Screenhead

You may be wondering what I’m doing writing this one up, seeing as how it hasn’t–rather, hasn’t YET–been rereleased recently.  See, I became fairly well convinced just after I wrote up the first one, that I would be seriously remiss in my secondary critical duty of telling you all about the good stuff if I didn’t tell you about the sequel.

Gremlins 2: The New Batch is the followup to the original Gremlins, in which Billy and girlfriend Kate have packed up for New York City, where they’ve found jobs in the ultra-modern Clamp Building.  As such, it’s only a matter of time before they’re reunited with the mogwai, and from there, only a matter of time until all hell breaks loose, Gremlin-style.

Now, the original appeal of Gremlins was that they packed in plenty of scares with their occasional laughs. Gremlins 2, meanwhile, switches the formula and packs in lots of laughs with its occasional scares.  The result is a wildly over the top romp that packs in an insane amount of in-jokes (catch the sound effect when the doors open in Mr. Clamp’s office.  And then there’s my personal favorite segment, on YouTube in THREE DIFFERENT PLACES that I found.  It’s located below.).  There are even bizarre guest appearances–John Astin is in here, formerly Gomez of the Addams Family.  Grandpa Fred from The Munsters is hosting a late-night horror movie show.  The sheer number of laughable moments is through the roof.

And the musical number at the end is almost a non-stop string of laughable moments.

So if your taste in horror runs toward the really, really light, or your taste in comedy runs toward the really, really dark, then the followup to Gremlins is going to be high-grade filmmaking for you.

The Screenhead Ten Scale loves a good over-the-top romp, and hands out a nine out of ten to this sheer panic of a light horror comedy.

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