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“Well, the situation is pretty dire here. The guidance we offer all of our clients to commit their entire holdings into tinned provisions and hunting rifles.” This piece of wise counsel comes from the Brain Gremlin – a genetically modified, articulate, spectacled member of the slimy Gremlin horde that overruns Manhattan’s ultra-modern Clamp Tower skyscraper in helmer Joe Dante’s unhinged continuation Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Superficially, it’s nothing more than an portfolio pointer from one monster to another. Yet, in a strange manner, it’s also surprisingly sturdy life advice. Honestly, hear me out.

When life takes a turn for the worse, the biggest mistake you can do is approach matters with excessive gravity. The Brain Gremlin understands this. In fact, the majority of the fang-bearing creatures that populate Dante’s wild 1990 film (arguably his best) possess the same knowing, self-referential comic sensibility regarding the hazy boundary separating the mundane and absolute bedlam. It’s a single component of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that keeps me coming back – and as I age, it’s the underlying idea that resonates the most.

An Early Life Obsession

Understandably, my attachment to this movie didn’t start on such an philosophical plane. Growing up, we only had a few scratched-up video tapes at home. Part of that group were Gremlins and its follow-up, the latter housed in a thick former-rental sleeve almost certainly acquired from an off-brand video shop and boasting grimacing beasts on its tattered front. I was immediately enamoured and these films wasted no time embedding themselves inside my young, susceptible psyche. From then on, they became an almost-daily part of my early years entertainment regimen.

Dante’s initial installment typically gets all the praise, thanks primarily due to its legacy as a moderately spooky festive favorite – and let me be clear, I’ve watched Gremlins more times than I can count. However, its successor infrequently obtains the same level of elevated esteem, which feels a travesty. As a kid, I’d invariably jump at the prospect to watch Gremlins 2. During bright summer vacations, I’d seclude myself indoors and stick it on. When I obtained my very own TV-VHS combo unit, it continued playing looped in my bedroom. Over time, it ingrained itself in my psyche. If my parents observed this fixation, they appeared unbothered.

Hidden Delights and Cultural Easter Eggs

As I got older, new revelations enhanced multiple watches, amplifying the pleasure of watching small emerald creatures joyously wreck a New York high-rise. I learned the forward-thinking property magnate and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was inspired directly by the later-to-be-president Donald Trump, with his ginger staff member Marla (Haviland Morris) echoing his former spouse Marla Maples. Thankfully, Clamp demonstrates more humanity than his real-life counterpart.

The “doomsday” video Clamp plays during peak-Gremlin chaos? I discovered it was modeled after a real-life “Doomsday” video commissioned by the CNN boss Ted Turner as a contingency for the world really ended. I noticed how Dante took extra pains to film different iterations of a self-aware scene where Gremlins take over the very film you’re watching. One for cinemas, one for VHS and TV, each delivering a smirking slice of fourth-wall-breaking cultural alchemy before the term was even a thing.

A Persistent Appeal

While it was effects expert Rick Baker’s fantastically vile creatures that drew my gaze as a child, this hidden treasure kept me hooked as an adult. In time, I even spoke to Dante about it myself and he had no reservations revealing to me he made the movie with the specific aim of mocking 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 happily revealed. This anarchic 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 astonished to realize that, during my deepest grief, all I felt compelled to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Strange, isn’t it? Possibly not. The nostalgic calm it offered was essential to dilute my mind’s grief morass – but the stuff it had imparted to me as an adult were just as useful.

Like Gremlins tearing apart a genetics laboratory, there’s some things 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 canned food and shotguns and try not to take things too seriously.

It’s robust worldly wisdom from a very unlikely source – and it’s the reason Gremlins 2: The New Batch will eternally stand as my go-to cinematic solace.