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“Well, conditions are quite harsh here. The guidance we offer all of our clients to put everything they’ve got into preserved goods and firearms.” That bit of sage advice comes from the Brain Gremlin – a lab-engineered, talking, spectacled member of the slick creature crowd that infests Manhattan’s high-tech Clamp Tower skyscraper in director Joe Dante’s unhinged continuation Gremlins 2: The New Batch. On the surface, it’s merely an portfolio pointer from one monster to another. Yet, curiously, it’s also remarkably sound existential counsel. Honestly, consider my perspective.

When life takes a turn for the worse, the biggest mistake you can do is view events with undue solemnity. The Brain Gremlin understands this. Actually, a large portion of the fang-bearing creatures that populate Dante’s wild 1990 film (possibly his finest) possess the same wry, meta comic sensibility regarding the hazy boundary separating everyday life and pure pandemonium. It’s a particular aspect of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that ensures my return – and as I age, it’s the underlying idea that echoes the loudest.

An Early Life Obsession

Naturally, my connection with this movie wasn’t born on such an deeply thoughtful note. In my youth, we only had a few battered VHS tapes at home. Included within that collection were Gremlins and its second chapter, the latter housed in a chunky ex-rental box likely purchased from an off-brand video shop and sporting snarling creatures on its knackered cover. I was instantly captivated and these films quickly proceeded lodging themselves inside my small, malleable brain. Henceforth, they became an practically routine part of my youthful watching schedule.

Dante’s first film commonly garners all the accolades, thanks primarily due to its legacy as a partly frightening holiday classic – and to be fair, I’ve watched Gremlins an incalculable number of times. However, its follow-up rarely gets 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 long summer holidays, I’d lock myself inside and pop it in. When I acquired my personal TV-VHS combo unit, it remained on repeat in my bedroom. Over time, it ingrained itself in my psyche. If my parents noticed this obsession, they appeared unbothered.

Subtler Rewards and Societal References

As I got older, new insights rewarded multiple watches, elevating the fun of watching small emerald creatures happily vandalize a New York high-rise. I learned the ahead-of-its-time development mogul 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 former spouse Marla Maples. Fortunately, Clamp possesses greater compassion than his actual-world equivalent.

The “end of civilisation” video Clamp plays during peak-Gremlin chaos? I discovered it was based on a genuine “Doomsday” video created by the CNN boss Ted Turner in case the world really ended. I noticed how Dante went out of his way to film different iterations of a self-referential segment where Gremlins seize control of the exact movie you are viewing. A version for theaters, one for VHS and TV, each offering a winking bit of fourth-wall-breaking cultural alchemy before the term was even a thing.

An Enduring Appeal

While it was makeup maestro Rick Baker’s wonderfully grotesque creatures that drew my gaze as a child, this subsurface richness kept me hooked as an adult. Eventually, I even conversed with Dante about it myself and he had no hesitation revealing to me he made the movie with the express purpose of ridiculing those who loved its silly-yet-sincere predecessor and desired a sequel. “We were going to make fun of the fact you came to see it,” he gleefully confessed. This anarchic rebelliousness and commitment to not take his sequel as seriously as his Warner Bros bosses clearly wanted him to, only deepened my appreciation further.

When I went through a abrupt familial death recently, I was surprised to find that, during my deepest grief, all I wanted to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Weird, right? Perhaps not. The nostalgic calm it provided was needed to dilute my mind’s grief morass – but the perspectives it had given me as an adult were equally valuable.

Like Gremlins rampaging through a genetics laboratory, there’s particular aspects in life you just can’t control. Dante understands this. The Brain Gremlin agrees completely. Sometimes, you have to emulate them: accept the turmoil, commit your entire being into preserved goods and firearms and try not to approach life with excessive gravity.

It’s powerful existential guidance from a most improbable origin – and it’s the reason Gremlins 2: The New Batch will eternally stand as my feelgood film.