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“Well, the situation is pretty dire here. Our recommendation is all of our clients to put everything they’ve got into canned food and shotguns.” That bit of shrewd guidance comes from the Brain Gremlin – a scientifically altered, speaking, spectacled member of the slick creature crowd that swarms Manhattan’s ultra-modern Clamp Tower skyscraper in director Joe Dante’s unhinged continuation Gremlins 2: The New Batch. On the surface, it’s nothing more than an financial suggestion from one monster to another. Yet, curiously, it’s also remarkably sound existential counsel. Truly, listen to my reasoning.

When life takes a turn for the worse, the biggest mistake you can do is approach matters with excessive gravity. The Brain Gremlin grasps this. In fact, most of the fang-bearing creatures that populate Dante’s unrestrained 1990 movie (debateably his greatest) possess the same wry, meta funny bone regarding the indistinct border separating daily routine and absolute bedlam. It’s a single component of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that ensures my return – and the older I get, it’s the message that resonates the most.

A Youthful Fascination

Naturally, my connection with this movie did not begin on such an introspective level. As a child, we possessed merely a few well-worn videocassettes at home. Among them were Gremlins and its follow-up, the latter housed in a thick former-rental sleeve almost certainly acquired from an off-brand video shop and boasting snarling creatures on its tattered front. I was right away smitten and these films quickly proceeded embedding themselves inside my tiny, impressionable mind. From then on, they became an practically routine part of my childhood viewing routine.

Dante’s original commonly garners all the praise, thanks largely to its reputation as a moderately spooky festive favorite – and let me be clear, I’ve watched Gremlins an incalculable number of times. That said, its follow-up infrequently obtains the same level of high regard, which feels criminal. As a kid, I’d invariably jump at the prospect to watch Gremlins 2. During sunny school summer breaks, I’d lock myself inside and stick it on. When I obtained my very own TV-VHS combo unit, it stayed in constant rotation in my bedroom. Gradually, it etched itself permanently in my psyche. If my parents observed this fixation, they didn’t seem to mind.

Hidden Discoveries and Cultural References

As I got older, new insights rewarded frequent screenings, elevating the fun of watching small emerald creatures gleefully trash a New York high-rise. I learned the forward-thinking real estate tycoon and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was inspired directly by future president Donald Trump, with his ginger staff member Marla (Haviland Morris) alluding to his one-time partner Marla Maples. Thankfully, Clamp has more heart than his genuine article inspiration.

The “apocalyptic” video Clamp plays during peak-Gremlin chaos? I discovered it was inspired by a actual “Doomsday” video created by the CNN boss Ted Turner as a contingency for the world truly faced apocalypse. I noticed how Dante took extra pains to film alternate cuts of a meta sequence where Gremlins hijack the exact movie you are viewing. One for cinemas, another for home video and television, each offering a winking bit of fourth-wall-breaking cultural alchemy before the term was even a thing.

An Enduring Legacy

While it was effects expert Rick Baker’s gloriously nasty-looking creatures that caught my eye as a child, this hidden treasure maintained my fascination as an adult. In time, I even spoke to Dante about it myself and he had no reservations revealing to me he made the movie with the specific aim of poking fun at 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 Looney Tunes-esque defiance and determination to not take his sequel as gravely as his Warner Bros bosses obviously desired, only increased my affection for it.

When I went through a unexpected loss in the family recently, I was taken aback to discover that, during my deepest grief, all I wanted to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Strange, isn’t it? Perhaps not. The comforting familiarity it furnished was essential to thin out my mind’s grief morass – but the perspectives it had bestowed upon me as an adult were just as useful.

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 shares this wisdom. 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 strong life advice from a highly unexpected fountain – and it’s why Gremlins 2: The New Batch will always be my go-to cinematic solace.