Gremlins (1984)
It's been widely acknowledged that both Gremlins and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,
Steven Spielberg's one-two 1984 punch of darkly comic blockbusters,
directly led to the creation of the PG-13 rating. Gremlins is
chock-full of wanton puppet terror and gore, with the titular hellions
getting stabbed, beheaded, and exploded in wonderful blurts of green
and brown. Of course, despite creating the PG-13 rating, neither Gremlins nor Temple of Doom were ever submitted for re-rating, so the PG rating still stands to this day for both movies. So Gremlins,
with its graphic tale of Phoebe Cates' character's father decaying and
rotting in a Santa suit after getting stuck inside the chimney on
Christmas, gets the PG pass.
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