GREMLINS: A PUPPET STORY

Featuring: Chris Walas

Available to stream until July 30 via the Hollywood Theatre website.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

It is clear from very early in Gremlins: A Puppet Story that director Joe Dante’s 1984 creature-feature classic means just as much to Chris Walas as it does to so many of us who were there for its blockbuster release. The visionary designer/puppeteer narrates with a warm melancholy his chronologically compiled collection of still photos and often grainy video footage, resulting in engaging, invaluable insight into how Gizmo, Stripe and their brood went from sketchbook doodlings to pop-culture icons.

As the title suggests, Gremlins: A Puppet Story is about how Walas, his crew and the craft of puppetry (and its robotic off-shoot, animatronics) were challenged by the demands of modern movie storytelling. His work on Gremlins was two-fold - he had to create characters that inspired both affection and fear and do so with effects technology, much of which had to be invented. Leading ‘man’ Gizmo (his look inspired by producer Steven Spielberg’s dog, Chauncey) would be the heart and soul of a major motion picture in a way not seen since E.T. The Extra-terrestrial.

Having worked on the scaly star of Disney’s Dragonslayer, as part of the Return of The Jedi crew and on the physical meltdown of a Raiders of The Lost Ark villain, a twenty-something Walas was still honing his craft when producer Mike Finnell sent him Chris Columbus' horror script to gauge how feasible long passages of multiple monster scenes would be. Walas recounts what a wildly improbable but thrilling production Gremlins seemed in those early drafts, a much darker small-town American nightmare than that which eventually emerged.

Walas is forthright about the joy that the production inspired in him, but also periods of depression when it was not clear whether Warners would even back Gremlins. He reveals the script was developed only because every studio wanted a Spielberg production on their lot in the early 80s.

The detail often goes deep (insider tech terms such as ‘vacuum form patterns’ and ‘repeat breakdown moulds’ spice things up) but the loveliest parts of Walas’ Gremlins story are his recalling of the shared vision and team unity that drove their creative process. The images he presents and the stories he tells evoke a wonderful time in filmmaking. Captured in detail is the genesis of a remarkable project and its journey to fruition and a man recounting a moment in his life that changed him, and his craft, forever.