The Beginner’s Guide: Joe Dante, Director

Director Joe Dante was born November 28, 1946 in Morristown, New Jersey. After graduating from the Philadelphia College of Art, he began a career in the world of film. After a brief moment as a film critic, he met Roger Corman, the titan of low budget B-movies (also the director of gems like Bucket of Blood and the original Little Shop of Horrors) where he worked as an editor for Corman’s company New World Pictures. His tenure with Corman elevated his passion to make his own movies, the kind of films he loved as a child.

Dante belongs to the same generation of filmmakers like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, a generation of kids that spent many weekends at Saturday matinees getting lost in the magical world of movies. Lucas’ love of adventure serials, Flash Gordon and Akira Kurosawa gave birth to Star Wars. For Dante, his movies showcase his love for classic Looney Tunes cartoons and the horror/science fiction movies of the 1950’s.

His movies, like Looney Tunes, feel like live-action cartoons with larger-than-life colorful characters mixed with horror and science fiction elements. Many of his movies are set in the suburbs or small towns that get disturbed, or invaded, by an unusual visitor (an homage to films like The Blob, The War of the Worlds and Invasion of the Body Snatchers). However, the strange force is met by actions of a farcical nature.

Unlike his contemporaries, most of his filmography contains box office failures. In that sense, he is more akin to Peter Weir, an underrated filmmaker saved by the advent of the VCR. Though box office failures (sans Gremlins), they got a second life on home video. Like Weir, he deserves more attention and opportunities to make the projects he wants, especially now in the age of streaming services.

Twilight Zone: The Movie, It’s A Good Life (1983)

In 1983, four directors got together to remake (sans the John Landis segment) iconic Twilight Zone episodes for the feature film. Each director brought their own personal touch to each installment. Dante’s choice of remaking the It’s a Good Life episode proved to be a good match.

The original episode concerns a young boy named Anthony who can control things with his mind. His family and little town are held hostage and must conform to the role of only thinking positive thoughts. If you think a bad thought or utter a cruel word, you will be punished. Anthony can do anything he wants, much like the reality found in a cartoon.

Dante adds his love of the Looney Tunes with their ability to bend the rules of reality (anvils falling on people, outlandish characters, slapstick, etc.) to this segment. Anthony is now a big cartoon fan and his mind control gives him the powers of a cruel cartoon character. There’s even a nod to the Tasmanian Devil in this, plus a demonic Bugs Bunny.

Like the original, it is set in a small town cut off from the world, a small town disturbed and terrified by an unnatural presence. In this, the evil is already in the town, but in the next movie, the monster is brought in.

Gremlins (1984)

A struggling inventor wants to give his son a special gift for Christmas. He brings home an adorable little creature called a mogwai, and things go well until the son forgets to follow the rules for his new pet. When the rules are broken, it becomes a monster movie with Christmas in the background.

Gremlins keeps the story contained (except in the opening Chinatown scene) in a small, anywhere USA town that is placid and ordinary until an unusual visitor arrives. We don’t know exactly where this creature comes from and characters try their best to stop the threat from destroying the town. Though the creatures are terrifying when fully grown, their actions are on the cartoonish side.

The movie, like the previous one, shows Dante’s love of cartoons and monster movies. Creatures come to this small town and wreck havoc in a slapstick manner. In his next film, the director takes us out of the suburbs and brings his love of science fiction.

Explorers (1985)

A young boy spends his days watching old science fiction movies (is it young Joe Dante?) and hopes for one day to go to space. He has recurring dreams of a blue print and with the help of his inventor friend (the late River Phoenix) and another school pal, they build a spaceship. A spaceship made of parts from a junkyard and powered by 1980’s PC tech which somehow takes them to space.

These small town boys dream of escaping the humdrum of their lives for various reasons and come together to build this ship. Whether they believe or not that they will get to space is not important, what is important is their determination to keep hope alive. After getting chased by a man (Dick Miller showing up as always in a Joe Dante project) they finally get to space and meet an alien (played by Robert Picardo, another Dante regular). Unfortunately, the alien is not what they expect.

Like the boy, the alien escapes his boring life by watching TV. The alien impersonates Bugs Bunny at one point (Looney Tunes nod) which matches up with clips of old science fiction movies (another nod).

Dante will continue with science fiction in his follow-up movie. This time using a human being in lieu of a creature to disturb things and act like a cartoon.

Innerspace (1987)

The Incredible Shrinking Man is a movie where a man shrinks to the size of an ant (hey, like in Ant-Man) and gets into all sorts of trouble. Innerspace follows the same concept, except Dante adds more comedic elements to make it more goofy. With that, we get a showcase of Martin Short’s physical comedic ability.

Scientists develop a device that shrinks a test pilot (Dennis Quaid) in an effort for improving cloaking abilities for the US Government. When things go awry, Quaid goes inside the body of a store clerk (Martin Short) and finds he can control the movements of the host body.

Short contorting his body to odd angles and making large messes everywhere he goes makes him a live-action cartoon character. He goes up against other larger-than-life characters such as a cowboy and business executives who play their characters in an exaggerated manner, further creating a Dante world of colorful, cartoon characters. Things become even more silly in the next feature.

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

The sequel moves out of the small town and into New York. Fortunately, the action is all confined to the building of a major media company. The building itself serves as our Dante small town and the mogwai return again as our unusual visitor. This time, in true sequel form, the stakes and actions are bigger and sillier.

Life the first film, the rules are broken and the mogwai multiply and grow. For this movie, the old science fiction mad scientist element gets added in. The creatures get multiple injections and develop enhanced personalities and abilities (flying mogwai, girl mogwai, brainy mogwai with glasses, etc.) If you saw the Key and Peele sketch on this, it’s pretty spot-on. Anything goes in this sequel.

As stated earlier, the first movie is a 1950’s monster movie homage with creatures invading a small town. The sequel becomes a mad scientist movie with the experiment wrecking havoc on the artificial town of a studio. If a third movie is made (No!), I wonder if the mogwais will build a ship to go to space?

Final Thoughts: Joe Dante

Like animator Don Bluth, Dante is a filmmaker where the previous decade was kinder than the next one (think Bluth’s 1980’s output of The Secret of NIMH and An American Tail vs. the 1990’s Rock-A-Doodle and A Troll in Central Park). The films Small Soldiers and the dream-come-true Looney Tunes: Back in Action were not hits, and Dante spent the last several years as a TV director-for-hire. He had a chance to bring back the magic with two installments of Masters of Horror, but both suffered from heavy-handed satire and lacked the spark of his movies.

Many upcoming movies are currently in development, with one I hope sees the light of day called The Man with Kaleidoscope Eyes, a film about his mentor, Roger Corman, trying LSD with Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda. If no studio wants this, I’m hoping for Netflix or Amazon Prime to save the day.

Much like how VHS gave a second chance for his early work, streaming services provide those same second chances for movies that have no luck in movie theaters or traditional distribution. For you young film buffs, give Dante a chance with all of this tech available and hope for a career resurgence online.

What’s your favorite Dante movie? Is there a movie you wish I listed? Please comment below.