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“Well, conditions are quite harsh here. The guidance we offer all of our clients to invest all their resources into canned food and shotguns.” This piece of sage advice comes from the Brain Gremlin – a lab-engineered, articulate, spectacled member of the slimy Gremlin horde that overruns Manhattan’s super-smart Clamp Tower skyscraper in filmmaker Joe Dante’s zany follow-up Gremlins 2: The New Batch. On the surface, it’s simply an financial suggestion from one monster to another. Yet, curiously, it’s also remarkably sound existential counsel. Seriously, hear me out.

When life takes a turn for the worse, the biggest mistake you can do is take things too seriously. The Brain Gremlin grasps this. Indeed, a large portion of the dentally-gifted beasts that occupy Dante’s chaotic 1990 feature (debateably his greatest) possess the same knowing, self-referential sense of humour regarding the hazy boundary separating daily routine and absolute bedlam. It’s a particular aspect of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that ensures my return – and the older I get, it’s the underlying idea that strikes the deepest chord.

A Youthful Fascination

Understandably, my fondness for this movie didn’t start on such an philosophical plane. As a child, we only had a few scratched-up video tapes at home. Among them were Gremlins and its second chapter, the latter housed in a bulky previously-rented case likely purchased from an non-chain rental store and featuring growling monsters on its worn-out artwork. I was immediately enamoured and these films wasted no time embedding themselves inside my young, susceptible psyche. After that point, they became an near-everyday part of my childhood viewing routine.

Dante’s initial installment typically gets all the praise, thanks mostly because of its reputation as a moderately spooky festive favorite – and let me be clear, I’ve watched Gremlins an incalculable number of times. That said, its follow-up seldom receives the same level of high regard, which feels a travesty. As a kid, I’d never miss an opportunity 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 continued playing looped in my bedroom. With repetition, it became deeply rooted in my mindset. If my parents detected this preoccupation, they gave no indication of concern.

Subtler Rewards and Cultural Nuggets

As I got older, new insights enriched repeat viewings, amplifying the pleasure of watching little green monsters joyously wreck a New York high-rise. I learned the future-focused development mogul and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was based squarely upon future president Donald Trump, with his ginger staff member Marla (Haviland Morris) echoing his second wife Marla Maples. Fortunately, Clamp has more heart than his actual-world equivalent.

The “end of civilisation” video Clamp plays during the height of creature carnage? I discovered it was inspired by a real-life “Doomsday” video commissioned by the CNN boss Ted Turner as a contingency for 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 very film you’re watching. A version for theaters, another for home video and television, each offering a winking bit of fourth-wall-breaking cultural alchemy prior to the concept being mainstream.

A Persistent Appeal

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 conversed with Dante about it myself and he had no reservations telling me he made the movie with the specific aim 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 Looney Tunes-esque defiance and determination to not take his sequel as seriously as his Warner Bros bosses evidently expected, only increased my affection for it.

When I went through a abrupt familial death earlier this year, 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. Weird, right? Perhaps not. The soothing reminiscence it provided was needed to weaken my mind’s sadness sludge – 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 is aware of it. The Brain Gremlin knows it too. Sometimes, you have to follow their example: accept the turmoil, put everything you’ve got into canned food and shotguns and try not to approach life with excessive gravity.

It’s powerful existential guidance from a very unlikely source – and it’s the reason Gremlins 2: The New Batch will eternally stand as my comfort movie.