🔗 Share this article

“Well, it’s rather brutal here. Our recommendation is all of our clients to put everything they’ve got into tinned provisions and hunting rifles.” This piece of sage advice comes from the Brain Gremlin – a lab-engineered, articulate, bespectacled member of the slimy Gremlin horde that swarms Manhattan’s high-tech Clamp Tower skyscraper in filmmaker Joe Dante’s madcap sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch. At first glance, it’s nothing more than an financial suggestion from one monster to another. However, curiously, it’s also pretty solid life advice. Truly, consider my perspective.

When situations deteriorate, the biggest mistake you can do is take things too seriously. The Brain Gremlin comprehends this. Indeed, most of the fang-bearing creatures that populate Dante’s wild 1990 film (debateably his greatest) possess the same knowing, self-referential funny bone regarding the blurry line separating everyday life and unadulterated chaos. It’s a particular aspect of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that ensures my return – and with the passage of time, it’s the underlying idea that echoes the loudest.

An Early Life Obsession

Naturally, my attachment to this movie didn’t start on such an deeply thoughtful note. In my youth, we possessed merely a few scratched-up video tapes at home. Included within that collection were Gremlins and its follow-up, the latter housed in a chunky ex-rental box probably bought from an non-chain rental store and sporting growling monsters on its tattered front. I was right away smitten and these films wasted no time lodging themselves inside my young, susceptible psyche. Henceforth, 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 reputation as a partly frightening holiday classic – and don’t get me wrong, I’ve watched Gremlins on countless occasions. Nevertheless, its follow-up rarely gets the same level of lofty appreciation, which feels unjust. As a kid, I’d never miss an opportunity to watch Gremlins 2. During bright summer vacations, I’d seclude myself indoors and pop it in. When I acquired my personal TV-VHS combo unit, it remained on repeat in my bedroom. Gradually, it ingrained itself in my psyche. If my parents observed this fixation, they didn’t seem to mind.

Subtler Delights and Cultural Nuggets

As I grew, new insights enhanced frequent screenings, elevating the fun of watching diminutive verdant beasts happily vandalize a New York high-rise. I learned the future-focused development mogul and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was modeled closely on future president Donald Trump, with his ginger staff member Marla (Haviland Morris) echoing his second wife Marla Maples. Fortunately, Clamp has more heart than his genuine article inspiration.

The “doomsday” video Clamp plays during the height of creature carnage? I discovered it was based on a actual “Doomsday” video commissioned by the CNN boss Ted Turner should the world truly faced apocalypse. I noticed how Dante took extra pains to film different iterations of a meta sequence where Gremlins seize control of the exact movie you are viewing. An edit for movie houses, one for VHS and TV, each providing a grinning portion of fourth-wall-breaking cultural alchemy ahead of its time.

A Lasting Appeal

While it was makeup maestro Rick Baker’s fantastically vile creatures that drew my gaze as a child, this hidden treasure held my interest as an adult. Ultimately, I even spoke to Dante about it myself and he had no reservations telling me he made the movie with the direct intention of poking fun at those who loved its silly-yet-sincere predecessor and wanted more. “We were going to make fun of the fact you came to see it,” he gleefully confessed. This Looney Tunes-esque defiance and resolve to not take his sequel as seriously as his Warner Bros bosses obviously desired, only made me love it even more.

When I endured a sudden family bereavement not long ago, I was taken aback to discover that, during my deepest grief, all I felt compelled to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Weird, right? Possibly not. The nostalgic calm it furnished was necessary to thin out my mind’s mourning mire – but the insights it had bestowed upon me as an adult were similarly beneficial.

Like Gremlins running amok in a genetics laboratory, there’s certain elements in life you just are powerless over. Dante understands this. The Brain Gremlin knows it too. Sometimes, you have to be like them: welcome the pandemonium, invest all your resources into preserved goods and firearms and try not to view the world with undue solemnity.

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