In 1984, director Joe Dante, along with writer Chris Columbus, gave us Gremlins, a sleeper hit that surprised fans, critics, and the powers that be with its great combination of horror and comedy in a Christmas setting. Flash forward six years to the sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch, which turned out to be less about plot and more about letting the gremlins loose to do what they do best, like letting the inmates run the asylum. What we ended up with was a chaotic mess of a film that was a lot of fun and proved that sequels, for better or worse, can still surprise us.
Right out of the gate, Dante and company were faced with the challenge of following up the original somehow, success at the box office being the chief concern for the studio, and also making it somehow different at the same time. However, it became clear very quickly that while Gizmo and the gang were still there, this was not the same horror-comedy vibe we felt in the first movie. In fact, it’s a mess, but a zany, sloppy, in-your-face, glorious mess that doesn’t always work and sometimes works when there is no reason at all that it should.
The setup is pretty simple. The bad guy is Daniel Clamp (John Glover), who runs the massive futuristic building called Clamp Trade Center. Our heroes from the original, Billy (Zach Galligan) and Kate (Phoebe Cates), are back, and wouldn’t you know it, they get jobs at said building. Another crazy coincidence later, Billy finds out Gizmo is being held there and there are some not-so-nice experiments going on. Before you can say the genie is out of the bottle, Gizmo gets wet, and the Gremlins are on the march, with chaos following them everywhere.
Obviously, there is more to the plot here, but really, that’s all you really need to know. There is no doubt that the faintest idea of holding a story together in any cohesive kind of way quickly went out the window, and the Gremlins were left off their leashes to do what they do best. That was a great decision. Dante was eventually given complete creative control, one of many reasons why it took six years to do a sequel, and while he tried to keep the heart of the original intact, it’s clear he was very receptive to letting things go wild and see where it took him.
Where it took him, and the viewers, was an outlandish ride that I’m sure many weren’t expecting. Wonderful to see Christopher Lee pop up here, and Hulk Hogan, showing some of the comedy/let’s do the unexpected vibe that the film hit on numerous times. Sure, Clamp and his Trade Center are pure mockery of Donald Trump, but Clamp also had a softer side, which was a simple callback to the light-hearted comedy that the original film enjoyed. This is one of the many examples of the film switching things up regularly, which unfortunately didn’t always work well.
Watching the film and all its wild moments gave you the feeling that the film could fly apart into mayhem and never return at any given moment. We had the feeling at times in the original, but it felt much more controlled and organized, whereas this film went above and beyond simply being organized chaos. It looked and sounded great; the six years between films obviously helped in the special effects department, and it showed as some of the scenes were wildly entertaining and detailed. The sequel may have been chaotic, but it took the time to make that chaos look good at least.
Gremlins is one of those films many look back on fondly, for many different reasons, and for most, the idea of a sequel would seem like simply a cash grab. Lord knows we continue to see that today, where so many films either didn’t need a sequel or it was done with no connection at all to what made the original great to begin with. Gremlins 2: The New Batch is not that kind of film. While some jokes fall flat and some scenes seem too familiar, Dante and company created the kind of different film with ridiculous humor that was never going to be a simple clone of the original. That is something we should all wish to see more of in the world of sequels.
