🔗 Share this article

“Well, the situation is pretty dire here. The guidance we offer all of our clients to commit their entire holdings into canned food and shotguns.” That bit of wise counsel comes from the Brain Gremlin – a lab-engineered, talking, glasses-wearing member of the slick creature crowd that overruns Manhattan’s ultra-modern 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. Seriously, hear me out.

When situations deteriorate, the biggest mistake you can do is approach matters with excessive gravity. The Brain Gremlin understands this. In fact, the majority of the fang-bearing creatures that inhabit Dante’s chaotic 1990 feature (arguably his best) possess the same sly, self-aware funny bone regarding the blurry line separating everyday life and unadulterated chaos. It’s one element of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that ensures my return – and the older I get, it’s the theme that echoes the loudest.

A Childhood Obsession

Understandably, my connection with this movie did not begin on such an introspective level. In my youth, we possessed merely a few well-worn videocassettes 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 sporting 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 youthful watching schedule.

Dante’s original typically gets all the plaudits, thanks mostly because of its legacy as a partly frightening holiday classic – and to be fair, I’ve watched Gremlins an incalculable number of times. Nevertheless, its sequel rarely gets the same level of elevated esteem, which feels a travesty. As a kid, I’d always seize the chance to watch Gremlins 2. During long summer holidays, I’d retreat into the house and play it. When I got my own TV-VHS combo unit, it remained on repeat in my bedroom. Over time, it ingrained itself in my mindset. If my parents detected this preoccupation, they didn’t seem to mind.

Subtler Discoveries and Cultural References

As I got older, new insights enhanced repeat viewings, amplifying the pleasure of watching diminutive verdant beasts joyously wreck a New York high-rise. I learned the forward-thinking property magnate and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was based squarely upon the eventual commander-in-chief Donald Trump, with his ginger staff member Marla (Haviland Morris) alluding to his second wife Marla Maples. Luckily, Clamp possesses greater compassion than his actual-world equivalent.

The “end of civilisation” video Clamp plays during the height of creature carnage? I discovered it was modeled after a actual “Doomsday” video created by the CNN boss Ted Turner in case the world truly faced apocalypse. I noticed how Dante made a special effort to film different iterations of a self-aware scene where Gremlins seize control of the actual feature in progress. One for cinemas, a separate one for tape and broadcast, each delivering a smirking slice of fourth-wall-breaking cultural alchemy before the term was even a thing.

A Persistent Influence

While it was effects expert Rick Baker’s gloriously nasty-looking creatures that drew my gaze as a child, this deeper gold kept me hooked as an adult. Ultimately, I even spoke to Dante about it myself and he had no qualms revealing to me he made the movie with the specific aim of poking fun at those who loved its goofy-but-heartfelt predecessor and craved further installments. “We were going to make fun of the fact you came to see it,” he gleefully confessed. This anarchic defiance and resolve to not take his sequel as gravely as his Warner Bros bosses evidently expected, only increased my affection for it.

When I went through a abrupt familial death earlier this year, I was astonished to realize that, during my most profound sorrow, all I wanted to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Strange, isn’t it? Possibly not. The nostalgic calm it provided was essential to thin out my mind’s mourning mire – but the perspectives it had given me as an adult were similarly beneficial.

Like Gremlins tearing apart a genetics laboratory, there’s certain elements in life you just can’t control. Dante is aware of it. The Brain Gremlin agrees completely. Sometimes, you have to emulate them: embrace the chaos, put everything you’ve got into tinned provisions and hunting rifles and try not to take things too seriously.

It’s powerful existential guidance from a very unlikely source – and it’s why Gremlins 2: The New Batch will eternally stand as my feelgood film.