🔗 Share this article

“Well, it’s rather brutal here. We’re advising all of our clients to put everything they’ve got into tinned provisions and hunting rifles.” This nugget of wise counsel comes from the Brain Gremlin – a scientifically altered, speaking, bespectacled member of the slick creature crowd that infests Manhattan’s high-tech Clamp Tower skyscraper in helmer Joe Dante’s madcap sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Superficially, it’s merely an investment tip from one monster to another. Yet, curiously, it’s also surprisingly sturdy life advice. Honestly, listen to my reasoning.

When situations deteriorate, the biggest mistake you can do is view events with undue solemnity. The Brain Gremlin grasps this. Actually, the majority of the fang-bearing creatures that inhabit Dante’s chaotic 1990 feature (debateably his greatest) possess the same knowing, self-referential comic sensibility regarding the hazy boundary separating daily routine and absolute bedlam. It’s one element of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that ensures my return – and the older I get, it’s the theme that strikes the deepest chord.

A Youthful Fixation

Of course, my attachment to this movie didn’t start on such an deeply thoughtful note. As a child, we possessed merely a few battered VHS tapes at home. Part of that group were Gremlins and its second chapter, the latter housed in a bulky previously-rented case likely purchased from an off-brand video shop and featuring growling monsters on its knackered cover. I was right away smitten and these films quickly proceeded inserting themselves inside my small, malleable brain. Henceforth, they became an almost-daily part of my early years entertainment regimen.

Dante’s initial installment commonly garners all the plaudits, thanks largely to its reputation as a moderately spooky festive favorite – and let me be clear, I’ve watched Gremlins on countless occasions. However, its successor rarely gets the same level of lofty appreciation, which feels unjust. As a kid, I’d always seize the chance to watch Gremlins 2. During bright summer vacations, I’d seclude myself indoors and play it. When I got my own TV-VHS combo unit, it stayed in constant rotation in my bedroom. Gradually, it became deeply rooted in my psyche. If my parents detected this preoccupation, they appeared unbothered.

Subtler Delights and Societal Nuggets

As I grew, new insights enhanced repeat viewings, heightening the enjoyment of watching little green monsters joyously wreck a New York high-rise. I learned the future-focused property magnate and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was modeled closely on the later-to-be-president Donald Trump, with his ginger staff member Marla (Haviland Morris) echoing his one-time partner Marla Maples. Luckily, Clamp demonstrates more humanity than his genuine article inspiration.

The “apocalyptic” video Clamp plays during the height of creature carnage? I discovered it was based on a real-life “Doomsday” video commissioned by the CNN boss Ted Turner should the world really ended. I noticed how Dante took extra pains to film varying versions of a self-aware scene where Gremlins hijack the exact movie you are viewing. An edit for movie houses, another for home video and television, each offering a winking bit of meta pop-culture magic ahead of its time.

A Lasting Appeal

While it was makeup maestro Rick Baker’s fantastically vile creatures that drew my gaze as a child, this hidden treasure kept me hooked as an adult. Ultimately, I even conversed with Dante about it myself and he had no reservations telling me he made the movie with the express purpose 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 gleefully confessed. This Looney Tunes-esque defiance and determination to not take his sequel as solemnly as his Warner Bros bosses evidently expected, only increased my affection for it.

When I went through a abrupt familial death recently, I was astonished to realize that, during my heightest mourning, all I felt compelled to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Weird, right? Maybe not. The nostalgic calm it offered was essential to dilute my mind’s grief morass – but the perspectives it had given me as an adult were equally valuable.

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 be like them: welcome the pandemonium, invest all your resources into canned food and shotguns and try not to take things too seriously.

It’s robust worldly wisdom from a most improbable origin – and it’s the reason Gremlins 2: The New Batch will forever remain my go-to cinematic solace.