20 Greatest Horror Movies Of The 80s
12. Gremlins
If Poltergeist was the first horror movie of the 1980s to raise red flags at the MPAA ratings agency about the incompatibility of horror and the PG rating, Gremlins - along with Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom - was the final nail in the coffin, paving the way for the introduction of the PG-13 rating.
Like Poltergiest, Gremlins features a number of sequences which would never be allowed in a PG rated film going by today's standards, from the gremlin knife attack culminating in the gory kitchen confrontation to the bulbous puss-filled death sequence of the gremlin leader, Spike. It helps that director Joe Dante sets up the film as clear cut horror comedy, as if merging the idyllic picture postcard setting of It's A Wonderful Life with a monster B-movie sensibility.
Despite its huge success, so far Gremlins has only spawned one sequel, although there were plenty of lesser imitators which followed throughout the decade including Ghoulies and Critters. That said, nothing is safe from the current trend of reboots and remakes, and a new Gremlins movie is rumoured to be in the works.