12 Slays of Xmas: "Gremlins"

Synopsis

Gremlins is a comedy horror film directed by Joe Dante that depicts Billy, a teenage boy who receives a mogwai as a pet. His new pet comes with a warning: If you feed it after midnight, it will transform into small, destructive, evil monsters. The film’s eponymous characters are references to folkloric mischievous creatures sometimes said to cause malfunctions in aircraft. While depictions of these creatures may vary, past findings describe them having spiky backs, large strange eyes, and small clawed frames that feature sharp teeth.

How it relates to psychiatry

While Gremlins does not lack in psychiatric themes, the film also serves as an example of "Connecting the Plots," the academic process of reimagining parts of two seemingly unrelated movies in order to strengthen their educational value.

During the film, Billy’s girlfriend, Kate, discloses that she has a difficult time around Christmas because when she was young, her father died in their chimney while dressed as Santa Claus. At face value, Kate’s struggle with what would most likely be diagnosed as Major Depressive Disorder with seasonal pattern (Season Affective Disorder) is a common experience, as many people experience depression and anxiety during a time when we are socialized “to be merry.” Perhaps the evolution from mogwai to gremlin is a metaphor for developing the winter pattern of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). This is supported by evidence in the film of the creatures overeating, craving carbohydrates, and crawling into a cocoon (social withdrawal).

A more creative analysis of Kate’s history refocuses her Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). What if Gremlins isn’t a fictional case study of SAD after all? One way for this to occur is for the accident to have occurred differently than Kate remembers it. What if her father’s death was just the year prior? Since the seasonal pattern must be established over two years (DSM-5), this new information would preclude a diagnosis of SAD.

How could Kate’s biopsychosocial history provide a greater depth of understanding into her MDD? One inquiry would be whether she has a family history of mental illness. Coincidentally, we are reminded of a news story a year prior (psychosocially) of a middle-aged male passenger with severe mental illness who believed he saw a gremlin on the wing of a plane. The man had a panic attack when he saw the gremlin damaging the plane’s engine. After trying to break the window with an oxygen canister, he was wrestled to the ground by an off-duty security guard only to take another passenger’s gun and shoot out the window. The breach in cabin pressure resulted in the pilot having to attempt an emergency landing.

If the above story sounds familiar, it’s because it is the plot of “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” one of three classic Twilight Zone television episodes that were segments of a 1983 film (aptly titled Twilight Zone: The Movie). Since Gremlins premiered in 1984, the middle-aged man’s experience (he died in the ambulance en route from the airport) occurred the very year Kate’s father died. Was the passenger Kate's father? It is noteworthy that the original prologue (1961) describes “Mr. Robert Wilson, thirty-seven, husband, father…” (but falls just short of saying his daughter’s name is Kate).

Can these two narratives really be connected? We’ll have to ask Steven Spielberg, since he assisted in the production of both.