🔗 Share this article

“Well, the situation is pretty dire here. We’re advising all of our clients to invest all their resources into canned food and shotguns.” That bit of wise counsel comes from the Brain Gremlin – a lab-engineered, speaking, glasses-wearing member of the slimy Gremlin horde that overruns Manhattan’s ultra-modern Clamp Tower skyscraper in filmmaker Joe Dante’s unhinged continuation Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Superficially, it’s merely an financial suggestion from one monster to another. However, curiously, it’s also remarkably sound life advice. Honestly, listen to my reasoning.

When life takes a turn for the worse, the most counterproductive action you can do is take things too seriously. The Brain Gremlin comprehends this. Indeed, the majority of the dentally-gifted beasts that occupy Dante’s unrestrained 1990 movie (debateably his greatest) possess the same sly, self-aware sense of humour regarding the blurry line separating everyday life and pure pandemonium. 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.

An Early Life Obsession

Of course, my attachment to this movie did not begin on such an introspective level. As a child, we were limited to a few battered VHS tapes at home. Part of that group were Gremlins and its second chapter, the latter housed in a thick former-rental sleeve almost certainly acquired from an off-brand video shop and featuring grimacing beasts on its tattered front. I was instantly captivated and these films did not delay lodging themselves inside my tiny, impressionable mind. Henceforth, they became an practically routine part of my childhood viewing routine.

Dante’s initial installment commonly garners all the accolades, thanks mostly because of its reputation as a partly frightening holiday classic – and to be fair, I’ve watched Gremlins an incalculable number of times. However, its sequel rarely gets the same level of high regard, which feels a travesty. As a kid, I’d always seize the chance to watch Gremlins 2. During bright summer vacations, I’d lock myself inside and play it. When I got my own TV-VHS combo unit, it continued playing looped in my bedroom. Gradually, it ingrained itself in my mental framework. If my parents detected this preoccupation, they gave no indication of concern.

Deeper Rewards and Societal Nuggets

As I matured, new understandings enriched multiple watches, elevating the fun of watching diminutive verdant beasts joyously wreck a New York high-rise. I learned the forward-thinking property magnate and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was modeled closely on the eventual commander-in-chief Donald Trump, with his red-headed employee Marla (Haviland Morris) referencing his second wife Marla Maples. Fortunately, Clamp possesses greater compassion than his genuine article inspiration.

The “end of civilisation” video Clamp plays during the height of creature carnage? I discovered it was based on a actual “Doomsday” video created by the CNN boss Ted Turner as a contingency for the world truly faced apocalypse. I noticed how Dante went out of his way to film alternate cuts of a meta sequence where Gremlins take over the exact movie you are viewing. A version for theaters, one for VHS and TV, each delivering a smirking slice of fourth-wall-breaking cultural alchemy before the term was even a thing.

A Lasting Influence

While it was creature designer Rick Baker’s fantastically vile creatures that captured my attention as a child, this deeper gold maintained my fascination as an adult. Ultimately, I even conversed with Dante about it myself and he had no qualms revealing to me he made the movie with the specific aim of mocking those who loved its goofy-but-heartfelt predecessor and desired a sequel. “We were going to make fun of the fact you came to see it,” he gleefully confessed. This cartoonish rebelliousness and resolve to not take his sequel as solemnly as his Warner Bros bosses obviously desired, only made me love it even more.

When I endured a abrupt familial death earlier this year, 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. Strange, isn’t it? Maybe not. The comforting familiarity it furnished was essential to thin out my mind’s grief morass – but the perspectives it had given me as an adult were just as useful.

Like Gremlins rampaging through a genetics laboratory, there’s some things in life you just are powerless over. Dante understands this. The Brain Gremlin knows it too. Sometimes, you have to be like them: embrace the chaos, commit your entire being into canned food and shotguns and try not to view the world with undue solemnity.

It’s strong life advice from a very unlikely source – and it’s why Gremlins 2: The New Batch will forever remain my comfort movie.