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“Well, conditions are quite harsh here. We’re advising all of our clients to put everything they’ve got into canned food and shotguns.” That bit of shrewd guidance comes from the Brain Gremlin – a scientifically altered, talking, bespectacled member of the slimy Gremlin horde that overruns Manhattan’s ultra-modern Clamp Tower skyscraper in filmmaker Joe Dante’s unhinged continuation Gremlins 2: The New Batch. On the surface, it’s simply an financial suggestion from one monster to another. However, in a strange manner, it’s also pretty solid existential counsel. Honestly, consider my perspective.

When situations deteriorate, the biggest mistake you can do is approach matters with excessive gravity. The Brain Gremlin grasps this. Actually, the majority of the toothy monsters that occupy Dante’s wild 1990 film (debateably his greatest) possess the same sly, self-aware sense of humour regarding the indistinct border separating the mundane and unadulterated chaos. It’s a single component of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that ensures my return – and the older I get, it’s the theme that echoes the loudest.

An Early Life Fixation

Naturally, my attachment to this movie didn’t start on such an introspective level. Growing up, we possessed merely a few scratched-up video tapes at home. Included within that collection were Gremlins and its follow-up, the latter housed in a chunky ex-rental box likely purchased from an off-brand video shop and boasting snarling creatures on its knackered cover. I was immediately enamoured and these films did not delay inserting themselves inside my young, susceptible psyche. After that point, they became an practically routine part of my youthful watching schedule.

Dante’s original typically gets all the praise, thanks mostly because of its reputation as a moderately spooky festive favorite – and don’t get me wrong, I’ve watched Gremlins on countless occasions. That said, its successor infrequently obtains the same level of lofty appreciation, which feels criminal. As a kid, I’d invariably jump at the prospect to watch Gremlins 2. During long summer holidays, I’d retreat into the house and pop it in. When I obtained my very own TV-VHS combo unit, it stayed in constant rotation in my bedroom. Gradually, it etched itself permanently in my psyche. If my parents noticed this obsession, they didn’t seem to mind.

Deeper Delights and Pop-Culture References

As I got older, new insights rewarded multiple watches, heightening the enjoyment of watching small emerald creatures gleefully trash a New York high-rise. I learned the future-focused real estate tycoon and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was modeled closely on future president Donald Trump, with his red-headed employee Marla (Haviland Morris) alluding to his second wife Marla Maples. Thankfully, Clamp has more heart than his genuine article inspiration.

The “doomsday” video Clamp plays during the height of creature carnage? I discovered it was inspired by a real-life “Doomsday” video commissioned by the CNN boss Ted Turner as a contingency for the world truly faced apocalypse. I noticed how Dante made a special effort to film alternate cuts of a self-referential segment where Gremlins seize control of the exact movie you are viewing. An edit for movie houses, a separate one for tape and broadcast, each offering a winking bit of self-referential entertainment sorcery ahead of its time.

A Persistent Influence

While it was effects expert Rick Baker’s gloriously nasty-looking creatures that drew my gaze as a child, this hidden treasure maintained my fascination as an adult. Eventually, I even conversed with Dante about it myself and he had no qualms revealing to me he made the movie with the specific aim of ridiculing those who loved its goofy-but-heartfelt predecessor and wanted more. “We were going to make fun of the fact you came to see it,” he gleefully confessed. This Looney Tunes-esque defiance and resolve to not take his sequel as gravely as his Warner Bros bosses evidently expected, only increased my affection for it.

When I experienced a sudden family bereavement not long ago, I was astonished to realize that, during my deepest grief, all I wanted to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Weird, right? Perhaps not. The nostalgic calm it furnished was necessary to weaken my mind’s sadness sludge – but the insights it had given me as an adult were just as useful.

Like Gremlins rampaging through a genetics laboratory, there’s certain elements in life you just cannot manage. Dante knows it. The Brain Gremlin agrees completely. Sometimes, you have to be like them: embrace the chaos, invest all your resources into tinned provisions and hunting rifles and try not to approach life with excessive gravity.

It’s strong life advice from a very unlikely source – and it’s the reason Gremlins 2: The New Batch will always be my comfort movie.