Embedded in My Psyche’: The Reason Gremlins 2: The New Batch Is My Feelgood Movie
“Well, the situation is pretty dire here. We’re advising all of our clients to commit their entire holdings into preserved goods and firearms.” This piece of wise counsel comes from the Brain Gremlin – a lab-engineered, speaking, spectacled member of the slick creature crowd that infests Manhattan’s ultra-modern Clamp Tower skyscraper in filmmaker Joe Dante’s madcap sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch. On the surface, it’s simply an financial suggestion from one monster to another. But, oddly enough, it’s also remarkably sound existential counsel. Seriously, listen to my reasoning.
When situations deteriorate, the worst thing you can do is approach matters with excessive gravity. The Brain Gremlin grasps this. In fact, the majority of the toothy monsters that occupy Dante’s wild 1990 film (arguably his best) possess the same wry, meta comic sensibility regarding the hazy boundary separating everyday life and unadulterated chaos. It’s a particular aspect of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that ensures my return – and as I age, it’s the underlying idea that resonates the most.
A Childhood Obsession
Naturally, my connection with this movie did not begin on such an philosophical plane. In my youth, we only had a few scratched-up video tapes at home. Included within that collection were Gremlins and its follow-up, the latter housed in a thick former-rental sleeve likely purchased from an independent video outlet and sporting snarling creatures on its worn-out artwork. I was right away smitten and these films wasted no time lodging themselves inside my small, malleable brain. After that point, they became an near-everyday part of my childhood viewing routine.
Dante’s original commonly garners all the praise, thanks primarily due to its reputation 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 rarely gets the same level of lofty appreciation, which feels unjust. As a kid, I’d never miss an opportunity to watch Gremlins 2. During long summer holidays, I’d lock myself inside and stick it on. When I got my own TV-VHS combo unit, it continued playing looped in my bedroom. Over time, it etched itself permanently in my psyche. If my parents observed this fixation, they appeared unbothered.
Subtler Rewards and Pop-Culture References
As I got older, new insights rewarded frequent screenings, heightening the enjoyment of watching diminutive verdant beasts gleefully trash a New York high-rise. I learned the ahead-of-its-time real estate tycoon and Clamp Tower owner, Daniel Clamp (John Glover), was modeled closely on future president Donald Trump, with his ginger staff member Marla (Haviland Morris) echoing his former spouse Marla Maples. Fortunately, Clamp has more heart than his genuine article inspiration.
The “doomsday” video Clamp plays during peak-Gremlin chaos? I discovered it was inspired by a actual “Doomsday” video created by the CNN boss Ted Turner in case the world truly faced apocalypse. I noticed how Dante took extra pains to film different iterations of a meta sequence where Gremlins take over the exact movie you are viewing. A version for theaters, one for VHS and TV, each providing a grinning portion of self-referential entertainment sorcery before the term was even a thing.
A Lasting Appeal
While it was effects expert Rick Baker’s wonderfully grotesque creatures that caught my eye as a child, this deeper gold held my interest as an adult. Eventually, I even conversed with 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 silly-yet-sincere predecessor and craved further installments. “We were going to make fun of the fact you came to see it,” he happily revealed. This Looney Tunes-esque defiance and commitment to not take his sequel as gravely as his Warner Bros bosses evidently expected, only increased my affection for it.
When I endured a sudden family bereavement 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. Weird, right? Perhaps not. The nostalgic calm it provided was necessary to thin out my mind’s grief morass – but the insights it had imparted to me as an adult were equally valuable.
Like Gremlins running amok in a genetics laboratory, there’s some things in life you just are powerless over. Dante is aware of it. The Brain Gremlin shares this wisdom. Sometimes, you have to be like them: welcome the pandemonium, invest all your resources into preserved goods and firearms 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 comfort movie.
