Summary
- Both Gremlins & There's Something In The Barn embrace a gruesome take on holiday movies, mixing horror and comedic elements.
- The creatures in There's Something In The Barn & Gremlins share similarities, including using human technology and following certain rules.
- Despite some differences, both movies have garnered critical praise for subverting holiday movie expectations with dark humor and gory scenes.
There's Something In The Barn shares a lot of thematic elements with the Steven Spielberg-produced Gremlins, highlighting how the core elements that made the latter into a Christmas classic still hold up. There's Something In The Barn is a hilariously absurd horror/comedy, pitting a family of Americans new to Norway against an assortment of Elves that reside in the barn next to their new home. The result is a gleefully over the top splatter-fest as the Nordheim family defends themselves from the vicious little menaces.
In concept and practice, it's actually remarkably similar to Gremlins. Released in 1984, Gremlins focuses on the Peltzer family and their friends in Kingston Falls as they face off with a number of vicious Gremlins that are terroizing the town. Both films use these similar stories to create classic alternative Christmas-themed movies, embracing a fusion of horror and comedy to produce a hilarious splatter-fest. Their similar critical success suggests that this approach remains an effective genre-fusion decades apart, and highlights how much audiences love a good subversive take on a holiday movie.
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There's Something In The Barn Shares Several Similarities To The Steven Spielberg-Produced Movie Gremlins
The monstous elves and general tone of There's Something In The Barn shares a number of similarities with the Mogwai and the plot of Gremlins. Both films are grisly takes on villains of the Christmas film. In There's Something In The Barn, it's barn elves, who are revealed to be living on the property that the Nordheim family relocates to.
Both films embrace this tonal disparity to great comedic effect and undercut classic holiday films with a fair share of creative violence. It's all compounded by the fact that the violence is committed by an outwardly cute sounding collection of creatures. There's Something In The Barn and Gremlins both embrace a snarky tone that further separates them from other holiday fare. This gives everything a tongue-in-cheek touch that helps the over-the-top violence and mayhem feel more specific than chaotic. While both films have enough unique edges to stand apart, their shared concepts and elements make them an interesting comparison point.
How There's Something In The Barn's Elves Compare To Gremlins' Creatures
In many ways, the Elves of There's Something In The Barn are very similar to the Mogwai from Gremlins, which eventually morph into their scaly Gremlin forms. Both sets of creatures are portrayed as small and realistically grimey takes on fantastical creatures. Their rampages share some distinct similarities, too. Both the Gremlins and the Elves prove capable of using human technology for their own goals, and even both utilize a gun at one point in their respective films. Both sets of creatures also operate on a set of rules that are meant to keep them stable.
This is a key difference between the films. In Gremlins, the three rules that are broken focus on the care of the creatures. Feeding them after midnight and exposing them to water causes the Mogwai to become fearsome and ferocious Gremlins. In There's Something In The Barn, the rules are more rooted in appeasing the creatures to ensure they don't lash out at any humans that encounter them. The Elves don't necessarily transform like the Mogwai do, instead simply lashing out as they are disturbed by the humans who move into their territory.
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There's Something In The Barn Maintains Gremlins' Critical Acclaim
Notably, both There's Something In The Barn and Gremlins both found critical success with a functionally similar premise. Gremlins boasts an impressive 86% positive review score on Rotten Tomatoes, and has spent forty years as an enduring subversive Christmas classic. While There's Something In The Barn doesn't quite reach those critical heights, it still has a very solid 79% positive review score on Rotten Tomatoes. Both films speak to a natural cinematic impulse to subvert the expectations audiences have for holiday-themed films. It makes for a natural comedic tenor that benefits There's Something In The Barn and Gremlins.
The success of both films highlights the natural joys of infusing the Christmas season with goofy and gory versions of the innocent holiday imagery. It's a trend that also works in other recent subversive Christmas films like Violent Night, Anna and the Apocalypse, or Krampus. There's Something In The Barn directly riffs on the same creative impulses as Gremlins though, making the pair a surprisingly effective double-feature. There's Something In The Barn gleefully horrifying approach to its theoretically cute creatures proves that the underlying elements of Gremlins still resonate with audiences, even decades later.
Source: Rotten Tomatoes
There's Something in the Barn
- Release Date
- November 10, 2023
- Runtime
- 97 Minutes
- Director
- Magnus Martens
Cast
Martin Starr
Amrita Acharia
Henriette Steenstrup-
Townes Bunner
WHERE TO WATCH
There's Something in the Barn is a Norwegian holiday-themed horror comedy by director Magnus Martens. When Bill inherits his uncle's home in Norway, he decides to move his family there and attempt to make extra money off the barn by converting it into an Airbnb. However, when his son, Lucas, learns the truth about Norwegian barn elves that become violent when their home is disturbed, their renovation is postponed as they fight to stay alive and stop their nightmarish invaders.
- Writers
- Aleksander Kirkwood Brown
- Studio(s)
- 74 Entertainment, Don Films, Charades
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