10 Important Horror Movie Details That Are Almost Never Mentioned
4. Foreshadowing The Sword - Gremlins
Who among us doesn't love a good ol' instance of Chekov's Gun? If an element or object is introduced in a story, it will exist for a reason by the time the story is over.
And Gremlins boasts a brilliant example of one, even if it's not talked about nearly enough. Throughout the film, there's a running gag where the strange decorative swords hanging up in the Peltzer household keep falling down.
On an initial viewing we might assume this to be a mistake which was kept in the film, but as we all know, that's not really the case.
Later in the movie when Billy's (Zach Galligan) mother Lynn (Frances Lee McCain) is being strangled by one of the Gremlins, Billy rushes to her aid by - you guessed it - taking one of the swords off the wall and killing the Gremlin.
Though it's in no way vital for the movie to draw our attention to the swords prior to Billy using one of them, it is a great piece of sly visual storytelling which makes their use here feel totally organic. Setup and payoff, folks.