THE 'BURBS (1989)

"Satan is good. Satan is our pal."

Some nosy neighbors on a cul-de-sac have absolutely nothing better to do all day and night than spy on their new neighbors...and with good reason: these fuckers are weird as fuck!  You wouldn't want them living next to you, that's for sure.  As the film opens, it's late at night and Tom Hanks is investigating some strange noises coming from the neighbor's basement.  The next day his other neighbors dare him to go knock on the creepy neighbor's door.  He does, but with bad results.  Things just escalate and escalate from there until the street looks like a war zone.

THE 'BURBS was an alright ride.  I knew the basic premise of the story beforehand and was hoping that it was going to be balls to the wall crazy.  But unfortunately it was pretty tame.  Still I got a few chuckles out of it.  Plus, I finally discovered where that sample from the song "Carnage Castle" by Blood Freak came from!

Nowhere near as dark as it should have been, Corey Feldman acting cool, zero gore, zero blood, zero nudity, great cast, Tom Hanks freaking out, multiple references to Satan, various horror movies on televisions.  Worth an occasional viewing.  I'd love to see a dark remake.

GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH (1990)

After the events of Part 1, Billy and Kate have moved to NYC. They both have jobs in the high tech, high rise Clamp Tower. Their lives seem mildly happy, but as fate would have it, there happens to be a genetics laboratory in the building and who else but Gizmo is being held there!  Imagine that.  Stuff happens and Billy rescues Giz only to carelessly leave him alone in his desk.  Gizmo then decides to go exploring on his own.  Brilliant!  Naturally, he gets water splashed on him and before you can say "Mogwai penis" there's like a thousand crazy gremlins wrecking havoc all over the building. And thanks to the genetics lab these new gremlins come in all kinds of flavors: talking, spider, vegetable, electric, bat, female, etc.

GREMLINS 2 isn't as sweet or endearing as the original, instead it's more for an irreverent, tongue-in-cheek vibe.  That's okay, but in the end, Part 2 doesn't have the same magic that the original had.  It's almost like an explosion of small ideas just slapped together, whereas the original had a straightforward story with likable characters and a sweet hometown feel to it.  If I had to guess, I would say that Spielberg had less involvement with this film than the original.  As it is though, it's still an entertaining watch.

I'm still hoping for a hard R-rated Part 3.

Part 1 - Gremlins (1984)