This Day in Horror History: GREMLINS & GOONIES Writer Chris Columbus Was Born in 1958

On this day in horror history, Chris Columbus, the screenwriter behind such classics as Gremlins and The Goonies was born in Spangler, Pennsylvania in 1958.

He also penned the scripts for such films as Young Sherlock Holmes, Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland, and Christmas with the Kranks with Jamie Lee Curtis.

On top of writing the screenplays for those flicks, Columbus has had a killer career as a director, helming such mega-blockbusters as Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Mrs. Doubtfire, and the first two Harry Potter movies, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

Other classics he has directed (that your mom loves) include Adventures in Babysitting, Nine Months, Stepmom, Bicentennial Man, and Rent. And then there’s Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief and Pixels… Which I’ve never seen.

Gremlins begins when a gadget salesman looking for a special gift for his son finds one at a store in Chinatown. The shopkeeper warns him to never expose the mogwai to bright light, water, or to feed him after midnight. All of this happens and the result is a gang of gremlins that decide to tear up the town on Christmas Eve.

Meanwhile, The Goonies follows a group of kids who take on a property developing company that plans to destroy their home to build a country club. When they discover an old pirate map in the attic, the kids follow it underground in search of lost treasure but come up against plenty of dangerous obstacles along the way.

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