Most movies wear their inspirations on their sleeve. This one wears them on its pajamas. And by that, I mean the opening scene features two kids having a close encounter with aliens while wearing Star Wars and E.T. P.J.’s.
The evil Lord Buckethead (Robert Bloodworth) accidentally winds up on Earth. Refusing to own up to his mistake, he plows forward, and along with his band of pint-sized aliens in black robes they scour a small hick town looking for stolen transmissions. When he realizes AAMCO transmissions aren’t the plans he’s looking for, he kidnaps a grease monkey named Karen (Paula Poundstone) thinking she’s a princess. It’s then up to a wimpy exterminator named Max (Alan Marx) to rescue her and save the planet.
Gremloids resembles what Star Wars might’ve looked like if George Lucas opted for the “let’s have it take place on Earth” approach of the Masters of the Universe movie. As bad as the film is, the Star Wars-inspired opening crawl is very well done. Lord Buckethead, who looks like a cross between Darth Vader and the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, could’ve been a fun villain, but his repetitive shtick wears out its welcome quickly.
You know you’re in trouble when you’re watching a Star Wars spoof that came so late in the cycle that its title was changed to cash in on Gremlins.
The film ultimately tries way too hard to be like Star Wars that it fails to do anything original. It tries even harder to make the unfunny gags work. The jokes are repeated ad nauseum, the action sequences are lame (like the chase scene involving grocery carts in a supermarket), and the special effects aren’t so special. The filmmakers had the right idea by casting then-up and coming comedians like Paula Poundstone and Chris Elliott in sizable roles, but they were just too early in their career to really pull the weak material off.
Ultimately, Gremloids feels like a Mad magazine Star Wars spoof stretched out to ninety minutes. In case you’re wondering, ninety minutes is way too long for this sort of thing. Heck, it would’ve been a painful nine-minute short. I mean the opening crawl gag is OK and the first appearance of Lord Buckethead is good for a chuckle, but the movie grinds to a halt shortly thereafter and becomes a tiresome chore to get through.
AKA: Hyperspace.
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