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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 shrewd guidance comes from the Brain Gremlin – a lab-engineered, speaking, spectacled member of the oozy monster mob that swarms Manhattan’s high-tech Clamp Tower skyscraper in director Joe Dante’s unhinged continuation Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Superficially, it’s simply an financial suggestion from one monster to another. However, curiously, it’s also pretty solid existential counsel. Truly, consider my perspective.

When things go bad, the biggest mistake you can do is view events with undue solemnity. The Brain Gremlin comprehends this. In fact, the majority of the dentally-gifted beasts that occupy Dante’s chaotic 1990 feature (debateably his greatest) possess the same sly, self-aware funny bone regarding the indistinct border separating daily routine and pure pandemonium. It’s one element of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that keeps me coming back – and as I age, it’s the message that strikes the deepest chord.

A Youthful Obsession

Naturally, my fondness for this movie wasn’t born on such an introspective level. In my youth, we possessed merely a few scratched-up video tapes at home. Part of that group were Gremlins and its follow-up, the latter housed in a bulky previously-rented case probably bought from an non-chain rental store and sporting grimacing beasts on its tattered front. I was right away smitten and these films wasted no time lodging themselves inside my small, malleable brain. From then on, they became an almost-daily part of my childhood viewing routine.

Dante’s initial installment typically gets all the plaudits, thanks primarily due to its reputation as a partly frightening holiday classic – and let me be clear, I’ve watched Gremlins an incalculable number of times. However, its successor seldom receives the same level of high regard, which feels criminal. As a kid, I’d always seize the chance to watch Gremlins 2. During bright summer vacations, I’d seclude myself indoors and play it. When I obtained my very own TV-VHS combo unit, it continued playing looped in my bedroom. With repetition, it etched itself permanently in my mental framework. If my parents detected this preoccupation, they didn’t seem to mind.

Subtler Delights and Societal Easter Eggs

As I grew, new insights rewarded frequent screenings, amplifying the pleasure of watching little green monsters happily vandalize a New York high-rise. I learned the future-focused development mogul and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was based squarely upon the later-to-be-president Donald Trump, with his auburn-haired worker Marla (Haviland Morris) alluding to his second wife Marla Maples. Fortunately, Clamp demonstrates more humanity than his genuine article inspiration.

The “apocalyptic” video Clamp plays during the height of creature carnage? I discovered it was based on a real-life “Doomsday” video commissioned by the CNN boss Ted Turner should the world truly faced apocalypse. I noticed how Dante made a special effort to film alternate cuts of a self-aware scene where Gremlins take over the actual feature in progress. A version for theaters, another for home video and television, each offering a winking bit of self-referential entertainment sorcery 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 hesitation telling me he made the movie with the specific aim of poking fun at those who loved its silly-yet-sincere predecessor and wanted more. “We were going to make fun of the fact you came to see it,” he cheerfully disclosed. This Looney Tunes-esque insubordination and commitment to not take his sequel as seriously as his Warner Bros bosses clearly wanted him to, only deepened my appreciation further.

When I endured a unexpected loss in the family recently, I was taken aback to discover that, during my deepest grief, all I wanted to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Odd, no? Perhaps not. The soothing reminiscence it furnished was needed to thin out my mind’s sadness sludge – but the insights it had given me as an adult were similarly beneficial.

Like Gremlins rampaging through a genetics laboratory, there’s particular aspects in life you just are powerless over. Dante knows it. The Brain Gremlin agrees completely. Sometimes, you have to emulate them: welcome the pandemonium, put everything you’ve got into canned food and shotguns and try not to approach life with excessive gravity.

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