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“Well, conditions are quite harsh here. Our recommendation is all of our clients to put everything they’ve got into canned food and shotguns.” This nugget of sage advice comes from the Brain Gremlin – a scientifically altered, speaking, spectacled 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. Superficially, it’s merely an financial suggestion from one monster to another. However, curiously, it’s also remarkably sound life guidance. Truly, listen to my reasoning.

When situations deteriorate, the biggest mistake you can do is view events with undue solemnity. The Brain Gremlin comprehends this. Actually, most of the dentally-gifted beasts that populate Dante’s unrestrained 1990 movie (arguably his best) possess the same wry, meta sense of humour regarding the hazy boundary separating the mundane and absolute bedlam. It’s a single component of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that keeps me coming back – and with the passage of time, it’s the underlying idea that strikes the deepest chord.

A Youthful Fascination

Of course, my attachment to this movie didn’t start on such an philosophical plane. Growing up, we only had a few scratched-up video tapes at home. Among them were Gremlins and its second chapter, the latter housed in a chunky ex-rental box almost certainly acquired from an independent video outlet and featuring grimacing beasts on its tattered front. I was immediately enamoured and these films quickly proceeded inserting themselves inside my tiny, impressionable mind. After that point, they became an near-everyday part of my childhood viewing routine.

Dante’s first film commonly garners all the accolades, thanks largely to its status as a moderately spooky festive favorite – and let me be clear, I’ve watched Gremlins an incalculable number of times. However, its successor rarely gets the same level of elevated esteem, which feels criminal. As a kid, I’d invariably jump at the prospect to watch Gremlins 2. During long summer holidays, I’d seclude myself indoors and pop it in. When I acquired my personal TV-VHS combo unit, it stayed in constant rotation in my bedroom. Over time, it ingrained itself in my psyche. If my parents noticed this obsession, they didn’t seem to mind.

Hidden Discoveries and Societal Easter Eggs

As I grew, new insights rewarded repeat viewings, 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 modeled closely on the later-to-be-president Donald Trump, with his ginger staff member Marla (Haviland Morris) referencing his one-time partner Marla Maples. Thankfully, Clamp has more heart than his real-life counterpart.

The “apocalyptic” video Clamp plays during maximum monster mayhem? I discovered it was inspired by a real-life “Doomsday” video produced by the CNN boss Ted Turner should the world really ended. I noticed how Dante went out of his way to film alternate cuts of a self-referential segment where Gremlins seize control of the exact movie you are viewing. One for cinemas, another for home video and television, each delivering a smirking slice of fourth-wall-breaking cultural alchemy before the term was even a thing.

A Persistent Appeal

While it was creature designer Rick Baker’s wonderfully grotesque creatures that caught my eye as a child, this subsurface richness kept me hooked as an adult. Eventually, I even spoke to Dante about it myself and he had no qualms revealing to me he made the movie with the direct intention of mocking those who loved its absurd-yet-genuine predecessor and craved further installments. “We were going to make fun of the fact you came to see it,” he happily revealed. This anarchic defiance and determination to not take his sequel as gravely as his Warner Bros bosses clearly wanted him to, only increased my affection for it.

When I experienced a unexpected loss in the family earlier this year, I was taken aback to discover that, during my deepest grief, all I felt compelled to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Odd, no? Maybe not. The soothing reminiscence it offered was necessary to thin out my mind’s mourning mire – but the insights it had bestowed upon me as an adult were just as useful.

Like Gremlins rampaging through a genetics laboratory, there’s particular aspects in life you just can’t control. Dante knows it. The Brain Gremlin knows it too. Sometimes, you have to emulate them: accept the turmoil, put everything you’ve got into preserved goods and firearms and try not to view the world with undue solemnity.

It’s powerful existential guidance from a very unlikely source – and it’s why Gremlins 2: The New Batch will forever remain my comfort movie.