🔗 Share this article

“Well, it’s rather brutal here. Our recommendation is all of our clients to put everything they’ve got into canned food and shotguns.” This piece of sage advice comes from the Brain Gremlin – a lab-engineered, articulate, bespectacled member of the slick creature crowd that swarms Manhattan’s ultra-modern Clamp Tower skyscraper in filmmaker Joe Dante’s unhinged continuation Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Superficially, it’s merely an portfolio pointer from one monster to another. But, oddly enough, it’s also remarkably sound life guidance. Truly, listen to my reasoning.

When life takes a turn for the worse, the most counterproductive action you can do is view events with undue solemnity. The Brain Gremlin grasps this. Indeed, a large portion of the dentally-gifted beasts that occupy Dante’s chaotic 1990 feature (possibly his finest) possess the same sly, self-aware comic sensibility regarding the hazy boundary separating the mundane and absolute bedlam. It’s one element of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that maintains my loyalty – and the older I get, it’s the theme that echoes the loudest.

An Early Life Fascination

Understandably, my fondness for this movie did not begin on such an philosophical plane. In my youth, we were limited to a few well-worn videocassettes at home. Included within that collection were Gremlins and its second chapter, the latter housed in a chunky ex-rental box probably bought from an off-brand video shop and sporting snarling creatures on its worn-out artwork. I was immediately enamoured and these films quickly proceeded embedding themselves inside my young, susceptible psyche. After that point, they became an practically routine part of my youthful watching schedule.

Dante’s original usually receives all the plaudits, thanks largely to its reputation as a partly frightening holiday classic – and to be fair, I’ve watched Gremlins an incalculable number of times. Nevertheless, its follow-up seldom receives the same level of high regard, which feels criminal. As a kid, I’d always seize the chance to watch Gremlins 2. During bright summer vacations, I’d lock myself inside and stick it on. When I acquired my personal TV-VHS combo unit, it stayed in constant rotation in my bedroom. Gradually, it ingrained itself in my mental framework. If my parents observed this fixation, they appeared unbothered.

Subtler Delights and Societal Nuggets

As I grew, new understandings enhanced multiple watches, amplifying the pleasure of watching little green monsters happily vandalize a New York high-rise. I learned the future-focused property magnate and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was based squarely upon future president Donald Trump, with his red-headed employee Marla (Haviland Morris) alluding to his second wife Marla Maples. Thankfully, Clamp has more heart than his real-life counterpart.

The “end of civilisation” video Clamp plays during the height of creature carnage? I discovered it was inspired by a real-life “Doomsday” video commissioned by the CNN boss Ted Turner as a contingency for the world truly faced apocalypse. I noticed how Dante took extra pains to film different iterations of a self-referential segment where Gremlins take over the actual feature in progress. One for cinemas, another for home video and television, each delivering a smirking slice of fourth-wall-breaking cultural alchemy prior to the concept being mainstream.

A Persistent Appeal

While it was effects expert Rick Baker’s fantastically vile creatures that drew my gaze as a child, this subsurface richness maintained my fascination as an adult. Ultimately, I even spoke to Dante about it myself and he had no hesitation informing me he made the movie with the direct intention of ridiculing those who loved its goofy-but-heartfelt predecessor and desired a sequel. “We were going to make fun of the fact you came to see it,” he gleefully confessed. This anarchic insubordination and resolve to not take his sequel as seriously as his Warner Bros bosses obviously desired, only increased my affection for it.

When I experienced a abrupt familial death earlier this year, I was surprised to find that, during my heightest mourning, all I wanted to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Strange, isn’t it? Possibly not. The soothing reminiscence it furnished was needed to dilute my mind’s mourning mire – but the insights it had imparted to me as an adult were similarly beneficial.

Like Gremlins running amok in a genetics laboratory, there’s some things in life you just can’t control. Dante knows it. The Brain Gremlin shares this wisdom. Sometimes, you have to emulate them: embrace the chaos, commit your entire being into canned food and shotguns 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 forever remain my feelgood film.