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“Well, conditions are quite harsh here. Our recommendation is all of our clients to put everything they’ve got into canned food and shotguns.” This piece of sage advice comes from the Brain Gremlin – a genetically modified, talking, bespectacled member of the slick creature crowd that overruns Manhattan’s super-smart Clamp Tower skyscraper in helmer Joe Dante’s zany follow-up Gremlins 2: The New Batch. At first glance, it’s nothing more than an portfolio pointer from one monster to another. However, curiously, 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 view events with undue solemnity. The Brain Gremlin understands this. Indeed, the majority of the toothy monsters that populate Dante’s unrestrained 1990 movie (debateably his greatest) possess the same wry, meta comic sensibility regarding the indistinct border separating the mundane and pure pandemonium. It’s one element of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that ensures my return – and the older I get, it’s the message that strikes the deepest chord.

A Childhood Fixation

Understandably, my connection with this movie didn’t start on such an philosophical plane. In my youth, we possessed merely a few battered VHS tapes at home. Part of that group were Gremlins and its follow-up, the latter housed in a thick former-rental sleeve almost certainly acquired from an independent video outlet and sporting growling monsters on its worn-out artwork. I was immediately enamoured and these films wasted no time embedding themselves inside my young, susceptible psyche. From then on, they became an near-everyday part of my youthful watching schedule.

Dante’s original usually receives all the plaudits, thanks largely to its legacy as a semi-scary seasonal fave – and don’t get me wrong, I’ve watched Gremlins more times than I can count. However, its follow-up infrequently obtains the same level of high regard, which feels a travesty. As a kid, I’d invariably jump at the prospect to watch Gremlins 2. During long summer holidays, 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. Over time, it ingrained itself in my mindset. If my parents observed this fixation, they didn’t seem to mind.

Hidden Rewards and Societal Nuggets

As I grew, new insights enhanced repeat viewings, elevating the fun of watching diminutive verdant beasts happily vandalize a New York high-rise. I learned the future-focused real estate tycoon and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was based squarely upon future president Donald Trump, with his auburn-haired worker Marla (Haviland Morris) echoing his second wife Marla Maples. Fortunately, Clamp demonstrates more humanity than his genuine article inspiration.

The “end of civilisation” video Clamp plays during maximum monster mayhem? I discovered it was based on a actual “Doomsday” video produced by the CNN boss Ted Turner as a contingency for the world truly faced apocalypse. I noticed how Dante went out of his way to film varying versions of a self-referential segment where Gremlins hijack the very film you’re watching. An edit for movie houses, one for VHS and TV, each offering a winking bit of meta pop-culture magic ahead of its time.

A Lasting Influence

While it was makeup maestro Rick Baker’s gloriously nasty-looking creatures that caught my eye as a child, this deeper gold maintained my fascination as an adult. In time, I even interviewed Dante about it myself and he had no hesitation revealing to me he made the movie with the direct intention of poking fun at those who loved its absurd-yet-genuine predecessor and desired a sequel. “We were going to make fun of the fact you came to see it,” he gleefully confessed. This anarchic defiance and determination to not take his sequel as gravely as his Warner Bros bosses evidently expected, only increased my affection for it.

When I went through a sudden family bereavement earlier this year, I was taken aback to discover that, during my most profound sorrow, all I desired to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Weird, right? Possibly not. The nostalgic calm it offered was essential to weaken my mind’s mourning mire – but the perspectives it had given me as an adult were just as useful.

Like Gremlins rampaging through a genetics laboratory, there’s some things in life you just cannot manage. Dante understands this. The Brain Gremlin shares this wisdom. Sometimes, you have to emulate them: welcome the pandemonium, commit your entire being into tinned provisions and hunting rifles and try not to view the world with undue solemnity.

It’s strong life advice from a very unlikely source – and it’s the reason Gremlins 2: The New Batch will always be my feelgood film.