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“Well, the situation is pretty dire here. The guidance we offer all of our clients to invest all their resources into tinned provisions and hunting rifles.” This piece of shrewd guidance comes from the Brain Gremlin – a lab-engineered, speaking, spectacled member of the slick creature crowd that overruns Manhattan’s high-tech Clamp Tower skyscraper in filmmaker Joe Dante’s unhinged continuation Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Superficially, it’s simply an financial suggestion from one monster to another. However, in a strange manner, it’s also pretty solid existential counsel. Truly, listen to my reasoning.

When situations deteriorate, the biggest mistake you can do is view events with undue solemnity. The Brain Gremlin comprehends this. In fact, a large portion of the fang-bearing creatures that occupy Dante’s unrestrained 1990 movie (possibly his finest) possess the same sly, self-aware sense of humour regarding the blurry line separating daily routine and unadulterated chaos. It’s one element of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that maintains my loyalty – and the older I get, it’s the theme that resonates the most.

A Youthful Obsession

Understandably, my attachment to this movie didn’t start on such an introspective level. Growing up, we possessed merely a few battered VHS tapes at home. Among them were Gremlins and its follow-up, the latter housed in a thick former-rental sleeve likely purchased from an off-brand video shop and boasting grimacing beasts on its tattered front. I was immediately enamoured and these films quickly proceeded embedding themselves inside my tiny, impressionable mind. After that point, they became an practically routine part of my youthful watching schedule.

Dante’s first film typically gets all the accolades, thanks primarily due to its status as a partly frightening holiday classic – and don’t get me wrong, I’ve watched Gremlins on countless occasions. That said, its sequel seldom receives the same level of high regard, which feels unjust. As a kid, I’d never miss an opportunity to watch Gremlins 2. During sunny school summer breaks, I’d lock myself inside and pop it in. When I got my own TV-VHS combo unit, it remained on repeat in my bedroom. Gradually, it became deeply rooted in my psyche. If my parents noticed this obsession, they gave no indication of concern.

Subtler Rewards and Pop-Culture Easter Eggs

As I got older, new insights enhanced multiple watches, heightening the enjoyment of watching little green monsters gleefully trash a New York high-rise. I learned the forward-thinking real estate tycoon and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was modeled closely on the later-to-be-president Donald Trump, with his ginger staff member Marla (Haviland Morris) echoing his former spouse Marla Maples. Fortunately, Clamp demonstrates more humanity than his real-life counterpart.

The “end of civilisation” video Clamp plays during the height of creature carnage? I discovered it was modeled after a actual “Doomsday” video produced by the CNN boss Ted Turner in case the world actually met its demise. I noticed how Dante went out of his way to film different iterations of a self-referential segment where Gremlins seize control of the actual feature in progress. One for cinemas, another for home video and television, each delivering a smirking slice of self-referential entertainment sorcery before the term was even a thing.

A Persistent Legacy

While it was makeup maestro Rick Baker’s wonderfully grotesque creatures that caught my eye as a child, this hidden treasure maintained my fascination as an adult. Ultimately, I even conversed with Dante about it myself and he had no reservations telling me he made the movie with the specific aim of mocking those who loved its silly-yet-sincere predecessor and desired a sequel. “We were going to make fun of the fact you came to see it,” he gleefully confessed. This cartoonish defiance and resolve to not take his sequel as gravely as his Warner Bros bosses evidently expected, only made me love it even more.

When I experienced a abrupt familial death recently, I was taken aback to discover that, during my heightest mourning, all I felt compelled to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Odd, no? Maybe not. The soothing reminiscence it offered was necessary to weaken my mind’s grief morass – but the insights it had imparted to me as an adult were similarly beneficial.

Like Gremlins tearing apart a genetics laboratory, there’s particular aspects in life you just can’t control. Dante knows it. The Brain Gremlin shares this wisdom. Sometimes, you have to be like them: accept the turmoil, put everything you’ve got into preserved goods and firearms and try not to view the world with undue solemnity.

It’s powerful existential guidance from a highly unexpected fountain – and it’s the reason Gremlins 2: The New Batch will forever remain my feelgood film.