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“Well, the situation is pretty dire here. The guidance we offer all of our clients to put everything they’ve got into canned food and shotguns.” This piece of shrewd guidance comes from the Brain Gremlin – a lab-engineered, articulate, bespectacled member of the slick creature crowd that infests Manhattan’s ultra-modern Clamp Tower skyscraper in director Joe Dante’s madcap sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Superficially, it’s nothing more than an financial suggestion from one monster to another. Yet, curiously, it’s also pretty solid life guidance. Honestly, consider my perspective.

When life takes a turn for the worse, the worst thing you can do is approach matters with excessive gravity. The Brain Gremlin understands this. Indeed, a large portion of the dentally-gifted beasts that occupy Dante’s wild 1990 film (possibly his finest) possess the same knowing, self-referential comic sensibility regarding the indistinct border separating the mundane and pure pandemonium. It’s a single component of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that ensures my return – and as I age, it’s the message that strikes the deepest chord.

A Youthful Fixation

Naturally, my connection with this movie wasn’t born on such an introspective level. Growing up, we were limited to a few well-worn videocassettes at home. Included within that collection were Gremlins and its sequel, the latter housed in a chunky ex-rental box probably bought from an non-chain rental store and sporting growling monsters on its tattered front. I was right away smitten and these films did not delay lodging themselves inside my young, susceptible psyche. Henceforth, they became an near-everyday part of my childhood viewing routine.

Dante’s first film usually receives all the accolades, thanks mostly because of its legacy as a partly frightening holiday classic – and let me be clear, I’ve watched Gremlins on countless occasions. That said, its follow-up rarely gets the same level of lofty appreciation, which feels criminal. As a kid, I’d never miss an opportunity to watch Gremlins 2. During bright summer vacations, I’d lock myself inside and pop it in. When I obtained my very own TV-VHS combo unit, it continued playing looped in my bedroom. With repetition, it ingrained itself in my mental framework. If my parents detected this preoccupation, they appeared unbothered.

Hidden Delights and Societal Nuggets

As I got older, new understandings enriched multiple watches, elevating the fun of watching diminutive verdant beasts joyously wreck a New York high-rise. I learned the ahead-of-its-time property magnate and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was based squarely upon the later-to-be-president Donald Trump, with his ginger staff member Marla (Haviland Morris) referencing his one-time partner Marla Maples. Fortunately, Clamp has more heart than his real-life counterpart.

The “apocalyptic” video Clamp plays during maximum monster mayhem? I discovered it was modeled after a actual “Doomsday” video produced by the CNN boss Ted Turner as a contingency for the world truly faced apocalypse. I noticed how Dante went out of his way to film varying versions of a meta sequence where Gremlins seize control of the very film you’re watching. A version for theaters, one for VHS and TV, each delivering a smirking slice of meta pop-culture magic ahead of its time.

An Enduring Legacy

While it was effects expert Rick Baker’s wonderfully grotesque creatures that captured my attention as a child, this subsurface richness held my interest as an adult. In time, I even spoke to Dante about it myself and he had no hesitation telling me he made the movie with the express purpose of poking fun at 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 cartoonish defiance and resolve to not take his sequel as gravely as his Warner Bros bosses obviously desired, only increased my affection for it.

When I endured a sudden family bereavement not long ago, I was taken aback to discover that, during my most profound sorrow, all I desired to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Strange, isn’t it? Possibly not. The comforting familiarity it furnished was necessary to thin out my mind’s grief morass – but the stuff it had given me as an adult were just as useful.

Like Gremlins running amok in a genetics laboratory, there’s some things in life you just are powerless over. Dante understands this. The Brain Gremlin knows it too. Sometimes, you have to be like them: accept the turmoil, put everything you’ve got into tinned provisions and hunting rifles and try not to approach life with excessive gravity.

It’s powerful existential guidance from a very unlikely source – and it’s why Gremlins 2: The New Batch will always be my feelgood film.