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Joe Blevins 
"Don't I look handsome?"
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 Posted - 06/03/2007 : 22:56:17
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Every once in a while a movie comes along which grosses a great deal on a relatively small investment, and soon the marketplace is flooded with knock-offs, rip-offs, and wanna-bes. Some examples include Halloween, Animal House, Police Academy, The Blair Witch Project and the Conan the Barbarian and Mad Max series.
One case which puzzles me is Gremlins. Granted, the movie was a smash hit, but what was it about that film which caused so many low-budget filmmakers to think, "Hey, I could do that!" After all, Gremlins was an expensive, technically complicated film -- not the kind of thing usually attempted by low-budget schlockmeisters. And yet, there was a FLOOD of low-budget Gremlins rip-offs, most of which had either a limited theatrical run or went straight to video and cable.
Any theories? Is this just one of those inexplicable quirks of pop culture? |
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GHcool
"Forever a curious character."
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Posted - 06/03/2007 : 23:57:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Joe Blevins
One case which puzzles me is Gremlins. Granted, the movie was a smash hit, but what was it about that film which caused so many low-budget filmmakers to think, "Hey, I could do that!" After all, Gremlins was an expensive, technically complicated film -- not the kind of thing usually attempted by low-budget schlockmeisters. And yet, there was a FLOOD of low-budget Gremlins rip-offs, most of which had either a limited theatrical run or went straight to video and cable.
Any theories? Is this just one of those inexplicable quirks of pop culture?
Gremlins was not exactly the most original of films when it was made too. It is basically a 1950s horror B-movie with more disgusting ways to kill the baddies and using updated special effects and puppets. The town, the character archetypes, the "appeal to authority" mentality, and the xenophobia would all fit as nicely in a drive-in movie as it did in Gremlins. |
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Downtown 
"Welcome back, Billy Buck"
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Posted - 06/04/2007 : 03:45:19
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| The only obvious knock-off I can think of is "Critters." |
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GHcool
"Forever a curious character."
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Posted - 06/05/2007 : 00:56:52
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quote:
Originally posted by Downtown
The only obvious knock-off I can think of is "Critters."
I remember something called Ghoulies with a poster that featured a Gremlin-type creature coming out of a toilet with the tagline "They'll get you in the end." |
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Downtown
"Welcome back, Billy Buck"
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Posted - 06/05/2007 : 02:58:54
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| Clever |
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Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
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Posted - 06/05/2007 : 04:14:26
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NECESSARY HISTORICAL CONTEXT: At one point, Gremlins ripoffs were so common that the Video Hound Golden Movie Retriever guide once actually had an entire category in the index called "Gremlins and Its Ripoffs." (Sadly, this list has since been cut from the book for space issues. If you still have editions from the 1990s, check there.) Besides Critters, there were Ghoulies, Hobgoblins (the most egregious and shameless example), and a few more. Seriously, video-store junkies from the mid-to-late-1980s will remember when Gremlins ripoffs were quite common. According to Wikipedia, Ghoulies was in development before Gremlins came out, but the version of Ghoulies which eventually reached the public was definitely intended to ride the coattails of Gremlins and was clearly marketed as a knockoff of the well-known hit.
Fortunately, Wikipedia helpfully provides a list of Gremlins ripoffs. In addition to the films named above, they add Troll, Beasties, Kamillions, and Munchies. This has the makings of an accolade. In addition, some of the films mentioned here spawned sequels of their own. |
Edited by - Joe Blevins on 06/05/2007 04:17:54 |
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demonic 
"Cinemaniac"
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Posted - 06/05/2007 : 13:34:57
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I think it's not a particularly rare example of something that is hugely successful spawning imitators - when you think about it only a handful of the titles you mention got a theatrical run - many of them were straight to video pap, and that is still the case today - dozens of rip-off films come out every year that you never hear a thing about until you browse your local rental store. I think in this specific case the low-budgeteers saw a vogue for small killer puppets terrorising people and saw a perfect opportunity.  |
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Downtown
"Welcome back, Billy Buck"
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Posted - 06/05/2007 : 14:08:15
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| Yeah if the point is that there are rarely any fresh or original ideas in Hollywood, I doubt anybody will dispute that. |
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Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
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Posted - 06/05/2007 : 20:22:37
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Knockoffs are certainly nothing new, but some knockoffs make more sense than others. A Halloween ripoff, for instance, makes perfect sense to the would-be filmmaker. It's cheap and requires very few props, sets (it can be filmed entirely on real locations), costumes, etc. and little or nothing in terms of special effects. A ripoff of Titanic or Forest Gump might be a little trickier due to technical considerations. If I were a schlock filmmaker looking to make a quick profit by ripping off a recent hit, I'd look for something that required very little in terms of special effects.
One thing that impresses me about the drive-in filmmakers of the 1960s is the ease with which they went from one genre to another. They'd make anything they thought could turn a quick profit, to hell with genre. Look at Herschell Gordon Lewis' career: nudie cuties, splatter flicks, rock-n-roll pictures, biker/gang films, even children's movies! |
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MisterBadIdea 
"PLZ GET MILK, KTHXBYE"
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Posted - 06/05/2007 : 20:29:17
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"Help! Someone's rubbing puppets on us!"
Crow T. Robot, Mystery Science Theater 3000
Just because Gremlins was technically complicated doesn't mean that the bare plot essentials are, necessarily. |
Edited by - MisterBadIdea on 06/05/2007 20:38:28 |
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demonic
"Cinemaniac"
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Posted - 06/06/2007 : 03:35:57
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Great quote. |
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Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
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Posted - 06/09/2007 : 02:54:15
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Hobgobins, specifically the version shown on MST3K, is what got me thinking about this topic, since it's the perfect illustration of why it's absolute folly to try to rip off Gremlins without a decent special effects budget. For better or worse, Gremlins rests on the strength of the gremlins themselves: how they look, how they move, how they interact with the human characters, etc. Had the gremlins not been convincing on some level, Gremlins would have flopped. But the hobgoblins in Hobgoblins are not even a little bit convincing for even one second. The minute they appear onscreen, this already-shaky movie completely falls apart.
But maybe money isn't the problem. Ghoulies was made on the cheap, and I seem to remember the creatures in THAT movie looked fairly convincing. And a film like Eraserhead was definitely done on a restricted budget, and yet its effects are quite impressive. So maybe the makers of Hobgoblins just didn't know what the hell they were doing. I think its director, Rick Sloane, had only made one film previous to this. But notice the direction his career went: a string of Vice Academy films. No special effects necessary there.
But maybe Sloane hasn't learned his lesson:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0962728/ |
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TitanPa
"Here four more"
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Posted - 06/09/2007 : 04:43:12
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| I liked that Gremlins 2 made fun of itself. |
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Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
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Posted - 06/09/2007 : 21:29:49
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quote:
Originally posted by TitanPa
I liked that Gremlins 2 made fun of itself.
Definitely. Here's a play written by a friend of mine, Craig J. Clark, speculating about what would have happened if Hobgoblins 2 made fun of itself in a similar manner:
http://dada.warped.com/cjclark/mst-907.txt
Enjoy! |
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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 06/09/2007 : 22:03:36
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quote:
Originally posted by Joe Blevins
quote:
Originally posted by TitanPa
I liked that Gremlins 2 made fun of itself.
Definitely. Here's a play written by a friend of mine, Craig J. Clark, speculating about what would have happened if Hobgoblins 2 made fun of itself in a similar manner:
http://dada.warped.com/cjclark/mst-907.txt
Enjoy!
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"Gremlins" rip-offs: why so many?
