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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 preserved goods and firearms.” This piece of sage advice comes from the Brain Gremlin – a genetically modified, talking, spectacled member of the slimy Gremlin horde that swarms Manhattan’s super-smart Clamp Tower skyscraper in helmer Joe Dante’s madcap sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch. On the surface, it’s simply an financial suggestion from one monster to another. However, oddly enough, it’s also pretty solid life guidance. Seriously, listen to my reasoning.

When life takes a turn for the worse, the worst thing you can do is view events with undue solemnity. 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 sly, self-aware funny bone regarding the indistinct border separating daily routine 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 theme that echoes the loudest.

An Early Life Obsession

Understandably, my fondness for this movie wasn’t born on such an deeply thoughtful note. Growing up, we only had a few well-worn videocassettes 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 non-chain rental store and featuring snarling creatures on its tattered front. I was instantly captivated and these films quickly proceeded inserting themselves inside my young, susceptible psyche. From then on, they became an practically routine part of my early years entertainment regimen.

Dante’s first film commonly garners all the accolades, thanks largely to its legacy as a moderately spooky festive favorite – and let me be clear, I’ve watched Gremlins an incalculable number of times. That said, its successor rarely gets the same level of high regard, which feels unjust. As a kid, I’d always seize the chance to watch Gremlins 2. During sunny school summer breaks, I’d lock myself inside and pop it in. When I got my own TV-VHS combo unit, it continued playing looped in my bedroom. With repetition, it etched itself permanently in my psyche. If my parents observed this fixation, they appeared unbothered.

Hidden Rewards and Cultural Easter Eggs

As I got older, new revelations enhanced repeat viewings, 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 red-headed employee Marla (Haviland Morris) alluding to his one-time partner Marla Maples. Luckily, Clamp possesses greater compassion than his genuine article inspiration.

The “apocalyptic” 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 actually met its demise. I noticed how Dante made a special effort to film different iterations of a self-referential segment where Gremlins seize control of the exact movie you are viewing. A version for theaters, another for home video and television, each offering a winking bit of self-referential entertainment sorcery ahead of its time.

An Enduring Influence

While it was effects expert Rick Baker’s wonderfully grotesque creatures that captured my attention as a child, this subsurface richness maintained my fascination as an adult. Ultimately, I even interviewed Dante about it myself and he had no hesitation telling me he made the movie with the express purpose of poking fun at 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 determination to not take his sequel as solemnly as his Warner Bros bosses obviously desired, only deepened my appreciation further.

When I went through a sudden family bereavement 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. Strange, isn’t it? Perhaps not. The comforting familiarity it furnished was needed to dilute my mind’s mourning mire – but the stuff it had bestowed upon me as an adult were just as useful.

Like Gremlins running amok in 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: embrace the chaos, commit your entire being 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 forever remain my feelgood film.