🔗 Share this article

“Well, the situation is pretty dire here. We’re advising all of our clients to invest all their resources into preserved goods and firearms.” This nugget of shrewd guidance comes from the Brain Gremlin – a lab-engineered, talking, bespectacled member of the slimy Gremlin horde that overruns Manhattan’s super-smart Clamp Tower skyscraper in director Joe Dante’s madcap sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Superficially, it’s nothing more than an portfolio pointer from one monster to another. Yet, curiously, it’s also pretty solid life advice. Honestly, hear me out.

When situations deteriorate, the most counterproductive action you can do is approach matters with excessive gravity. The Brain Gremlin comprehends this. Actually, most of the fang-bearing creatures that occupy Dante’s chaotic 1990 feature (possibly his finest) possess the same sly, self-aware comic sensibility regarding the indistinct border separating everyday life and pure pandemonium. It’s a single component of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that keeps me coming back – and the older I get, it’s the underlying idea that echoes the loudest.

A Youthful Obsession

Naturally, my fondness for this movie didn’t start on such an introspective level. As a child, we only had a few battered VHS tapes at home. Part of that group were Gremlins and its follow-up, the latter housed in a thick former-rental sleeve probably bought from an non-chain rental store and featuring grimacing beasts on its worn-out artwork. I was instantly captivated and these films did not delay inserting themselves inside my young, susceptible psyche. From then on, they became an practically routine part of my youthful watching schedule.

Dante’s original typically gets all the praise, thanks mostly because of its status as a partly frightening holiday classic – and to be fair, I’ve watched Gremlins on countless occasions. Nevertheless, its follow-up rarely gets the same level of lofty appreciation, which feels criminal. As a kid, I’d never miss an opportunity to watch Gremlins 2. During sunny school summer breaks, I’d seclude myself indoors and pop it in. When I acquired my personal TV-VHS combo unit, it stayed in constant rotation in my bedroom. With repetition, it became deeply rooted in my mindset. If my parents detected this preoccupation, they appeared unbothered.

Subtler Delights and Cultural Nuggets

As I matured, new understandings rewarded multiple watches, heightening the enjoyment 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 modeled closely on the eventual commander-in-chief Donald Trump, with his auburn-haired worker Marla (Haviland Morris) alluding to his one-time partner Marla Maples. Thankfully, Clamp demonstrates more humanity than his genuine article inspiration.

The “doomsday” video Clamp plays during peak-Gremlin chaos? I discovered it was based on 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 meta sequence where Gremlins take over the exact movie you are viewing. One for cinemas, another for home video and television, each providing a grinning portion of fourth-wall-breaking cultural alchemy before the term was even a thing.

A Lasting Appeal

While it was makeup maestro Rick Baker’s gloriously nasty-looking creatures that caught my eye as a child, this hidden treasure maintained my fascination as an adult. Eventually, I even conversed with Dante about it myself and he had no reservations telling me he made the movie with the express purpose of poking fun at 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 cheerfully disclosed. This anarchic rebelliousness and resolve to not take his sequel as seriously as his Warner Bros bosses obviously desired, only made me love it even more.

When I went through a sudden family bereavement earlier this year, I was taken aback to discover that, during my heightest mourning, all I felt compelled to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Strange, isn’t it? Maybe not. The comforting familiarity it furnished was needed to weaken my mind’s grief morass – but the stuff it had bestowed upon me as an adult were similarly beneficial.

Like Gremlins rampaging through a genetics laboratory, there’s certain elements in life you just are powerless over. Dante knows it. The Brain Gremlin shares this wisdom. Sometimes, you have to emulate them: embrace the chaos, invest all your resources into canned food and shotguns and try not to view the world with undue solemnity.

It’s robust worldly wisdom from a very unlikely source – and it’s why Gremlins 2: The New Batch will forever remain my go-to cinematic solace.