)
• The Last Gremlin (motion comic)
• From Gizmo to Gremlins: Creating the Creatures
• Hangin' with Hoyt on the set of Gremlins

Final Score: ​

Warner’s 4K UHD upgrade of the 1984 Gremlins is a solid entry and I, for one, am ecstatic to see more catalog titles come out for 4K. Catalog titles in general have been sluffed off to boutique studios like Shout Factory, Kino Lorber and others, so it’s refreshing to see some of the big studios keep pumping out content. The upgrade for the film is a bit mixed, but still earns a recommendation from me due to the fact that the Blu-ray to 4K video upgrade is astonishing in comparison to the wretched 1080p disc that we’ve had to put up with for the last 10 years. The audio is just a port of that track, and the same with the extras, but this release will definitely please fans with said video content and is well worth the price of admission. Highly recommended.


Technical Specifications:


Starring: Hoyt Axton, Keye Luke, Corey Fleldman, Zach Galligan, Harry Carey Jr., Kate Beringer, Polly Holiday
Directed by: Joe Dante
Written by: Chris Columbus
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 HEVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
Studio: Warner Brothers
Rated: PG
Runtime: 106 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: October 1st, 2019

Recommendation: Highly Recommended

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. Good that this version is better than the previous release. Will check it out.

 

[NBPK402]

Thanks for the review... I will have to look for this one.

 

[Todd Anderson]

Nice to have a restored version of this film... the original BD really is THAT bad. Too bad the audio isn't getting a total refresh!

 

[Michael Scott]

yes, yes that Blu-ray really is THAT bad. I have a few more coming out soon too.... Lets just say a classic Stephen King horror movie that's going to have 5/5 video scores

 

[Todd Anderson]

yes, yes that Blu-ray really is THAT bad. I have a few more coming out soon too.... Lets just say a classic Stephen King horror movie that's going to have 5/5 video scores

Already ordered it... preorder... coming Oct 1.

All work and no play!