The Miniature Electrocuted Gremlins

Two of the remaining string pulled props

Introduction

The explosive mall sequence at the end of Gremlins 2: The New Batch is one of the film’s most memorable moments — a chaotic swarm of gremlins causing destruction throughout the towering Clamp Center atrium. But rather than relying on expensive large-scale sets or early CGI for wide shots, the filmmakers turned to the timeless art of miniatures for the wide shots. Through a combination of detailed model-building and old-school string-pulled puppetry, the effects team was able to create the illusion of a massive gremlin invasion on a surprisingly small scale, blending craftsmanship and creativity to bring the mayhem to life.

Building a Miniature Mall Set

To recreate the Clamp Center lobby (which doubled as a shopping mall in the film), the special effects team built a detailed miniature set. This scale model included multiple levels of storefronts, railings, and all the trappings of a real mall – only much smaller. The miniature was constructed by Mark Stetson’s team at Stetson Visual Services, a famed model-making unit that supervised the film’s miniatures work. Every piece was crafted with care: tiny elevators, scaled-down furniture, and even miniature signage were all hand-built to convincingly match the full-size set seen in close-ups. The craftsmanship was so precise that when filmed with the proper camera lenses and lighting, the mini mall looked like the real thing – just swarming with gremlins!

The crew populated the miniature atrium with dozens of little Gremlin figurines, each only a few inches tall. In fact, these were small puppets modeled after Rick Baker’s full-size gremlin creatures, custom-made for the wide shot. Many of the mini-gremlins were even dressed up to fit the film’s goofy tone – some wore tiny party hats and funny costumes to mirror the onscreen mayhem​.

By scattering these mini monsters all over the model (on balconies, dangling from signposts, wreaking havoc in shop windows), the filmmakers could imply a huge Gremlin crowd. The result was a highly detailed panorama of chaos in miniature form.

Puppeteering Tiny Gremlins with Strings

Bringing these pint-sized terrors to life called for creative puppeteering. Rather than complex animatronics or expensive stop-motion, the effects team employed a delightfully low-tech solution: string pulling. Thin monofilament wires – essentially invisible fishing line – were attached to the limbs and bodies of the mini Gremlins, allowing off-camera puppeteers to wiggle them in frame and then drip in goo to show the Gremlins melting.

During filming, crew members crouched around the model set and yanked the strings to make the little Gremlins bounce, wave, or jitter unpredictably. In the final footage, it looks like dozens of tiny creatures are moving of their own accord, when in reality they’re all being tugged by hand.

“It was very basic,” Tom Griep notes, “just fishing lines and puppets – but it worked!” The string-pulled motions gave the horde a chaotic energy, perfectly selling the illusion of Gremlins being electrocuted to death in the mall.

This practical string-puppet technique was simple but incredibly effective. It allowed the filmmakers to animate a large crowd of creatures simultaneously, something that would have been nearly impossible with full-size puppets (or prohibitively expensive with CGI, which was in its infancy in 1990).

Here are two surviving puppets from the original miniature electrocuted Gremlins used in the finale of Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Remarkably well-preserved, these pieces are now displayed in a custom shadowbox with a 2-inch depth for optimal viewing and protection. Special thanks to Lennie MacDonald for these beautiful relics, given to crew members at the conclusion of production.