🔗 Share this article

“Well, it’s rather brutal here. Our recommendation is all of our clients to put everything they’ve got into preserved goods and firearms.” This nugget of shrewd guidance comes from the Brain Gremlin – a lab-engineered, talking, spectacled member of the slick creature crowd that swarms Manhattan’s high-tech Clamp Tower skyscraper in director Joe Dante’s madcap sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch. On the surface, it’s nothing more than an investment tip from one monster to another. But, in a strange manner, it’s also pretty solid life guidance. Truly, consider my perspective.

When things go bad, the worst thing you can do is approach matters with excessive gravity. The Brain Gremlin understands this. In fact, a large portion of the dentally-gifted beasts that inhabit Dante’s wild 1990 film (possibly his finest) possess the same sly, self-aware comic sensibility regarding the hazy boundary separating the mundane and unadulterated chaos. It’s a single component of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that maintains my loyalty – and as I age, it’s the underlying idea that strikes the deepest chord.

An Early Life Fascination

Of course, my connection with this movie did not begin on such an deeply thoughtful note. As a child, we possessed merely 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 almost certainly acquired from an non-chain rental store and boasting grimacing beasts on its knackered cover. I was immediately enamoured and these films quickly proceeded inserting 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 primarily due to its reputation as a moderately spooky festive favorite – and let me be clear, I’ve watched Gremlins on countless occasions. However, its successor infrequently obtains the same level of high regard, which feels unjust. As a kid, I’d never miss an opportunity to watch Gremlins 2. During bright summer vacations, I’d lock myself inside and play it. When I acquired my personal 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 appeared unbothered.

Subtler Discoveries and Cultural Easter Eggs

As I got older, new insights rewarded frequent screenings, amplifying the pleasure of watching small emerald creatures joyously wreck a New York high-rise. I learned the future-focused real estate tycoon and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was modeled closely on the eventual commander-in-chief Donald Trump, with his red-headed employee Marla (Haviland Morris) referencing his one-time partner Marla Maples. Fortunately, Clamp demonstrates more humanity than his real-life counterpart.

The “doomsday” video Clamp plays during the height of creature carnage? I discovered it was based on a real-life “Doomsday” video produced by the CNN boss Ted Turner should the world truly faced apocalypse. I noticed how Dante went out of his way to film alternate cuts of a meta sequence where Gremlins hijack the actual feature in progress. An edit for movie houses, a separate one for tape and broadcast, each providing a grinning portion of meta pop-culture magic before the term was even a thing.

A Persistent Influence

While it was makeup maestro Rick Baker’s wonderfully grotesque creatures that captured my attention 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 hesitation revealing to me he made the movie with the specific aim of mocking those who loved its silly-yet-sincere predecessor and wanted more. “We were going to make fun of the fact you came to see it,” he happily revealed. This Looney Tunes-esque insubordination and commitment to not take his sequel as solemnly as his Warner Bros bosses clearly wanted him to, only made me love it even more.

When I endured a unexpected loss in the family earlier this year, I was astonished to realize that, during my deepest grief, all I felt compelled to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Weird, right? Maybe not. The nostalgic calm it furnished was needed to thin out my mind’s grief morass – but the stuff it had bestowed upon me as an adult were just as useful.

Like Gremlins rampaging through a genetics laboratory, there’s certain elements in life you just are powerless over. Dante understands this. The Brain Gremlin knows it too. Sometimes, you have to emulate them: accept the turmoil, put everything you’ve got into canned food and shotguns 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 eternally stand as my go-to cinematic solace.