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“Well, the situation is pretty dire here. Our recommendation is 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 high-tech Clamp Tower skyscraper in helmer Joe Dante’s madcap sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch. On the surface, it’s nothing more than an investment tip from one monster to another. However, oddly enough, it’s also pretty solid life advice. Honestly, 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. In fact, the majority of the toothy monsters that populate Dante’s chaotic 1990 feature (possibly his finest) possess the same knowing, self-referential comic sensibility regarding the indistinct border separating daily routine and absolute bedlam. It’s a single component of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that maintains my loyalty – and the older I get, it’s the message that resonates the most.

An Early Life Fixation

Understandably, my connection with this movie didn’t start on such an introspective level. As a child, we possessed merely a few well-worn videocassettes at home. Included within that collection were Gremlins and its follow-up, the latter housed in a thick former-rental sleeve probably bought from an independent video outlet and sporting grimacing beasts on its tattered front. I was instantly captivated and these films quickly proceeded lodging themselves inside my small, malleable brain. After that point, they became an practically routine part of my youthful watching schedule.

Dante’s initial installment commonly garners all the praise, thanks mostly because of its status as a partly frightening holiday classic – and let me be clear, I’ve watched Gremlins an incalculable number of times. Nevertheless, its sequel 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 sunny school summer breaks, I’d seclude myself indoors and play it. When I acquired my personal TV-VHS combo unit, it remained on repeat in my bedroom. Gradually, it ingrained itself in my mental framework. If my parents noticed this obsession, they appeared unbothered.

Deeper Delights and Pop-Culture References

As I matured, new understandings enriched repeat viewings, elevating the fun of watching diminutive verdant beasts joyously wreck a New York high-rise. I learned the future-focused real estate tycoon and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was modeled closely on the later-to-be-president Donald Trump, with his red-headed employee Marla (Haviland Morris) echoing his one-time partner Marla Maples. Thankfully, Clamp has more heart than his actual-world equivalent.

The “doomsday” video Clamp plays during peak-Gremlin chaos? I discovered it was inspired by a actual “Doomsday” video produced by the CNN boss Ted Turner should the world really ended. I noticed how Dante took extra pains to film varying versions of a self-aware scene where Gremlins seize control of the exact movie you are viewing. An edit for movie houses, one for VHS and TV, each offering a winking bit of meta pop-culture magic ahead of its time.

An Enduring Legacy

While it was makeup maestro Rick Baker’s wonderfully grotesque creatures that drew my gaze as a child, this deeper gold kept me hooked as an adult. In time, I even interviewed Dante about it myself and he had no reservations telling me he made the movie with the direct intention of ridiculing 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 commitment to not take his sequel as solemnly as his Warner Bros bosses obviously desired, only increased my affection for it.

When I experienced a abrupt familial death not long ago, I was surprised to find that, during my deepest grief, all I wanted to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Strange, isn’t it? Maybe not. The nostalgic calm it offered was necessary to weaken 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 particular aspects in life you just are powerless over. Dante knows it. The Brain Gremlin knows it too. Sometimes, you have to be like them: accept the turmoil, invest all your resources into tinned provisions and hunting rifles and try not to approach life with excessive gravity.

It’s robust worldly wisdom from a very unlikely source – and it’s why Gremlins 2: The New Batch will always be my go-to cinematic solace.