I saw Gremlins 2: The New Batch in theaters, and now I have to come to terms with the fact that its predecessor, Gremlins 2, is already 36 years old, which seems both impossible and personally offensive to me.
I also remember leaving the theater after seeing Gremlins 2 as a kid and definitely not thinking, "Well, that was the best sequel ever." I was mostly confused. It was as if my senses had been assaulted for 90 minutes by puppets, screams, slapstick, corporate satire, and utter chaos. I knew I liked it, but I had no idea what I'd just seen.
It was only later, when I learned the backstory and realized that Joe Dante had essentially turned the film into a grand act of rebellion against sequel culture itself, that I understood everything. And frankly, it makes me love it even more.
I know the "correct" answers to the question of the best sequel usually include The Empire Strikes Back, Terminator 2, or The Godfather Part II. Those are all masterpieces, and I won't even pretend they aren't. But I think this insane, barely coherent, utterly pointless film deserves mention precisely because it refuses to act like a conventional sequel. It doesn't simply continue the story. It attacks the very idea of what a sequel should be.
Joe Dante directed a sequel after stating that he didn't want to direct a sequel.
The original Gremlins didn't need a sequel. It succeeded because it was a strange, unpretentious horror comedy: a Christmas horror comedy about a cute creature, terrifying pet care instructions, and a city destroyed by tiny green psychopaths.
But the film made a fortune, which in Hollywood means the story must go on forever. Warner Bros. wanted another film immediately. Director Joe Dante didn't. He avoided it for years while the studio tried to make a sequel without his involvement. Finally, they returned with that rarest of offers in Hollywood: complete freedom. As long as the film had some "gremlins," Dante could do whatever he wanted.
So instead of making a bigger, safer version of the first film, he made a sequel about how ridiculous sequels are.
Clamp Center is a real monster.
The first film takes place in a cozy small town. The second film moves to the Clamp Center, a gigantic Manhattan skyscraper owned by billionaire media mogul Daniel Clamp, who resembles a cross between Donald Trump and Ted Turner.
It's an ideal location because the building itself already gives the impression of gremlin energy in corporate form: noisy, chaotic, over-the-top and convinced of its own genius.
In this film, gremlins don't invade civilization. They invade corporate America and immediately fit in.
That's the joke.
The Clamp Center is filled with television studios, laboratories, automated systems, and an endless array of advertising elements. The building perfectly embodies the mindset satirized in Gremlins 2: if something is successful, you have to make it bigger, louder, and more commercially successful before it collapses under the weight of its own folly.
Then gremlins appear and speed up this process.
Every failed idea for a sequel turns into a joke.
Most sequels try to give audiences "more." More action. More mythology. More creatures.
Gremlins 2 does that too, but it's like it challenges you to make you regret your decision.
Want new gremlins? Great. Here's a bat gremlin. An electric gremlin. A spider gremlin. A vegetable gremlin. A brain gremlin. A woman gremlin.
This film turns the sequel-style buildup into a caricature.
In particular, the character of the "Brain Gremlin" seems to be the embodiment of the entire film: the gremlin drinks the brain serum, puts on glasses, starts talking like a smug intellectual, and explains the structure of gremlin society on television.
This is absolutely ridiculous.
And the film knows it.
That's what makes it brilliant. Gremlins 2 never tries to be dignified. Every terrible idea for a sequel is treated as an opportunity for an even bigger joke.
Can a gremlin fly? Of course.
Does it also turn to stone when exposed to sunlight? Of course. Why not?
Is it possible to become strangely seductive? Unfortunately, yes.
The film continues to evolve in a direction where the whole "bigger sequel" concept comes to a head.
The film literally falls apart.
Most sequels expect you to be fully immersed in the story.
In the movie Gremlins 2, you need to pay attention to the machine that sells you the story.
The film opens with the Looney Tunes characters arguing over the Warner Bros. logo. Leonard Maltin appears as himself, reviewing the first film, before being attacked by gremlins. At one point, the gremlins appear to destroy the film itself, forcing Hulk Hogan to yell at them until the film continues.
This is complete madness.
And somehow it works perfectly.
The film constantly reminds us that this sequel only exists because the studio wanted more gremlins. And Dante replies that he's giving them too many gremlins, too many ideas, and too much chaos, until it all becomes a parody of the franchise-making process itself.
Did you want a sequel?
Here is the continuation.
It understood the culture of franchising before Hollywood did.
That's why Gremlins 2 seems even smarter now than it did in 1990.
Today, every successful film becomes a universe, a reboot, a sequel, or a channel for content creation. Nothing can simply end anymore.
Gremlins 2 anticipated and ridiculed this thinking decades before.
It's basically the "Merchandising! Merchandising!" scene from Spaceballs, stretched out over the entire film.
And every year Hollywood releases another unnecessary sequel to the franchise, and for some reason Gremlins 2 seems like an increasingly successful option.
Yes, The Empire Strikes Back is a more elegant film. Terminator 2 is more gripping. The Godfather Part II is more respectable.
But Gremlins 2 had something that none of the previous films had.
This turned the sequel itself into a monster.
And 36 years later, the joke still seems painfully true.
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