Remember how I said A Nightmare on Elm Street wasn't very successful at the box office? Meet 1984's fourth most popular movie: Gremlins. (For the record, it's sandwiched in between Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and The Karate Kid.) Another film that spawned several subpar sequels, Gremlins follows a teen who receives a strange pet from his father. The fluffy new friend comes with a few specific directions, and when those rules aren't followed, the cuddle bug turns into a tiny monster and multiplies.
What's notable about this film is how swiftly the tone changes. One minute you're watching a family-friendly Christmas movie about a boy and his cute new pal, the next minute you're watching the kid's mom liquify an alien-like monster in a blender. It gets real gnarly, real fast. Might Murphy bait-and-switch us into feeling like this season isn't that scary, only to pull the rug out from under us?