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“Well, conditions are quite harsh here. We’re advising all of our clients to put everything they’ve got into preserved goods and firearms.” This nugget of sage advice comes from the Brain Gremlin – a lab-engineered, speaking, glasses-wearing member of the slimy Gremlin horde that infests Manhattan’s high-tech Clamp Tower skyscraper in filmmaker Joe Dante’s unhinged continuation Gremlins 2: The New Batch. At first glance, it’s simply an financial suggestion from one monster to another. However, curiously, it’s also remarkably sound existential counsel. Honestly, hear me out.

When life takes a turn for the worse, the most counterproductive action you can do is approach matters with excessive gravity. The Brain Gremlin grasps this. Indeed, a large portion of the dentally-gifted beasts that populate Dante’s wild 1990 film (arguably his best) possess the same wry, meta funny bone regarding the hazy boundary separating everyday life and absolute bedlam. It’s one element of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that keeps me coming back – and as I age, it’s the underlying idea that strikes the deepest chord.

A Youthful Fixation

Naturally, my fondness for this movie didn’t start on such an philosophical plane. In my youth, we possessed merely a few scratched-up video tapes at home. Among them were Gremlins and its follow-up, the latter housed in a bulky previously-rented case probably bought from an independent video outlet and featuring snarling creatures on its tattered front. I was immediately enamoured and these films quickly proceeded inserting themselves inside my tiny, impressionable mind. Henceforth, they became an almost-daily part of my childhood viewing routine.

Dante’s original commonly garners all the praise, thanks mostly because of its reputation as a partly frightening holiday classic – and let me be clear, I’ve watched Gremlins on countless occasions. Nevertheless, its successor 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 sunny school summer breaks, I’d retreat into the house and pop it in. When I obtained my very own TV-VHS combo unit, it remained on repeat in my bedroom. Over time, it etched itself permanently in my mindset. If my parents detected this preoccupation, they appeared unbothered.

Subtler Discoveries and Pop-Culture Nuggets

As I got older, new understandings enhanced multiple watches, heightening the enjoyment of watching diminutive verdant beasts joyously wreck a New York high-rise. I learned the ahead-of-its-time development mogul and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was based squarely upon the eventual commander-in-chief Donald Trump, with his auburn-haired worker Marla (Haviland Morris) alluding to his former spouse Marla Maples. Luckily, Clamp demonstrates more humanity than his real-life counterpart.

The “apocalyptic” video Clamp plays during peak-Gremlin chaos? I discovered it was modeled after a real-life “Doomsday” video produced by the CNN boss Ted Turner in case the world actually met its demise. I noticed how Dante went out of his way to film alternate cuts of a self-referential segment where Gremlins hijack the actual feature in progress. One for cinemas, a separate one for tape and broadcast, each providing a grinning portion of self-referential entertainment sorcery before the term was even a thing.

An Enduring Appeal

While it was makeup maestro Rick Baker’s wonderfully grotesque creatures that captured my attention as a child, this hidden treasure maintained my fascination as an adult. In time, I even interviewed Dante about it myself and he had no qualms telling me he made the movie with the direct intention of ridiculing those who loved its silly-yet-sincere predecessor and craved further installments. “We were going to make fun of the fact you came to see it,” he cheerfully disclosed. This cartoonish rebelliousness and commitment to not take his sequel as solemnly as his Warner Bros bosses evidently expected, only increased my affection for it.

When I endured a abrupt familial death not long ago, I was astonished to realize that, during my heightest mourning, all I felt compelled to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Odd, no? Maybe not. The nostalgic calm it offered was needed to dilute my mind’s grief morass – but the perspectives 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 are powerless over. Dante knows it. The Brain Gremlin shares this wisdom. Sometimes, you have to be like them: welcome the pandemonium, commit your entire being into canned food and shotguns and try not to take things too seriously.

It’s robust worldly wisdom from a most improbable origin – and it’s why Gremlins 2: The New Batch will always be my go-to cinematic solace.