10. Gremlins
Warner Bros.You don't see movies aimed ostensibly at children with quite so much gleeful violence in this day and age - indeed, the level of gore and violence in Gremlins was a cause for controversy at the time of its release, and executive producer Steven Spielberg ended up heading to the Motion Picture Association of America and suggesting they implement changes to the ratings system, which they duly did. Set at Christmas in a small town in middle America, Gremlins tells the story of Billy Peltzer who gets a wonderfully cute little creature called a mogwai as a present from his entrepreneurial father. Naming it Gizmo, the only instructions he has to follow are "Don't expose him to bright light. Don't ever get him wet. And don't ever, ever feed him after midnight." Needless to say all three are broken, unleashing the riotous gremlins onto the unwitting residents of the small town. Director Joe Dante effortlessly fuses genres so that the film feels like a cross between It's A Wonderful Life and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Gremlins signaled the beginning of an 80s trend for mini monster movies, although the likes of Critters and Ghoulies never quite matched up to its hilariously disgusting hijinks.