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“Well, it’s rather brutal here. Our recommendation is all of our clients to commit their entire holdings into canned food and shotguns.” This nugget of wise counsel comes from the Brain Gremlin – a lab-engineered, articulate, bespectacled member of the slick creature crowd that swarms Manhattan’s super-smart Clamp Tower skyscraper in director Joe Dante’s zany follow-up Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Superficially, it’s merely an financial suggestion from one monster to another. However, in a strange manner, it’s also remarkably sound existential counsel. Honestly, hear me out.

When things go bad, the worst thing you can do is view events with undue solemnity. The Brain Gremlin comprehends this. Indeed, most of the fang-bearing creatures that occupy Dante’s chaotic 1990 feature (arguably his best) possess the same knowing, self-referential sense of humour regarding the hazy boundary separating the mundane and absolute bedlam. It’s a particular aspect of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that keeps me coming back – and as I age, it’s the message that resonates the most.

A Youthful Fascination

Naturally, my attachment to this movie wasn’t born on such an deeply thoughtful note. In my youth, we possessed merely a few well-worn videocassettes at home. Included within that collection were Gremlins and its sequel, the latter housed in a bulky previously-rented case almost certainly acquired from an off-brand video shop and featuring grimacing beasts on its knackered cover. I was right away smitten and these films quickly proceeded inserting themselves inside my young, susceptible psyche. From then on, they became an practically routine part of my early years entertainment regimen.

Dante’s first film typically gets all the praise, thanks largely to its status as a semi-scary seasonal fave – and let me be clear, I’ve watched Gremlins more times than I can count. That said, its sequel rarely gets the same level of lofty appreciation, which feels criminal. As a kid, I’d never miss an opportunity to watch Gremlins 2. During sunny school summer breaks, I’d seclude myself indoors and play it. When I got my own TV-VHS combo unit, it stayed in constant rotation in my bedroom. With repetition, it etched itself permanently in my psyche. If my parents noticed this obsession, they didn’t seem to mind.

Subtler Discoveries and Cultural Easter Eggs

As I got older, new revelations enhanced multiple watches, elevating the fun of watching diminutive verdant beasts joyously wreck a New York high-rise. I learned the ahead-of-its-time property magnate and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was inspired directly by the eventual commander-in-chief Donald Trump, with his ginger staff member Marla (Haviland Morris) referencing his former spouse Marla Maples. Fortunately, Clamp demonstrates more humanity than his real-life counterpart.

The “apocalyptic” video Clamp plays during the height of creature carnage? I discovered it was inspired by a actual “Doomsday” video commissioned by the CNN boss Ted Turner as a contingency for the world actually met its demise. I noticed how Dante went out of his way to film alternate cuts of a self-referential segment where Gremlins seize control of the very film you’re watching. One for cinemas, a separate one for tape and broadcast, each delivering a smirking slice of self-referential entertainment sorcery ahead of its time.

A Lasting Influence

While it was makeup maestro Rick Baker’s wonderfully grotesque creatures that captured my attention as a child, this subsurface richness kept me hooked as an adult. In time, I even interviewed Dante about it myself and he had no qualms revealing to me he made the movie with the direct intention of ridiculing those who loved its goofy-but-heartfelt predecessor and craved further installments. “We were going to make fun of the fact you came to see it,” he cheerfully disclosed. This anarchic defiance and resolve to not take his sequel as gravely as his Warner Bros bosses evidently expected, only deepened my appreciation further.

When I experienced a unexpected loss in the family earlier this year, I was astonished to realize that, during my heightest mourning, all I wanted to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Weird, right? Possibly not. The soothing reminiscence it furnished was needed to thin out my mind’s grief morass – but the stuff it had imparted to me as an adult were equally valuable.

Like Gremlins tearing apart a genetics laboratory, there’s some things in life you just cannot manage. Dante knows it. The Brain Gremlin shares this wisdom. Sometimes, you have to be like them: welcome the pandemonium, invest all your resources into tinned provisions and hunting rifles and try not to take things too seriously.

It’s powerful existential guidance from a very unlikely source – and it’s the reason Gremlins 2: The New Batch will forever remain my comfort movie.