🔗 Share this article

“Well, conditions are quite harsh here. We’re advising all of our clients to put everything they’ve got into canned food and shotguns.” This piece of shrewd guidance comes from the Brain Gremlin – a lab-engineered, speaking, bespectacled member of the slimy Gremlin horde that swarms Manhattan’s super-smart Clamp Tower skyscraper in helmer Joe Dante’s unhinged continuation Gremlins 2: The New Batch. At first glance, it’s merely an investment tip from one monster to another. However, oddly enough, it’s also remarkably sound life guidance. Truly, hear me out.

When things go bad, the worst thing you can do is view events with undue solemnity. The Brain Gremlin understands this. Indeed, most of the toothy monsters that populate Dante’s wild 1990 film (possibly his finest) possess the same sly, self-aware sense of humour regarding the hazy boundary separating daily routine and absolute bedlam. It’s a particular aspect of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that maintains my loyalty – and as I age, it’s the underlying idea that resonates the most.

An Early Life Obsession

Understandably, my fondness for this movie did not begin on such an introspective level. Growing up, we were limited to a few well-worn videocassettes at home. Included within that collection were Gremlins and its sequel, the latter housed in a thick former-rental sleeve probably bought from an non-chain rental store and sporting growling monsters on its worn-out artwork. I was immediately enamoured and these films wasted no time embedding themselves inside my young, susceptible psyche. From then on, they became an practically routine part of my youthful watching schedule.

Dante’s first film typically gets all the praise, thanks largely to its reputation as a partly frightening holiday classic – and let me be clear, I’ve watched Gremlins on countless occasions. Nevertheless, its successor infrequently obtains the same level of high regard, which feels a travesty. As a kid, I’d always seize the chance to watch Gremlins 2. During sunny school summer breaks, I’d seclude myself indoors and play it. When I obtained my very own TV-VHS combo unit, it continued playing looped in my bedroom. Gradually, it etched itself permanently in my psyche. If my parents noticed this obsession, they appeared unbothered.

Subtler Discoveries and Pop-Culture Nuggets

As I matured, new revelations enriched multiple watches, elevating the fun of watching small emerald creatures happily vandalize 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 auburn-haired worker Marla (Haviland Morris) alluding to his second wife Marla Maples. Fortunately, Clamp demonstrates more humanity than his actual-world equivalent.

The “doomsday” video Clamp plays during peak-Gremlin chaos? I discovered it was based on a real-life “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 alternate cuts of a meta sequence where Gremlins take over the exact movie you are viewing. An edit for movie houses, one for VHS and TV, each providing a grinning portion of meta pop-culture magic ahead of its time.

An Enduring Legacy

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 interviewed Dante about it myself and he had no qualms informing me he made the movie with the direct intention of mocking those who loved its goofy-but-heartfelt predecessor and wanted more. “We were going to make fun of the fact you came to see it,” he gleefully confessed. This anarchic insubordination and resolve to not take his sequel as solemnly as his Warner Bros bosses obviously desired, only increased my affection for it.

When I experienced a unexpected loss in the family recently, 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. Odd, no? Possibly not. The nostalgic calm it provided was needed to dilute my mind’s mourning mire – but the stuff it had bestowed upon me as an adult were similarly beneficial.

Like Gremlins tearing apart a genetics laboratory, there’s certain elements in life you just are powerless over. Dante knows it. The Brain Gremlin knows it too. Sometimes, you have to follow their example: accept the turmoil, commit your entire being into tinned provisions and hunting rifles and try not to approach life with excessive gravity.

It’s powerful existential guidance from a very unlikely source – and it’s why Gremlins 2: The New Batch will forever remain my feelgood film.