Embedded in My Psyche’: The Reason Gremlins 2: The New Batch Is My Comfort Movie
“Well, it’s rather brutal here. We’re advising all of our clients to commit their entire holdings into tinned provisions and hunting rifles.” This piece of sage advice comes from the Brain Gremlin – a scientifically altered, articulate, bespectacled member of the slimy Gremlin horde that overruns Manhattan’s high-tech Clamp Tower skyscraper in filmmaker Joe Dante’s zany follow-up Gremlins 2: The New Batch. At first glance, it’s nothing more than an investment tip from one monster to another. But, in a strange manner, it’s also remarkably sound existential counsel. Truly, consider my perspective.
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. Actually, the majority of the fang-bearing creatures that populate Dante’s chaotic 1990 feature (debateably his greatest) possess the same wry, meta funny bone regarding the indistinct border separating daily routine and pure pandemonium. It’s a particular aspect of Gremlins 2: The New Batch that keeps me coming back – and with the passage of time, it’s the underlying idea that resonates the most.
An Early Life Fascination
Naturally, my connection with this movie didn’t start on such an deeply thoughtful note. In my youth, 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 bulky previously-rented case almost certainly acquired from an independent video outlet and boasting snarling creatures on its knackered cover. I was right away smitten and these films wasted no time lodging themselves inside my young, susceptible psyche. After that point, they became an almost-daily part of my childhood viewing routine.
Dante’s original usually receives all the praise, thanks mostly because of its reputation as a partly frightening holiday classic – and don’t get me wrong, I’ve watched Gremlins more times than I can count. Nevertheless, its successor infrequently obtains the same level of high regard, which feels unjust. As a kid, I’d always seize the chance to watch Gremlins 2. During long summer holidays, I’d lock myself inside and stick it on. When I acquired my personal TV-VHS combo unit, it stayed in constant rotation in my bedroom. Gradually, it etched itself permanently in my psyche. If my parents detected this preoccupation, they didn’t seem to mind.
Subtler Delights and Pop-Culture Easter Eggs
As I got older, new understandings rewarded frequent screenings, elevating the fun of watching little green monsters gleefully trash a New York high-rise. I learned the forward-thinking property magnate 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 second wife Marla Maples. Luckily, Clamp possesses greater compassion than his real-life counterpart.
The “doomsday” video Clamp plays during peak-Gremlin chaos? I discovered it was based on a actual “Doomsday” video produced by the CNN boss Ted Turner in case 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 take over the very film you’re watching. One for cinemas, one for VHS and TV, each offering a winking bit of fourth-wall-breaking cultural alchemy before the term was even a thing.
An Enduring Influence
While it was creature designer Rick Baker’s fantastically vile creatures that caught my eye as a child, this deeper gold held my interest as an adult. In time, I even spoke to Dante about it myself and he had no qualms revealing to me he made the movie with the express purpose of mocking those who loved its silly-yet-sincere predecessor and desired a sequel. “We were going to make fun of the fact you came to see it,” he gleefully confessed. This cartoonish defiance and resolve to not take his sequel as gravely as his Warner Bros bosses clearly wanted him to, only made me love it even more.
When I went through a abrupt familial death recently, I was surprised to find that, during my deepest grief, all I wanted to do was sit and watch Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Strange, isn’t it? Perhaps not. The soothing reminiscence it furnished was necessary to weaken my mind’s grief morass – but the perspectives it had bestowed upon me as an adult were equally valuable.
Like Gremlins running amok in a genetics laboratory, there’s some things in life you just can’t control. Dante knows it. The Brain Gremlin knows it too. Sometimes, you have to emulate them: welcome the pandemonium, invest all your resources into canned food and shotguns and try not to view the world with undue solemnity.
It’s strong life advice from a most improbable origin – and it’s why Gremlins 2: The New Batch will always be my comfort movie.