A Gnome Named Gnorm (1991) on Netflix

PG19911h 24mAdventure Comedy Family Fantasy

Casey Gallagher's sting in a Los Angeles park falls apart when his partner is killed. Gnorm, a gnome who came aboveground to recharge an artifact called the lumen, is the only witness.

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Netflix2.3/5
IMDb4.5/101,600 votes
Rotten TomatoesNot available

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Plot summary

Casey Gallagher is an inexperienced Los Angeles police detective. He sets up a sting in a park aimed at Zadar, who is there to sell jewels illegally. Someone knocks Casey unconscious, one of Zadar's men takes the jewels, and a briefcase packed with explosives kills Casey's partner. Gnorm, a gnome who lives underground, has climbed into what his people call Upworld at that same moment, carrying an artifact called the lumen into the sun to charge it so he can impress a female gnome, and he witnesses the blast. Casey finds the lumen at the scene and takes it home, with Gnorm following. Casey catches Gnorm, but a henchman attacks him and seizes the lumen, so the two join forces against Zadar.

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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about A Gnome Named Gnorm (1991)

Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.

Stan Winston had the Gnorm puppet built with intentionally inhuman proportions so audiences would not take it for an actor in a suit, though child actors were still used in some shots. Winston said he wanted to avoid the "fucking embarrassing" effects of the recent box-office bomb Howard the Duck.
SPOILER
Stan Winston's original ending, a "heart-rending" scene in which Gnorm returns to the underworld, tested poorly with audiences, so Winston re-shot an ending meant to be more upbeat and humorous.
After the difficulty of releasing A Gnome Named Gnorm, Stan Winston joked that he was afflicted by a "Winston Curse" that caused the death of film studios: Pumpkinhead was delayed by the financial collapse of De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, and Gnorm preceded the bankruptcy of Vestron.
A Gnome Named Gnorm has been described as a cult film, partly because of what popular culture writer Nathan Rabin called its "wildly incongruous sexual content." It was reviewed by the cult magazine Psychotronic Video in 1994, included in the 1996 Psychotronic Video Guide, and covered by podcasts How Did This Get Made? and The Flop House.