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“Well, conditions are quite harsh here. Our recommendation is all of our clients to invest all their resources into canned food and shotguns.” This piece of wise counsel comes from the Brain Gremlin – a lab-engineered, speaking, glasses-wearing member of the slick creature crowd that swarms Manhattan’s ultra-modern Clamp Tower skyscraper in helmer Joe Dante’s zany follow-up Gremlins 2: The New Batch. On the surface, it’s nothing more than an investment tip from one monster to another. However, curiously, it’s also pretty solid life guidance. Honestly, hear me out.

When situations deteriorate, the worst thing you can do is approach matters with excessive gravity. The Brain Gremlin understands this. In fact, most of the dentally-gifted beasts that inhabit Dante’s chaotic 1990 feature (debateably his greatest) possess the same sly, self-aware comic sensibility regarding the indistinct border separating everyday life and unadulterated chaos. It’s a particular aspect of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that maintains my loyalty – and the older I get, it’s the theme that strikes the deepest chord.

A Youthful Fixation

Understandably, my fondness for this movie wasn’t born on such an philosophical plane. As a child, we possessed merely a few battered VHS tapes at home. Included within that collection were Gremlins and its sequel, the latter housed in a thick former-rental sleeve likely purchased from an off-brand video shop and featuring snarling creatures on its tattered front. I was immediately enamoured and these films did not delay inserting themselves inside my tiny, impressionable mind. After that point, they became an practically routine part of my youthful watching schedule.

Dante’s original commonly garners all the plaudits, thanks largely to its legacy as a partly frightening holiday classic – and let me be clear, I’ve watched Gremlins an incalculable number of times. That said, its sequel seldom receives the same level of lofty appreciation, which feels unjust. As a kid, I’d always seize the chance to watch Gremlins 2. During sunny school summer breaks, I’d seclude myself indoors and stick it on. When I got my own TV-VHS combo unit, it remained on repeat in my bedroom. With repetition, it became deeply rooted in my mental framework. If my parents noticed this obsession, they gave no indication of concern.

Subtler Rewards and Cultural Nuggets

As I matured, new understandings rewarded multiple watches, heightening the enjoyment of watching diminutive verdant beasts 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 auburn-haired worker Marla (Haviland Morris) alluding to his one-time partner Marla Maples. Thankfully, Clamp demonstrates more humanity than his genuine article inspiration.

The “end of civilisation” video Clamp plays during peak-Gremlin chaos? I discovered it was inspired by a real-life “Doomsday” video produced by the CNN boss Ted Turner as a contingency for the world actually met its demise. I noticed how Dante made a special effort to film different iterations of a meta sequence where Gremlins take over the exact movie you are viewing. An edit for movie houses, another for home video and television, each offering a winking bit of meta pop-culture magic prior to the concept being mainstream.

A Persistent Influence

While it was effects expert Rick Baker’s fantastically vile creatures that caught my eye as a child, this deeper gold kept me hooked as an adult. In time, I even conversed with Dante about it myself and he had no hesitation telling me he made the movie with the direct intention of mocking 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 evidently expected, only made me love it even more.

When I endured a unexpected loss in the family not long ago, I was taken aback to discover that, during my most profound sorrow, 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 thin out my mind’s sadness sludge – but the perspectives it had imparted to me as an adult were similarly beneficial.

Like Gremlins rampaging through a genetics laboratory, there’s certain elements in life you just cannot manage. Dante is aware of it. The Brain Gremlin shares this wisdom. Sometimes, you have to follow their example: embrace the chaos, commit your entire being into canned food and shotguns and try not to approach life with excessive gravity.

It’s robust worldly wisdom from a most improbable origin – and it’s why Gremlins 2: The New Batch will eternally stand as my comfort movie.