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“Well, it’s rather brutal here. The guidance we offer all of our clients to commit their entire holdings into canned food and shotguns.” This nugget of shrewd guidance comes from the Brain Gremlin – a genetically modified, talking, bespectacled member of the oozy monster mob that swarms Manhattan’s super-smart Clamp Tower skyscraper in helmer Joe Dante’s madcap sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Superficially, it’s simply an financial suggestion from one monster to another. Yet, curiously, it’s also remarkably sound existential counsel. Honestly, listen to my reasoning.

When things go bad, the most counterproductive action you can do is approach matters with excessive gravity. The Brain Gremlin grasps this. Actually, most of the toothy monsters that occupy Dante’s chaotic 1990 feature (possibly his finest) possess the same knowing, self-referential comic sensibility regarding the blurry line separating the mundane and unadulterated chaos. 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 resonates the most.

A Youthful Fascination

Of course, my fondness for this movie didn’t start on such an deeply thoughtful note. 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 bulky previously-rented case likely purchased from an off-brand video shop and sporting growling monsters on its tattered front. I was immediately enamoured and these films quickly proceeded inserting themselves inside my small, malleable brain. From then on, they became an almost-daily part of my youthful watching schedule.

Dante’s initial installment commonly garners all the plaudits, thanks largely to its legacy as a partly frightening holiday classic – and to be fair, I’ve watched Gremlins an incalculable number of times. That said, its successor infrequently obtains the same level of elevated esteem, which feels unjust. As a kid, I’d always seize the chance to watch Gremlins 2. During sunny school summer breaks, I’d seclude myself indoors and pop it in. When I acquired my personal TV-VHS combo unit, it stayed in constant rotation in my bedroom. Gradually, it etched itself permanently in my mental framework. If my parents observed this fixation, they appeared unbothered.

Subtler Discoveries and Pop-Culture References

As I got older, new insights enhanced multiple watches, heightening the enjoyment of watching small emerald creatures gleefully trash a New York high-rise. I learned the forward-thinking real estate tycoon and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was modeled closely on the eventual commander-in-chief Donald Trump, with his auburn-haired worker Marla (Haviland Morris) referencing his former spouse Marla Maples. Fortunately, Clamp has more heart than his real-life counterpart.

The “end of civilisation” video Clamp plays during the height of creature carnage? I discovered it was modeled after a actual “Doomsday” video commissioned by the CNN boss Ted Turner in case the world truly faced apocalypse. I noticed how Dante made a special effort to film different iterations of a meta sequence where Gremlins hijack the exact movie you are viewing. An edit for movie houses, a separate one for tape and broadcast, each offering a winking bit of self-referential entertainment sorcery ahead of its time.

A Persistent Influence

While it was makeup maestro Rick Baker’s wonderfully grotesque creatures that captured my attention 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 qualms informing me he made the movie with the direct intention of mocking those who loved its goofy-but-heartfelt 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 determination to not take his sequel as seriously as his Warner Bros bosses evidently expected, only deepened my appreciation further.

When I endured a unexpected loss in the family earlier this year, I was astonished to realize that, during my most profound sorrow, all I felt compelled to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Weird, right? Perhaps not. The comforting familiarity it provided was needed to thin out my mind’s sadness sludge – but the perspectives 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 cannot manage. Dante knows it. The Brain Gremlin shares this wisdom. Sometimes, you have to follow their example: welcome the pandemonium, put everything you’ve got into tinned provisions and hunting rifles 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 feelgood film.