Kate Peltzer (neé Beringer) is one of the main characters of the Gremlins film franchise. She first appeared in Gremlins as a worker at the Kingston Falls bank and as a volunteer bartender at Dorry's Tavern.
In the sequel, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Kate worked as a tour guide for Clamp Enterprises.
Kate is also the wife of Billy Peltzer.
Personality
History
Gremlins ‘84
Kate Beringer began Gremlins as a co-worker of Billy Peltzer at the Kingston Falls bank. She gives Billy a petition to sign to declare Dorry's Tavern as a landmark so Mrs. Deagle won't be able to take his lease away. Billy (in a deleted scene) then compliments how pretty she looks, before stuttering and clarifying that she already is pretty, she's just particularly pretty today, much to her amusement. While dealing with Mr. Corben for being late, she fixes his nametag that was upside down and walks back to her desk. Mrs. Deagle soon arrives and demands that Billy give his dog Barney to her after he broke her plastic snowman. Not realizing Barney was tied up under the counter, the dog got loose and began to attack her. Kate and the other customers/employees witness Mrs. Deagle cursing revenge to Billy and Barney while Mr. Corbin and Gerald tend to her.
That night, Billy and Gerald are talking at the Dorry's Tavern when they find Kate as their waitress, working their parttime. Gerald tries to flirt with her, but Kate shuts him down and turns her attention to Billy instead, much to Gerald's obliviousness.
The next night, she is later seen by Billy closing down Dorry's and tending to a drunken Mr. Futterman (who drowned his sorrows of losing his job in alcohol). They meet Billy outside where Mr. Futterman goes on a drunken rant about how "Gremlins" are sent over by the "foreigners" and that's what caused their planes to go down during WWII. While trying to start his plow, it begins to stall and he believes Gremlins are the cause, which causes Kate to suggest that walking home is safer. He agrees, and they part ways for the evening.
While the pair walk home, Billy commends Kate for the way she handled the situation, to which Kate says that he just needed somebody to talk to after losing his job, like so many other people in Kingston Falls. Billy finds it odd that there is so much depression around the holiday season, while Kate states that it's not uncommon and that the suicide rates are always the highest this time of year. He then asks Kate if she ever gets depressed during Christmas, to which she quickly states that she doesn't like to celebrate the holidays. When Billy asks why, she blows up and says that she feels like "a leper" for hating Christmas, but she quickly apologizes and claims she's just cranky. She thanks Billy for walking her home, but before she can go in, Billy works up the nerve to ask if she would like to go out on a date with him Thursday night, to which she happily agrees and says goodnight.
She is then briefly seen while Billy is working at the bank on Christmas Eve. When Roy Hanson calls from the school saying that the Mogwai hatched out of its cocoon, Billy says he will be right there, giving the phone to a confused Kate. In a deleted scene prior to the call, Kate quietly calls Billy into Mr. Corben's office as he gets in. He walks into the office where Kate shows a map of Kingston Falls. The map shows many houses in red (including Kate's and Billy's) of people who have lost their jobs due to the closure of the noodle factory. The people can't afford their house payments, so Mrs. Deagle and the bank are taking advantage of them by forcing them to foreclose on their mortgages. Then, she plans on selling the land to a high-toxic company to build a plant of some sort. Gerald eavesdrops on the conversation and walks in, saying how Mr. Corben doesn't like snoopy employees. He tries to ask Kate out in exchange to keep the secret, but she coldly refuses.
It can be assumed after Billy left, Kate went to work at Dorry's, where the Gremlins soon invaded the town and started to take over the tavern. The Gremlins scare away the customers but keep Kate hostage and force her to serve them beer, popcorn, and cigarettes. The frightened Kate gets cups and food thrown at her direction and even has a Gremlin "flash" her (a Gremlin wearing a trench coat). It's not until she tries lighting a cigarette for a Gremlin, only for it to shriek in pain and fall to the floor, that she realized exposure to light is their weakness. She quickly grabs a camera behind her and uses it as a weapon by using the flash of the camera. It's not before she reaches the door when a Gremlin wearing a ski mask has her at gunpoint. Kate tries to use the camera, but it's out of film. Kate ducks in time to miss the bullet, and Billy soon arrives with his car. He distracts the Gremlins by shining his headlights through the window. Kate then throws the camera at a Gremlin blocking her and makes a run for it.
Billy grabs Kate by hand and they jump into the car. She accidentally sits on Billy's backpack with Gizmo inside. She's initially frightened, but Billy quickly reassures that Gizmo's not like the others. As the Gremlins throw trash from the bar window, the car fails to start. The trio then bolts across the disaster area to the bank as people scream and get attacked. They reach the bank and lock the doors and turn around to find the place completely wrecked by the Gremlins. As they walk around the chaos, Kate asks what those things are and where they come from with Billy responding that they're Gremlins, "just like Mr. Futterman said".
When Kate finds a tipped-over Christmas tree, she says that now she has another reason to hate Christmas. When Billy asks what she's talking about, she says that the single worst thing that ever happened to her was on Christmas. While listening to gunshots and screams from outside, Kate laments about a time when she was 9, her father never returned home on Christmas Eve, and there was no response from his office. Despite police searching and Christmas passing, there was no sign of her father. One night, while it was snowing outside, Kate attempted to light up the fireplace, where she noticed a smell. Her mother then called the fire department, to which they broke through the chimney top. They initially assumed it would be dead cat or bird, but unfortunately, it was Kate's father, who had tried to go down the chimney dressed up as Santa Claus with presents as a surprise, but he accidentally slipped and broke his neck, dying instantly.
In a deleted scene, Billy comforts Kate, distressed from the story, when they hear a noise. Thinking it could be the Gremlins, Billy arms himself with a flashlight with Kate holding onto his arm. They walk behind the counter where they are horrified to find their dead employer, Mr. Corben, his head smashed in by a clock. As Kate slowly backs away, she bumps into the vault, causing her to scream. They then hear someone inside and open the vault up to find a mentally unstable Gerald, who locked himself in the vault to hide from the Gremlins. Billy asks where the keys are so they can get him out, but Gerald (in his psychotic state) believes they just want to get him out so they mooch off of him once he becomes manager of the bank. After going on an unstable rant about business, the two slowly close the vault, with Billy advising they'll get him out after they deal with the Gremlins.
The two slowly open the bank door to find the town trashed and abandoned. Kate asks where the Gremlins all went with Billy responding they are all someplace dark since it will be light soon. They then sneak up to the movie theatre where they see a Gremlin rifling through the concession stand. All the Gremlins are in the movie theatre, trying to put a movie on. They manage to put on Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, causing the creatures to love the film and sing along to the song "Heigh-Ho", much to the confusion of Kate and Billy.
They then go behind the screen and sneak under the stairs, where they find the boiler room. Billy opens the gas valve and uses a lighter to set a piece of paper on fire. As they climb up, the projector begins to malfunction and cause a bright light to flash, causing the Gremlins to screech in agony. The light reveals Kate, Billy, and Gizmo behind the screen, causing the army to tear open the screen and chase after the trio.
They run through the exit, where Billy uses a plank of wood to block the door. They hide behind a car, where the movie theatre explodes and causes the Gremlins to be killed and engulfed by the flames. While the two smile in victory, it's quickly cut short when Kate points to Stripe, the leader of the Gremlins, peeking out the window. Stripe had left the movie theatre to get candy, and he realizes he's the only Gremlin left.
Stripe enters the store, with Billy, Kate, and Gizmo following closely behind. After smashing through the window, Billy states that more Gremlins will come if Stripe finds water. He tells Kate to take Gizmo and find a light switch upstairs in the maintenance room, where the two share a kiss. Kate finds the maintenance room and attempts to find the light switches, only to find pre-recorded tapes of sales and music. She turns around in frustration only to find Gizmo gone, who snuck out knowing Billy needed his help fighting Stripe. Kate finds the light switch box locked, but she pulls the doors hard enough that it breaks open, and she turns on all the lights. During this, Stripe is battling Billy with a chainsaw and was about to kill him before the lights blinded him. The force of the chainsaw causes Stripe to slip and have him thrown in front of a gardening section, where he finds a fountain accidentally turned on by Kate and a gun display.
As Billy arrives into the gardening section, he is shot at by Stripe at the top of the fountain. Stripe begins to dip his finger into the water, but Gizmo soon arrives riding a Barbie remote-controlled car. The Mowgai dodges a bullet from Stripe as he pulls the blinds and causes the morning light to shine onto the Gremlin. Stripe melts and his skeleton falls into the fountain. Just then, Kate, Billy's father Rand, and dog, Barney, arrive on the scene and saw the whole thing. Billy picks up a wounded Gizmo (who took a fall from pulling the blinds), and Kate uses Randy's scarf to swaddle and comfort the Mowgai.
Later on Christmas night, the Peltzer family and Kate watch the news back at home. Kate takes Gizmo's temperature, telling him not to chew it. Just then, Mr. Wing arrives to take Gizmo back. He scolds Randy for disobeying his warnings but says someday they'll be ready to take care of Gizmo, leaving on good terms. Kate is last seen with Billy's arm around her as they watch Mr. Wing and Gizmo walk back to their home.
Gremlins 2
Kate is living with Billy in New York City and working as a tour guide in the headquarters of Clamp Enterprises. Billy finds out that Gizmo is being held in the laboratory in the same building, and after rescuing him, he asks Kate to take him home. Kate reluctantly agrees, but mistakenly takes home Daffy, one of four new mogwai. She feeds him a chicken leg, mashed potatoes, and corn, but Daffy eats only the corn, threw most of the food at her, and destroyed a blender. The Futtermans were supposed to stay with Billy and Kate when their house is currently destroyed (by the first batch of Gremlin driving a snowplow into their house) but were unable to since Billy and Kate had to rush to the Clamp HQ skyscraper to get rid of Daffy, find Gizmo, and prevent any other Mogwai who ate after midnight.
Kate then finds Marla who was discussing over the date at a Canadian restaurant with Billy (curiously, Kate didn't even realize the kiss with heavy lipstick ink on Billy's face), and Kate tells him, If we manage to escape alive today, you're in big trouble. She then is giving a tour guide to children to Microwave Marge's cooking show, but finds Daffy, Lenny, and George later on, who sabotage the cooking show, invade the kitchen, destroy a microwave, and release the smoke detectors, making the Gremlins wet. A Japanese cameraman who is obsessed with finding exciting stories, Mr. Katsuji, attempted to film the Gremlins multiplying without leaving the room, but is pulled away by Kate for safety.
Kate rushes to an elevator, telling that her desired floor is level 38, but the Gremlins take control and don't stop ascending, until Kate tells the elevator to stop. She also requests for sound alarm, to which the Gremlins answer by making a sound alarm themselves. She is attacked by the Gremlins, grabbing her legs, reaching for her face, and pulling on her hair. Kate even has to bite a Gremlin's arm to free herself, and the elevator she was in was being sabotaged by Daffy (who has now become a Gremlin), drops to the lowest floor, and she survives while the Gremlins around the elevator are killed.
Kate then found Marla Bloodstone, who dated and kissed Billy, stuck to a spider web (made by Mohawk). Kate planned on leaving behind Marla, until she confessed everything she did with Billy on the night before the Gremlins attacked Clamp Enterprises HQ skyscraper. Kate then frees her from the spider web (reluctantly). But they find Spider Mohawk who will threaten to kill them. Ironically, Kate met Mohawk before as Stripe back in Kingston Falls. Stripe was the gremlin that Kate helped Billy fight in a store at Kingston Falls mutated into a gremlin/spider hybrid. But luckily, Marla and Kate are rescued by Gizmo who comes in and aims a fire arrow at Spider Mohawk. Spider Mohawk burns to death, and Billy and Mr. Futterman come in (but would have been too late to save Kate and Marla). When she hears about Abraham Lincoln's birthday, she starts to make an emotional speech about how she doesn't like hearing about Abraham Lincoln, but is pulled away by Billy, because he might know it might be too late to stop the gremlins and save Clamp's skyscraper.
She finds all the hundreds of Gremlins in the lobby singing "New York, New York" and partying while getting ready to leave the building, and the plan to release sunlight on the Gremlins in the lobby is ruined when a rainstorm came! Then Billy comes up with the idea to destroy the Gremlins. After Kate puts Gizmo in a box, she transports the Electric Gremlin into the phone to the other Gremlins, melting/destroying the Gremlins when they were wet. Clamp and four other soldiers came in (and were very late).
Then Mr Clamp promotes Billy and Kate for defeating the Gremlins, but doesn't care for how his skyscraper was destroyed. He asked if Kate is Mrs. Peltzer, and answers, Yes, well, I'm gonna be, and when Clamp finds Gizmo (who pops out of the box), Kate explains he's a Mogwai, with Gizmo saying the word "Mogwai" also. Billy, Kate, and Gizmo return to their apartment room, and Gizmo asks if they have cable TV.
Soon later, Billy and Kate are wed, and Kate Beringer becomes Kate Peltzer.
Relationships
Trivia
- In the original Gremlins, it's unknown how Kate knew where the boiler room in the movie theatre was, though it could be possible that she might have worked there before to the events leading up to it.
- When Kate was around 6 or 7, on a day when her mother let her go to the park and when she was going to eat a PB & J sandwich her mother made, she met a man who looked like Abraham Lincoln. The rest of the memory is unknown to the viewers because Billy made her cut off the speech to go to the lobby. It's suspected it had to do with a "flasher" similar to encounters with flashing gremlins. This memory is why she doesn't like to hear about Lincoln.
- It's implied her childhood had terrible holidays, hilariously setting her off whenever one is brought up.
- Apparently she's said so many Billy is just exasperated with her whenever Kate starts going off on one.
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