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“Well, conditions are quite harsh here. The guidance we offer all of our clients to put everything they’ve got into canned food and shotguns.” That bit of wise counsel comes from the Brain Gremlin – a scientifically altered, articulate, bespectacled member of the slick creature crowd that infests Manhattan’s high-tech Clamp Tower skyscraper in director Joe Dante’s madcap sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch. On the surface, it’s merely an financial suggestion from one monster to another. But, curiously, it’s also pretty solid existential counsel. Truly, consider my perspective.

When things go bad, the most counterproductive action you can do is view events with undue solemnity. The Brain Gremlin comprehends this. In fact, the majority of the toothy monsters that occupy Dante’s wild 1990 film (debateably his greatest) possess the same wry, meta funny bone regarding the blurry line separating everyday life and pure pandemonium. It’s a particular aspect of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that maintains my loyalty – and the older I get, it’s the underlying idea that resonates the most.

A Youthful Obsession

Naturally, my attachment to this movie did not begin on such an introspective level. As a child, we were limited to a few scratched-up video tapes at home. Among them were Gremlins and its sequel, the latter housed in a bulky previously-rented case almost certainly acquired from an non-chain rental store and sporting snarling creatures on its knackered cover. I was right away smitten and these films quickly proceeded lodging themselves inside my tiny, impressionable mind. After that point, they became an practically routine part of my childhood viewing routine.

Dante’s original usually receives all the plaudits, thanks largely to its status as a partly frightening holiday classic – and to be fair, I’ve watched Gremlins more times than I can count. Nevertheless, its follow-up infrequently obtains the same level of elevated esteem, which feels a travesty. As a kid, I’d always seize the chance to watch Gremlins 2. During sunny school summer breaks, I’d lock myself inside and stick it on. When I got my own TV-VHS combo unit, it stayed in constant rotation in my bedroom. Over time, it etched itself permanently in my mindset. If my parents detected this preoccupation, they gave no indication of concern.

Subtler Rewards and Pop-Culture References

As I got older, new revelations enhanced multiple watches, elevating the fun of watching small emerald creatures joyously wreck 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) echoing his second wife Marla Maples. Fortunately, Clamp possesses greater compassion 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 genuine “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 different iterations of a meta sequence where Gremlins hijack the exact movie you are viewing. A version for theaters, one for VHS and TV, each offering a winking bit of fourth-wall-breaking cultural alchemy before the term was even a thing.

An Enduring Influence

While it was effects expert Rick Baker’s gloriously nasty-looking creatures that captured my attention as a child, this subsurface richness kept me hooked as an adult. In time, I even interviewed Dante about it myself and he had no reservations revealing to me he made the movie with the direct intention 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 gleefully confessed. This anarchic insubordination and commitment to not take his sequel as seriously as his Warner Bros bosses clearly wanted him to, only increased my affection for it.

When I experienced a unexpected loss in the family not long ago, I was astonished to realize that, during my heightest mourning, all I felt compelled to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Odd, no? Perhaps not. The comforting familiarity it offered was essential to thin out my mind’s mourning mire – but the perspectives it had bestowed upon me as an adult were equally valuable.

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 follow their example: accept the turmoil, invest all your resources into tinned provisions and hunting rifles and try not to approach life with excessive gravity.

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