🔗 Share this article

“Well, it’s rather brutal here. The guidance we offer all of our clients to put everything they’ve got into canned food and shotguns.” This nugget of wise counsel comes from the Brain Gremlin – a genetically modified, speaking, spectacled member of the oozy monster mob that infests Manhattan’s super-smart Clamp Tower skyscraper in filmmaker Joe Dante’s zany follow-up Gremlins 2: The New Batch. At first glance, it’s merely an investment tip from one monster to another. Yet, curiously, it’s also surprisingly sturdy life guidance. Seriously, hear me out.

When things go bad, the biggest mistake you can do is take things too seriously. The Brain Gremlin understands this. Indeed, a large portion of the toothy monsters that populate Dante’s wild 1990 film (debateably his greatest) possess the same wry, meta comic sensibility regarding the blurry line separating daily routine and absolute bedlam. It’s a particular aspect of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that ensures my return – and with the passage of time, it’s the underlying idea that echoes the loudest.

A Youthful Fascination

Understandably, my connection with this movie did not begin on such an philosophical plane. In my youth, 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 independent video outlet and sporting grimacing beasts on its worn-out artwork. I was right away smitten and these films wasted no time lodging themselves inside my young, susceptible psyche. Henceforth, they became an practically routine part of my youthful watching schedule.

Dante’s original commonly garners all the praise, thanks largely to its reputation as a semi-scary seasonal fave – and let me be clear, I’ve watched Gremlins an incalculable number of times. Nevertheless, its follow-up infrequently obtains the same level of lofty appreciation, which feels a travesty. 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 got my own TV-VHS combo unit, it remained on repeat in my bedroom. Gradually, it became deeply rooted in my mindset. If my parents detected this preoccupation, they appeared unbothered.

Hidden Rewards and Societal References

As I got older, new insights rewarded repeat viewings, elevating the fun of watching diminutive verdant beasts happily vandalize a New York high-rise. I learned the ahead-of-its-time development mogul and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was modeled closely on the eventual commander-in-chief Donald Trump, with his ginger staff member Marla (Haviland Morris) alluding to his second wife Marla Maples. Fortunately, Clamp has more heart than his genuine article inspiration.

The “doomsday” video Clamp plays during maximum monster mayhem? I discovered it was modeled after a genuine “Doomsday” video produced by the CNN boss Ted Turner in case the world truly faced apocalypse. I noticed how Dante took extra pains to film varying versions of a self-aware scene where Gremlins take over the actual feature in progress. A version for theaters, another for home video and television, each offering a winking bit of self-referential entertainment sorcery ahead of its time.

An Enduring Legacy

While it was makeup maestro Rick Baker’s fantastically vile creatures that captured my attention as a child, this subsurface richness kept me hooked as an adult. In time, I even conversed with Dante about it myself and he had no reservations 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 defiance and determination to not take his sequel as seriously as his Warner Bros bosses clearly wanted him to, only deepened my appreciation further.

When I went through a sudden family bereavement recently, I was surprised to find that, during my deepest grief, all I felt compelled to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Strange, isn’t it? Maybe not. The nostalgic calm it furnished was essential to thin out my mind’s grief morass – but the stuff it had given me as an adult were similarly beneficial.

Like Gremlins tearing apart a genetics laboratory, there’s particular aspects in life you just cannot manage. Dante knows it. The Brain Gremlin shares this wisdom. Sometimes, you have to be like them: welcome the pandemonium, commit your entire being into tinned provisions and hunting rifles and try not to take things too seriously.

It’s robust worldly wisdom from a very unlikely source – and it’s the reason Gremlins 2: The New Batch will eternally stand as my comfort movie.