Home Music This Beloved GREMLINS Character Was Almost Killed Off, Says Chris Columbus
This Beloved GREMLINS Character Was Almost Killed Off, Says Chris Columbus
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This Beloved GREMLINS Character Was Almost Killed Off, Says Chris Columbus

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No good horror household Christmas is complete without a rewatch of Joe Dante’s 1984 classic Gremlins – but writer Chris Columbus (Home Alone, Mrs Doubtfire, the first two Harry Potter movies) has shared in a recent interview with Vanity Fair that the holiday classic was originally much darker.

In Gremlins, the Peltzer family Christmas is upended by the introduction of an adorable new pet when father Randall (Hoyt Axton) is unceremoniously sold a creature known as a mogwai. After gifting the mogwai, now named Gizmo, to his son Billy (Zach Galligan), chaos quickly envelopes the town of Kingstown Falls when the three rules of mogwai care (don’t get them wet, don’t feed them after midnight and don’t expose them to bright lights) are all swiftly broken. The true nature of mogwai is revealed as Gizmo’s spawn all transform into mischievous and murderous reptilian beasts intent on destroying the entire town and tormenting everyone within.

Columbus, who most recently served as producer on Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu, shared that one beloved member of the Peltzer family almost didn’t survive the Kingston Falls nightmare:

I think the dad stayed behind and fought the Gremlins. I don’t quite remember if he survived. The mom certainly didn’t. Billy [played by Zach Galligan] ran into the foyer of his house, and his mom’s head came rolling down the stairs. So there were some deaths. And Barney the dog was not so lucky to just be hung up in the Christmas lights. He was actually hung up by his neck and died. We killed the dog!

So there you have it, folks – adorable pup Barney (who was the Peltzer family’s number one pet before Gizmo’s arrival) originally didn’t make it to the end, an act so evil it probably would’ve turned fans away from the movie entirely.

No only did the Gremlins kill Barney, Columbus also went on to detail that they almost ATE him too:

They ate him! Then they went into McDonald’s and ate the people—but not the food. We had a lot of things that didn’t make the final script. Honestly, that stuff is in my DNA, so it is a joy to come back to something like Nosferatu.

Unsurprisingly, it was the legendary Steven Spielberg (producer of Gremlins) who convinced Columbus to reign in the violence so that the film could remain somewhat family-friendly, as well as keeping Gizmo as the adorable ball of fluff we now all know and love:

He was absolutely right, […] Gizmo turned into a gremlin on page 30 and did not remain [soft and cuddly] throughout the entire film. That was one of Steven’s best ideas—that Gizmo remained by Billy’s side. He knew this and I didn’t: The audience needed someone to relate to in terms of the gremlins, and that was Gizmo.

For more from Columbus on Gremlins and Nosferatu, read the full Vanity Fair piece right here.



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