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“Well, conditions are quite harsh here. Our recommendation is all of our clients to commit their entire holdings into canned food and shotguns.” This nugget of wise counsel comes from the Brain Gremlin – a genetically modified, talking, spectacled member of the oozy monster mob that overruns Manhattan’s high-tech Clamp Tower skyscraper in director Joe Dante’s unhinged continuation Gremlins 2: The New Batch. At first glance, it’s nothing more than an portfolio pointer from one monster to another. However, curiously, it’s also remarkably sound life advice. Truly, hear me out.

When life takes a turn for the worse, the most counterproductive action you can do is view events with undue solemnity. The Brain Gremlin comprehends this. Indeed, most of the dentally-gifted beasts that inhabit Dante’s unrestrained 1990 movie (debateably his greatest) possess the same wry, meta comic sensibility regarding the indistinct border separating the mundane and unadulterated chaos. It’s a single component of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that ensures my return – and the older I get, it’s the underlying idea that strikes the deepest chord.

A Childhood Fascination

Naturally, my attachment to this movie didn’t start on such an introspective level. As a child, we possessed merely a few battered VHS tapes at home. Among them were Gremlins and its second chapter, the latter housed in a chunky ex-rental box likely purchased from an independent video outlet and boasting grimacing beasts on its knackered cover. I was immediately enamoured and these films wasted no time embedding themselves inside my tiny, impressionable mind. After that point, they became an almost-daily part of my early years entertainment regimen.

Dante’s initial installment typically gets all the praise, thanks largely to its reputation as a semi-scary seasonal fave – and to be fair, I’ve watched Gremlins an incalculable number of times. That said, its sequel rarely gets the same level of elevated esteem, which feels unjust. As a kid, I’d invariably jump at the prospect to watch Gremlins 2. During bright summer vacations, I’d lock myself inside and pop it in. When I got my own TV-VHS combo unit, it stayed in constant rotation in my bedroom. With repetition, it ingrained itself in my mental framework. If my parents detected this preoccupation, they didn’t seem to mind.

Subtler Discoveries and Pop-Culture References

As I matured, new insights rewarded frequent screenings, heightening the enjoyment of watching small emerald creatures gleefully trash a New York high-rise. I learned the future-focused real estate tycoon and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was inspired directly by the later-to-be-president Donald Trump, with his red-headed employee Marla (Haviland Morris) echoing his former spouse Marla Maples. Fortunately, Clamp possesses greater compassion than his real-life counterpart.

The “doomsday” video Clamp plays during peak-Gremlin chaos? I discovered it was based on a actual “Doomsday” video produced by the CNN boss Ted Turner in case the world truly faced apocalypse. I noticed how Dante went out of his way to film different iterations of a meta sequence where Gremlins seize control of the exact movie you are viewing. An edit for movie houses, a separate one for tape and broadcast, each offering a winking bit of fourth-wall-breaking cultural alchemy before the term was even a thing.

A Lasting Legacy

While it was makeup maestro Rick Baker’s gloriously nasty-looking creatures that captured my attention as a child, this hidden treasure held my interest as an adult. Ultimately, I even conversed with Dante about it myself and he had no hesitation revealing to me he made the movie with the direct intention of poking fun at 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 cartoonish defiance and determination to not take his sequel as seriously as his Warner Bros bosses clearly wanted him to, only made me love it even more.

When I went through a abrupt familial death 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. Weird, right? Maybe not. The soothing reminiscence it furnished was needed to dilute my mind’s grief morass – but the insights it had imparted to me as an adult were similarly beneficial.

Like Gremlins tearing apart 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 follow their example: welcome the pandemonium, invest all your resources into canned food and shotguns and try not to view the world with undue solemnity.

It’s powerful existential guidance from a most improbable origin – and it’s why Gremlins 2: The New Batch will forever remain my feelgood film.