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“Well, conditions are quite harsh here. We’re advising all of our clients to commit their entire holdings into canned food and shotguns.” This nugget of shrewd guidance comes from the Brain Gremlin – a lab-engineered, articulate, glasses-wearing member of the slimy Gremlin horde that swarms Manhattan’s super-smart Clamp Tower skyscraper in filmmaker Joe Dante’s unhinged continuation Gremlins 2: The New Batch. On the surface, it’s nothing more than an investment tip from one monster to another. But, oddly enough, it’s also surprisingly sturdy existential counsel. Honestly, listen to my reasoning.

When situations deteriorate, the biggest mistake you can do is approach matters with excessive gravity. The Brain Gremlin grasps this. Actually, most of the toothy monsters that occupy Dante’s wild 1990 film (possibly his finest) 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 as I age, it’s the message that strikes the deepest chord.

An Early Life Fascination

Naturally, my connection with this movie did not begin on such an philosophical plane. 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 almost certainly acquired from an independent video outlet and sporting snarling creatures on its worn-out artwork. I was immediately enamoured and these films did not delay inserting themselves inside my tiny, impressionable mind. Henceforth, they became an practically routine part of my childhood viewing routine.

Dante’s initial installment usually receives all the praise, thanks mostly because of its legacy as a semi-scary seasonal fave – and to be fair, I’ve watched Gremlins on countless occasions. However, its successor rarely gets the same level of high regard, which feels a travesty. As a kid, I’d never miss an opportunity to watch Gremlins 2. During long summer holidays, I’d lock myself inside and play it. When I obtained my very own TV-VHS combo unit, it continued playing looped in my bedroom. Gradually, it ingrained itself in my mindset. If my parents detected this preoccupation, they didn’t seem to mind.

Subtler Rewards and Cultural Easter Eggs

As I grew, new revelations rewarded multiple watches, amplifying the pleasure of watching diminutive verdant beasts joyously wreck a New York high-rise. I learned the future-focused development mogul and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was inspired directly by future president Donald Trump, with his red-headed employee Marla (Haviland Morris) alluding to his second wife Marla Maples. Thankfully, Clamp possesses greater compassion than his actual-world equivalent.

The “doomsday” video Clamp plays during peak-Gremlin chaos? I discovered it was inspired by a genuine “Doomsday” video produced by the CNN boss Ted Turner as a contingency for the world actually met its demise. I noticed how Dante took extra pains to film alternate cuts of a self-referential segment where Gremlins hijack the actual feature in progress. An edit for movie houses, another for home video and television, each providing a grinning portion of fourth-wall-breaking cultural alchemy before the term was even a thing.

A Persistent Legacy

While it was effects expert Rick Baker’s fantastically vile creatures that drew my gaze as a child, this hidden treasure held my interest as an adult. Eventually, I even conversed with Dante about it myself and he had no qualms informing me he made the movie with the specific aim of mocking those who loved its absurd-yet-genuine predecessor and desired a sequel. “We were going to make fun of the fact you came to see it,” he cheerfully disclosed. This anarchic rebelliousness and determination to not take his sequel as solemnly as his Warner Bros bosses clearly wanted him to, only made me love it even more.

When I went through a abrupt familial death recently, I was taken aback to discover that, during my heightest mourning, all I wanted to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Strange, isn’t it? Possibly not. The nostalgic calm it provided was necessary to thin out my mind’s mourning mire – but the stuff it had imparted to me as an adult were similarly beneficial.

Like Gremlins rampaging through a genetics laboratory, there’s some things in life you just can’t control. Dante is aware of 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 approach life with excessive gravity.

It’s robust worldly wisdom from a most improbable origin – and it’s why Gremlins 2: The New Batch will always be my feelgood film.