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“Well, the situation is pretty dire here. We’re advising all of our clients to commit their entire holdings into tinned provisions and hunting rifles.” This piece of shrewd guidance comes from the Brain Gremlin – a genetically modified, speaking, bespectacled member of the slimy Gremlin horde that swarms Manhattan’s super-smart Clamp Tower skyscraper in director Joe Dante’s madcap sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch. On the surface, it’s simply an financial suggestion from one monster to another. Yet, curiously, it’s also surprisingly sturdy life advice. Honestly, hear me out.

When life takes a turn for the worse, the worst thing you can do is approach matters with excessive gravity. The Brain Gremlin comprehends this. Indeed, a large portion of the toothy monsters that populate Dante’s wild 1990 film (arguably his best) possess the same knowing, self-referential funny bone regarding the hazy boundary separating daily routine and unadulterated chaos. It’s one element of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that ensures my return – and with the passage of time, it’s the message that echoes the loudest.

A Youthful Fixation

Of course, my attachment to this movie did not begin on such an deeply thoughtful note. As a child, we possessed merely a few battered VHS tapes at home. Part of that group were Gremlins and its second chapter, the latter housed in a thick former-rental sleeve likely purchased from an independent video outlet and featuring growling monsters on its tattered front. I was right away smitten and these films did not delay lodging themselves inside my tiny, impressionable mind. From then on, they became an near-everyday part of my childhood viewing routine.

Dante’s original commonly garners all the praise, thanks mostly because of its legacy as a partly frightening holiday classic – and let me be clear, I’ve watched Gremlins on countless occasions. However, its sequel infrequently obtains the same level of high regard, which feels criminal. As a kid, I’d invariably jump at the prospect to watch Gremlins 2. During long summer holidays, 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 mental framework. If my parents noticed this obsession, they didn’t seem to mind.

Subtler Rewards and Cultural Nuggets

As I got older, new understandings enriched frequent screenings, amplifying the pleasure of watching little green monsters gleefully trash a New York high-rise. I learned the ahead-of-its-time property magnate and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was modeled closely on the eventual commander-in-chief Donald Trump, with his ginger staff member Marla (Haviland Morris) alluding to his former spouse Marla Maples. Thankfully, Clamp has more heart than his actual-world equivalent.

The “doomsday” video Clamp plays during the height of creature carnage? I discovered it was modeled after a real-life “Doomsday” video commissioned by the CNN boss Ted Turner should the world actually met its demise. I noticed how Dante took extra pains to film varying versions of a meta sequence where Gremlins take over the exact movie you are viewing. One for cinemas, a separate one for tape and broadcast, 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 gloriously nasty-looking creatures that caught my eye as a child, this hidden treasure kept me hooked as an adult. In time, I even interviewed Dante about it myself and he had no hesitation informing me he made the movie with the direct intention of ridiculing 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 happily revealed. This Looney Tunes-esque rebelliousness and commitment to not take his sequel as solemnly as his Warner Bros bosses evidently expected, only increased my affection for it.

When I went through a unexpected loss in the family recently, I was astonished to realize that, during my deepest grief, all I desired to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Weird, right? Maybe not. The comforting familiarity it offered was necessary to thin out my mind’s grief morass – but the insights it had imparted to me as an adult were similarly beneficial.

Like Gremlins running amok in a genetics laboratory, there’s particular aspects in life you just are powerless over. Dante knows it. The Brain Gremlin shares this wisdom. Sometimes, you have to follow their example: embrace the chaos, commit your entire being into canned food and shotguns and try not to view the world with undue solemnity.

It’s robust worldly wisdom from a most improbable origin – and it’s why Gremlins 2: The New Batch will forever remain my feelgood film.