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“Well, it’s rather brutal here. The guidance we offer all of our clients to put everything they’ve got into tinned provisions and hunting rifles.” This piece of wise counsel comes from the Brain Gremlin – a genetically modified, speaking, bespectacled member of the slick creature crowd that overruns Manhattan’s high-tech Clamp Tower skyscraper in director Joe Dante’s madcap sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch. On the surface, it’s merely an investment tip from one monster to another. But, in a strange manner, it’s also surprisingly sturdy life guidance. Truly, consider my perspective.

When life takes a turn for the worse, the biggest mistake you can do is view events with undue solemnity. The Brain Gremlin comprehends this. Indeed, the majority of the fang-bearing creatures that inhabit Dante’s unrestrained 1990 movie (possibly his finest) possess the same wry, meta funny bone regarding the blurry line separating the mundane and absolute bedlam. It’s a single component of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that ensures my return – and with the passage of time, it’s the underlying idea that strikes the deepest chord.

A Childhood Fascination

Naturally, my fondness for this movie wasn’t born on such an introspective level. In my youth, we were limited to a few well-worn videocassettes at home. Part of that group were Gremlins and its follow-up, the latter housed in a chunky ex-rental box likely purchased from an off-brand video shop and boasting growling monsters on its knackered cover. I was instantly captivated and these films did not delay lodging themselves inside my tiny, impressionable mind. After that point, they became an almost-daily part of my childhood viewing routine.

Dante’s first film commonly garners all the praise, thanks mostly because of its reputation as a partly frightening holiday classic – and don’t get me wrong, I’ve watched Gremlins more times than I can count. However, its successor seldom receives the same level of lofty appreciation, which feels criminal. As a kid, I’d invariably jump at the prospect to watch Gremlins 2. During sunny school summer breaks, I’d seclude myself indoors and stick it on. When I acquired my personal TV-VHS combo unit, it stayed in constant rotation in my bedroom. With repetition, it ingrained itself in my mental framework. If my parents noticed this obsession, they didn’t seem to mind.

Hidden Rewards and Pop-Culture Easter Eggs

As I grew, new insights enhanced repeat viewings, elevating the fun of watching small emerald creatures gleefully trash a New York high-rise. I learned the future-focused development mogul and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was inspired directly by the later-to-be-president Donald Trump, with his ginger staff member Marla (Haviland Morris) referencing his second wife Marla Maples. Thankfully, Clamp demonstrates more humanity than his real-life counterpart.

The “apocalyptic” video Clamp plays during maximum monster mayhem? I discovered it was inspired by a actual “Doomsday” video commissioned 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 different iterations of a meta sequence where Gremlins hijack the exact movie you are viewing. An edit for movie houses, one for VHS and TV, each providing a grinning portion of meta pop-culture magic before the term was even a thing.

An Enduring Appeal

While it was makeup maestro Rick Baker’s wonderfully grotesque creatures that drew my gaze as a child, this subsurface richness kept me hooked as an adult. Ultimately, I even interviewed Dante about it myself and he had no reservations informing me he made the movie with the express purpose 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 gleefully confessed. This cartoonish defiance and determination to not take his sequel as solemnly 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 astonished to realize that, during my deepest grief, all I wanted to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Weird, right? Possibly not. The soothing reminiscence it furnished was needed to weaken my mind’s grief morass – but the insights it had imparted to me as an adult were just as useful.

Like Gremlins rampaging through a genetics laboratory, there’s certain elements in life you just are powerless over. Dante is aware of it. The Brain Gremlin knows it too. Sometimes, you have to be like them: welcome the pandemonium, put everything you’ve got into tinned provisions and hunting rifles and try not to take things too seriously.

It’s robust worldly wisdom from a very unlikely source – and it’s the reason Gremlins 2: The New Batch will forever remain my feelgood film.