🔗 Share this article

“Well, it’s rather brutal here. The guidance we offer all of our clients to put everything they’ve got into canned food and shotguns.” This nugget of shrewd guidance comes from the Brain Gremlin – a genetically modified, speaking, spectacled member of the oozy monster mob that infests Manhattan’s high-tech Clamp Tower skyscraper in director Joe Dante’s madcap sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Superficially, it’s nothing more than an investment tip from one monster to another. However, oddly enough, it’s also remarkably sound life advice. Seriously, consider my perspective.

When life takes a turn for the worse, the worst thing you can do is approach matters with excessive gravity. The Brain Gremlin grasps this. Indeed, the majority of the fang-bearing creatures that occupy Dante’s unrestrained 1990 movie (arguably his best) possess the same wry, meta funny bone regarding the hazy boundary separating everyday life and pure pandemonium. 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 strikes the deepest chord.

An Early Life Fascination

Naturally, my fondness for this movie did not begin on such an deeply thoughtful note. As a child, we possessed merely a few battered VHS tapes at home. Among them were Gremlins and its second chapter, the latter housed in a chunky ex-rental box likely purchased from an independent video outlet and featuring growling monsters on its worn-out artwork. I was immediately enamoured and these films did not delay lodging themselves inside my tiny, impressionable mind. From then on, they became an near-everyday part of my youthful watching schedule.

Dante’s initial installment typically gets all the plaudits, thanks largely to its status as a partly frightening holiday classic – and to be fair, I’ve watched Gremlins more times than I can count. Nevertheless, its successor infrequently obtains the same level of lofty appreciation, which feels a travesty. As a kid, I’d invariably jump at the prospect to watch Gremlins 2. During sunny school summer breaks, I’d retreat into the house and play it. When I got my own TV-VHS combo unit, it continued playing looped in my bedroom. Gradually, it etched itself permanently in my psyche. If my parents observed this fixation, they didn’t seem to mind.

Deeper Rewards and Pop-Culture Easter Eggs

As I matured, new understandings enhanced repeat viewings, heightening the enjoyment of watching small emerald creatures gleefully trash a New York high-rise. I learned the ahead-of-its-time property magnate and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was based squarely upon the eventual commander-in-chief Donald Trump, with his auburn-haired worker Marla (Haviland Morris) alluding to his one-time partner Marla Maples. Luckily, Clamp has more heart than his genuine article inspiration.

The “end of civilisation” video Clamp plays during peak-Gremlin chaos? I discovered it was inspired by a genuine “Doomsday” video produced by the CNN boss Ted Turner in case the world truly faced apocalypse. I noticed how Dante took extra pains to film different iterations of a self-aware scene where Gremlins hijack the exact movie you are viewing. A version for theaters, another for home video and television, each offering a winking bit of self-referential entertainment sorcery ahead of its time.

An Enduring Appeal

While it was creature designer Rick Baker’s gloriously nasty-looking creatures that caught my eye as a child, this deeper gold maintained my fascination as an adult. Eventually, I even conversed with Dante about it myself and he had no qualms telling me he made the movie with the express purpose of poking fun at 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 gleefully confessed. This anarchic defiance and determination to not take his sequel as solemnly as his Warner Bros bosses evidently expected, only made me love it even more.

When I experienced a unexpected loss in the family earlier this year, I was taken aback to discover that, during my most profound sorrow, all I desired to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Weird, right? Perhaps not. The comforting familiarity it provided was necessary to dilute my mind’s mourning mire – but the perspectives it had imparted to me as an adult were equally valuable.

Like Gremlins rampaging through a genetics laboratory, there’s particular aspects in life you just cannot manage. Dante understands this. The Brain Gremlin knows it too. Sometimes, you have to be like them: accept the turmoil, commit your entire being into canned food and shotguns and try not to view the world with undue solemnity.

It’s robust worldly wisdom from a very unlikely source – and it’s why Gremlins 2: The New Batch will forever remain my go-to cinematic solace.