16 Joe Dante Movies (Gremlins 2: The New Batch), Ranked by Tomatometer
(Photo by Bob Riha Jr./ Getty Images.)
Sometimes, as a director, it’s best to cut your teeth in a system with very little budget, and make magic out of that. Then, when your star rises and your budget increases, you’ve still got that love for shlock cinema and classic animation in your head, which infuses all the rest of your work. That describes the career of director Joe Dante perfectly.
Dante got his start reviewing classic horror movies for magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland, instilling within himself a love for monster movies and a desire to make them himself. He got his break doing trailer film cutting for Roger Corman in 1974; many famous directors broke through Corman’s system into the big time, and the same thing would happen to Dante. His first movie in the Corman system was a co-directing effort, the ultra low-budget Hollywood Boulevard. It was the next one, though, that would begin to put Dante on the map.
Here’s an overview of Dante’s film career followed by a ranking of all his movies by Tomatometer.
PIRANHA (1984): In the wake of Jaws, every studio cranked out killer fish movies, from Orca to Killer Fish to Mako to low-budget Jaws sequels to the much more recent MEG and MEG 2. The Corman studio, New World Pictures, was no exception, but talented and up-and-coming filmmaker Dante infused Piranha with biting satire (pun intended), some innovative practical effects, and a lot of humor (and blood). The result was Piranha, starring the inimitable Kevin McCarthy as a mad scientist who releases a school of mutated killer piranha into a resort lake. The result is mayhem.
Keith Garlington of Keith and the Movies on Piranha: “Dante shows a real love for genre filmmaking and there’s some impressive B-movie craftsmanship in this undeniable yet wildly entertaining Jaws knockoff.”
(Photo by Avco Embassay/ Courtesy Everett Collection. THE HOWLING.)
THE HOWLING (1981): Dante then graduated from the Corman system to a brief stop at Embassy Pictures, but kept his love of schlocky horror cinema, and directed The Howling, a highly satirical werewolf picture with a legendary transformation sequence. This one can be watched in a double-bill with American Werewolf in London for the ultimate werewolf satire pair.
Producers were so impressed by the success and effects from The Howling that Dante was given free reign at Warner Bros. for his next picture, one which would catapult Dante to superstardom. Before that, though, he made a short stop in an infamous anthology film.
Tony Crawley of Starburst on The Howling: “The film is a richly-mounted and expertly-directed piece of fun from Joe Dante. He took the mickey out of Jaws in Piranha. Now he sends up so many films in The Howling, it’s difficult to count: The Wolfman, Prophecy, The Incredible Hulk and, would you believe, Network.”
TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE (1983): Just before jumping into the troubled production of John Landis’ Twilight Zone: The Movie, Dante directed several episodes of Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker’s sole foray into television: Police Squad! Cutting his teeth on satirical detective episodes for the small screen, Dante would return to direct many more episodes of TV for such shows as Amazing Stories, Night Visions, Witches of East End, and Salem.
Dante’s segment in Twilight Zone: The Movie combined his love of horror with his love of classic cartoons. “It’s a Good Life” involves a monstrous boy bringing horrifying cartoons to life to control his family.
Nick Rogers of Midwest Film Journal on Twilight Zone: The Movie: “Dante’s macabre visuals have always straddled a line between childlike wonderment and full-fledged freak-outs. (See almost every moment in Gremlins.) The same holds true here, with demonic animatronics that materialize from the darkest depths of Anthony’s mind and feel dangerous but a bit daffy as well.”
(Photo by Warner Bros/ Courtesy Everett Collection. GREMLINS.)
GREMLINS (1984): In a year stuffed with classic films beloved by Gen-X and those of every other age, Gremlins stands out as a hybrid horror-comedy that so pushed the limits of the PG rating that PG-13 was invented in response. This beloved film, an early writing effort from Chris Columbus of Home Alone fame, stars Zach Galligan as the purchaser of Gizmo, a Mogwai, a cute creature that comes with very specific rules. These rules are, of course, broken and cause horrifying gremlins to spawn, ones which wreak havoc on everything around them. Gremlins made over $200 million on an $11 million budget, and spawned a sequel, a modern-day animated prequel, and this great Gremlins commentary track from the folks at MovieFilm.
Richard Corliss of TIME on Gremlins: “In a sense, then, Gremlins is Dante’s breakthrough film. It delivers both gore and guffaws, and, more impressively, blends the two moods to create this season’s funkiest fable.”
EXPLORERS (1985): A fondly-remembered family film in the vein of Goonies, Flight of the Navigator, or Stand By Me, this was Dante’s first attempt at purely all-ages cinema. Four kids, played by star child actors of the time, build a spaceship powered by a Commodore 128 and meet benevolent aliens in the process. This one’s known for some great alien effects and winning banter between the kids.
Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times on Explorers: “The establishing of the personalities of the three boys–handsome Ethan Hawke, the group’s dreamer; bespectacled River Phoenix, the scientist among them, and deep-voiced Jason Presson, the sturdy survivor from the wrong side of the tracks–and their building of their spacecraft is probably more fun for impressionable kids than the adults who might be with them. All three, however, are enormously likable, individual and natural under Dante’s direction.”
(Photo by Warner Bros/ Courtesy Everett Collection. INNERSPACE.)
INNERSPACE (1985): Next, Dante landed on this buddy sci-fi comedy takeoff of Fantastic Voyage, involving the intrepid Dennis Quaid accidentally shrunk and placed inside the absolutely manic, flailing Martin Short. Much comedy ensues as the two communicate with each other and outwit enemies who want to sabotage the entire project.
Ian Nathan of Empire on Innerspace: “Joe Dante, realizing you could never truly take shrinking seriously as a sci-fi proposition, allows it to relax into a frothy comedy, and Martin Short, with his array of twitchy tic and hoots, splendidly keeps stupidity front and center.”
THE ‘BURBS (1989): As the 1980s closed out, Dante returned to horror schlock with this tale of weird, possibly murderous and Satalic next door neighbors, the Klopeks, and hapless straight man Ray (Tom Hanks) in the middle of it all. The paranoia of suburbia and weird neighbors was on full display here.
Geoff Andrew of TimeOut on The ‘Burbs: “Joe Dante’s manic black satire portrays the investigations of this quartet of eternal adolescents into the Klopeks’ admittedly unusual lifestyle with enormous glee, reveling in OTT behavior and absurd dialogue, and tossing out film parodies with reckless abandon.”
(Photo by Warner Bros/ Courtesy Everett Collection. GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH.)
GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH (1990): Dante amped up the satire, bizarreness, weirdness, and special effects in this gonzo sequel to the original Gremlins. Taking aim at Hollywood itself, Gremlins 2: The New Batch has the gremlins sabotaging the film itself, while you watch. It also has several new Gremlin characters, including a hideous makeup-clad female Gremlin. Many fans of Dante’s work prefer this sequel to the original.
Dave Kehr of Chicago Tribune on Gremlins 2: The New Batch: “Dante films their rampages in beautifully executed long takes with a moving camera, packing detail and action into every image.”
MATINEE (1993): Possibly the least-known of Dante’s films, yet one of his highest rated, Matinee, a 1960s period piece is a bit of nostalgia for Dante himself, as schlock filmmaker Lawrence (John Goodman) makes a no-budget film within a film called Mant! during the national fear of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and four kids deal with their own adventures on the way to see it.
Jonathan Rosenbaum of Chicago Reader on Matinee: “At the same time that Dante has a field day brutally satirizing our desire to scare ourselves and others, he also re-creates early-60s cliches with a relish and a feeling for detail that come very close to love.”
Dante would follow up these films with two hybrid animation / live-action films: the CGI animated Small Soldiers and the return of the Looney Tunes in Looney Tunes: Back in Action. His most recent three films since then are the family-oriented horror The Hole, the zombie comedy Burying the Ex, and a segment of the horror anthology Nightmare Cinema titled “Mirari,” a body-horror piece about plastic surgery.
Since then, Dante has returned to his roots by consulting on the animated Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai (The Wild Batch in Season 2), a prequel show about the origins of the Gremlins. Dante is in his 70s now, and if he never makes another film, he’s got an impressive legacy that spans horror, comedy, and family films. Something for everyone.
Matinee
(1993)
93%
Innerspace
(1987)
82%
Nightmare Cinema
(2018)
77%
The Howling
(1981)
75%
Explorers
(1985)
72%
Piranha
(1978)
72%
Gremlins 2: The New Batch
(1990)
71%
Twilight Zone: The Movie
(1983)
60%
Looney Tunes: Back in Action
(2003)
58%
The ‘Burbs
(1989)
56%
Small Soldiers
(1998)
50%
Burying the Ex
(2014)
30%
Trapped Ashes
(2006)
25%
Hollywood Boulevard
(1976)
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