🔗 Share this article

“Well, conditions are quite harsh here. The guidance we offer all of our clients to commit their entire holdings into canned food and shotguns.” This piece of wise counsel comes from the Brain Gremlin – a lab-engineered, talking, glasses-wearing member of the slick creature crowd that swarms Manhattan’s ultra-modern Clamp Tower skyscraper in director Joe Dante’s madcap sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Superficially, it’s nothing more than an financial suggestion from one monster to another. But, oddly enough, it’s also surprisingly sturdy life guidance. Honestly, listen to my reasoning.

When things go bad, the most counterproductive action you can do is approach matters with excessive gravity. The Brain Gremlin grasps this. In fact, the majority of the toothy monsters that populate Dante’s unrestrained 1990 movie (possibly his finest) possess the same wry, meta comic sensibility regarding the indistinct border separating daily routine and unadulterated chaos. It’s a single component of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that keeps me coming back – and with the passage of time, it’s the message that echoes the loudest.

An Early Life Obsession

Understandably, my connection with this movie wasn’t born on such an introspective level. As a child, we possessed merely a few battered VHS tapes at home. Included within that collection were Gremlins and its second chapter, the latter housed in a thick former-rental sleeve probably bought from an non-chain rental store and featuring snarling creatures on its worn-out artwork. I was immediately enamoured and these films quickly proceeded lodging themselves inside my young, susceptible psyche. Henceforth, they became an almost-daily part of my youthful watching schedule.

Dante’s original usually receives all the plaudits, thanks primarily due to its legacy as a semi-scary seasonal fave – and to be fair, I’ve watched Gremlins more times than I can count. That said, its sequel infrequently obtains the same level of elevated esteem, which feels unjust. As a kid, I’d always seize the chance to watch Gremlins 2. During long summer holidays, I’d seclude myself indoors and stick it on. When I got my own TV-VHS combo unit, it remained on repeat in my bedroom. With repetition, it ingrained itself in my mindset. If my parents detected this preoccupation, they gave no indication of concern.

Hidden Discoveries and Cultural References

As I matured, new understandings rewarded frequent screenings, amplifying the pleasure of watching small emerald creatures joyously wreck a New York high-rise. I learned the forward-thinking property magnate and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was inspired directly by the eventual commander-in-chief Donald Trump, with his ginger staff member Marla (Haviland Morris) referencing his second wife Marla Maples. Thankfully, Clamp possesses greater compassion than his actual-world equivalent.

The “apocalyptic” video Clamp plays during the height of creature carnage? I discovered it was based on a actual “Doomsday” video produced by the CNN boss Ted Turner should the world truly faced apocalypse. I noticed how Dante took extra pains to film alternate cuts of a meta sequence where Gremlins take over the very film you’re watching. A version for theaters, another for home video and television, each offering a winking bit of fourth-wall-breaking cultural alchemy prior to the concept being mainstream.

A Persistent Appeal

While it was makeup maestro Rick Baker’s fantastically vile creatures that caught my eye as a child, this hidden treasure kept me hooked as an adult. Ultimately, I even interviewed Dante about it myself and he had no hesitation revealing to me he made the movie with the specific aim of ridiculing those who loved its absurd-yet-genuine predecessor and wanted more. “We were going to make fun of the fact you came to see it,” he happily revealed. This cartoonish rebelliousness and resolve to not take his sequel as seriously as his Warner Bros bosses evidently expected, only deepened my appreciation further.

When I experienced a unexpected loss in the family 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. Weird, right? Perhaps not. The comforting familiarity it provided was needed to thin out my mind’s mourning mire – but the insights it had bestowed upon me as an adult were similarly beneficial.

Like Gremlins tearing apart a genetics laboratory, there’s some things in life you just cannot manage. Dante is aware of it. The Brain Gremlin knows it too. Sometimes, you have to follow their example: welcome the pandemonium, put everything you’ve got 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 the reason Gremlins 2: The New Batch will always be my comfort movie.