Frances Lee McCain, Gremlin Slayer: The Forgotten Scream Queen of the '80s

Quick! Say “'80s Scream Queen.” Which image came to your mind? It was probably Heather Langenkamp from A Nightmare on Elm Street, or Felissa Rose from Sleepaway Camp (problematic though it may be), or perhaps even Jamie Lee Curtis from Halloween II. Maybe, if you're really cool, you thought of Shelley Duvall from The Shining. I'll tell you who I'm sure you didn't think of: Frances Lee McCain, who played Lynn Peltzer, protagonist Billy Peltzer's mother, in Joe Dante's 1984 Christmas classic Gremlins. My mission today is to make sure that you never forget about her again.

Those Gremlins never stood a chance. The moment they invaded Mrs. Peltzer's home and entered her kitchen, they awakened a force of nature they never could have hoped to know how to quell. As the first Gremlin eats the gingerbread men that Mrs. Peltzer made (the audacity!), Lynn doesn't hide or scream at the sight of such a hideous creature. She grabs the kitchen knife to defend herself, and as soon as she sees the gluttonous Gremlin dive headfirst into the food processor, she doesn't hesitate: She jumps into action and blends that sucker right up. 

This was the first true horror movie I ever watched as a kid. The image of an ugly little green monster's blood splattering across the kitchen walls and cupboards left quite the mark in my 8-year-old memory; but even then, that fluorescent Gremlin smoothie made something clear to me: Lynn Peltzer wasn't someone to mess with.

But the action isn't over. Immediately after, a Gremlin starts throwing plates at Mrs. Peltzer, unbeknownst to her badassery. She decides to Captain America her way through the situation, grabbing a portable table to shield herself from the Gremlin's attacks. As soon as she gets close enough to him, she raises her knife.

“Get out of my kitchen!” 

she yells. Dante gives us a unique reaction shot: The Gremlin's terrified reaction as he realizes, too late, that he made his last oopsie by messing with this particular housewife. As far as I remember, this is the only time (in this movie or its sequel) that we ever see a genuinely terrified Gremlin. It's a fitting reaction, too: Mrs. Peltzer comes down with her knife full-force, going from Gremlin smoothie to Gremlin sashimi. Truly a one-of-a-kind culinary talent. 

But the action still isn't over. There is one more Gremlin to deal with—one too foolish to face the music and flee. He throws the whole tray of gingerbread men at Mrs. Peltzer, startling her. She doesn't take the offense lightly. She sprays the Gremlin with pesticide, forcing it to back into the microwave. As soon as he's in there, Lynn closes the door and turns the microwave on. In what's easily the most gruesome death scene ever seen in a horror movie meant to be more on the kid-friendly side, the Gremlin explodes. Nothing wrong with a low-effort microwave snack after having put in the effort of making two full meals. 

This is still a movie primarily about Billy and Gizmo, though, and Joe Dante knew that Lynn was too mighty to keep at full power, lest she hijack the rest of the film. So, he had to give her a good ol' plot nerf. Though without ever losing any of her Gremlin-ass-kicking aura, Lynn is overpowered by a Gremlin hiding in the living room's Christmas tree, until Billy comes in and saves her. And just like that, she's out for the count for the rest of the movie.

As the #1 fan of over-analyzing scenes that probably aren't nearly as deep as I make them out to be, I can't help but find this whole sequence absolutely fascinating. The ‘80s were utterly explosive when it came to depictions of gender roles in Hollywood. With second-wave feminism coming to a close in the early part of the decade, bringing Western culture into a period of re-evaluation before third-wave feminism kicked off in the ’90s, Hollywood cinema in the ‘80s was nothing short of revolutionary in showing women as stronger, more complex, more independent, and far more badass than ever before. That’s how you get your Ellen Ripleys and your Sarah Connors. Mothers weren't left behind. Movies started depicting them as actual people with important thoughts, emotions, and needs all of their own. Self-sufficient heroes of the domestic realm. 

Gremlins is set in small-town America, right in the middle of Reagan's administration, and this scene seems to be offering a direct response to the Reagan-era “traditional family values” that not-so-subtly seemed to want to encourage women to go back to their “traditional” homemaking role. Lynn's agency throughout this sequence does, indeed, come through the home—but it's her weaponizing the home. Across the whole film, but in this moment most of all, Dante keeps framing Gremlins as invaders. Here, they're invaders of a space that's supposed to be a safe haven for Mrs. Peltzer and her family. Her rage is justified; the brutal and creative ways in which she disposes of the three Gremlins feel earned.

In keeping with the feminist revolution of ‘80s horror, this infamous kitchen scene slyly turns Reagan-era gender roles on their head. In no way do Lynn’s actions feel “ladylike.” She's a ferocious, visceral guardian of the home, using the tools of domestic labour to defend herself from these invaders. Most female horror heroes from the '80s were young, unmarried women, making this kind of sequence all the more unique. Traditional motherly values had never been this angry. 

Lynn is the only character in the movie who defeats a Gremlin (and not just one, but three!) through action rather than sheer luck or outside help. But behind every iconic Final Girl, there's an equally legendary Scream Queen. This case is no exception: This is Frances Lee McCain. 

Though prolific, this legend never really became a horror icon. Her only other big role in the genre was in Scream, as Dewey and Tatum's mother. In fact, if there's one kind of character that she played remarkably often, it was mothers (which seems very fitting, considering the above reading of Gremlins). However, the role of Lynn Peltzer, Gremlin Slayer is more than enough to make her a certified Scream Queen in my book. She plays the part with tremendous complexity, displaying a clear and tender love for her husband and son but also a deep-seated sadness that the script, frankly, never dives deep enough into. 

In the home invasion sequence especially, McCain is a powerhouse. She's never afraid to show how scared Mrs. Peltzer is of the whole situation, but she also never allows that fear to be the character's dominant emotion. Throughout the entire bloody exchange, Lynn seems entirely dominant and on top of things. She's not just scared, she's overtly angry, a hugely under-explored emotion in Final Girls. McCain brings a kind of gravitas and maturity to the archetype that's not seen nearly as often as it should.  

In interviews, McCain herself has described Lynn as fierce, protective, someone who fights back. In my opinion, she created something even more special than she gives herself credit for: The greatest forgotten Final Girl of the ‘80s. She, a bona fide Scream Queen in her own right, brought such righteous anger to a kind of role that typically looked nothing like her in the ’80s that she deserves all the praise in the world. 

Remember their names: Frances Lee McCain and Lynn Peltzer, Gremlin Slayers. 

Gremlins1984