🔗 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 sage advice comes from the Brain Gremlin – a lab-engineered, talking, bespectacled member of the slimy Gremlin horde that overruns Manhattan’s super-smart Clamp Tower skyscraper in director Joe Dante’s zany follow-up Gremlins 2: The New Batch. On the surface, it’s nothing more than an investment tip from one monster to another. Yet, curiously, it’s also remarkably sound life advice. Seriously, listen to my reasoning.

When things go bad, the worst thing you can do is view events with undue solemnity. The Brain Gremlin understands this. Actually, the majority of the dentally-gifted beasts that inhabit Dante’s chaotic 1990 feature (possibly his finest) possess the same wry, meta comic sensibility regarding the hazy boundary separating everyday life and pure pandemonium. It’s one element of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that keeps me coming back – and with the passage of time, it’s the theme that resonates the most.

A Childhood Fixation

Understandably, my attachment to this movie didn’t start on such an philosophical plane. As a child, we possessed merely a few scratched-up video tapes at home. Part of that group were Gremlins and its second chapter, the latter housed in a thick former-rental sleeve likely purchased from an non-chain rental store and boasting snarling creatures on its tattered front. I was instantly captivated and these films wasted no time inserting themselves inside my young, susceptible psyche. From then on, they became an almost-daily part of my youthful watching schedule.

Dante’s first film typically gets all the accolades, thanks primarily due to its status as a moderately spooky festive favorite – and let me be clear, I’ve watched Gremlins more times than I can count. Nevertheless, its sequel rarely gets the same level of elevated esteem, which feels unjust. As a kid, I’d invariably jump at the prospect to watch Gremlins 2. During sunny school summer breaks, I’d seclude myself indoors and pop it in. When I got my own TV-VHS combo unit, it continued playing looped in my bedroom. With repetition, it etched itself permanently in my mental framework. If my parents detected this preoccupation, they didn’t seem to mind.

Subtler Rewards and Societal Easter Eggs

As I grew, new revelations enhanced repeat viewings, heightening the enjoyment of watching small emerald creatures gleefully trash a New York high-rise. I learned the future-focused real estate tycoon and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was inspired directly by future president Donald Trump, with his auburn-haired worker Marla (Haviland Morris) alluding to his former spouse Marla Maples. Luckily, Clamp has more heart than his real-life counterpart.

The “doomsday” video Clamp plays during maximum monster mayhem? I discovered it was based on a actual “Doomsday” video commissioned 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 self-referential segment where Gremlins seize control of the exact movie you are viewing. An edit for movie houses, a separate one for tape and broadcast, each offering a winking bit of self-referential entertainment sorcery ahead of its time.

A Lasting Legacy

While it was makeup maestro Rick Baker’s gloriously nasty-looking creatures that drew my gaze as a child, this hidden treasure kept me hooked as an adult. In time, I even spoke to Dante about it myself and he had no hesitation revealing to me he made the movie with the direct intention of poking fun at 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 cheerfully disclosed. This anarchic insubordination and commitment to not take his sequel as seriously as his Warner Bros bosses evidently expected, only made me love it even more.

When I went through a sudden family bereavement recently, I was taken aback to discover that, during my most profound sorrow, all I wanted to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Weird, right? Maybe not. The comforting familiarity it provided was necessary to thin out my mind’s sadness sludge – but the perspectives it had bestowed upon me as an adult were just as useful.

Like Gremlins rampaging through a genetics laboratory, there’s particular aspects 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, put everything you’ve got into preserved goods and firearms and try not to take things too seriously.

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