Horror in the 90's: 'Gremlins 2: The New Batch'

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

Directed by Joe Dante

Written by Charles Haas

Starring Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, John Glover, Robert Picardo, Christopher Lee

Release Date June 15th, 1990

Box Office $41.5 million dollars

I'm convinced that the only cultural reputation that Gremlins 2: The New Batch has comes entirely from the cache earned from Key & Peele. The brilliant minds of Keegan Michael Key and Jordan Peele performed a sketch on their Comedy Central series in which Peele, as a flamboyant Hollywood Sequel Doctor, enters the writers room for Gremlins 2 and proceeds to take suggestions for wild ideas to add to the Gremlins 2 story. What he comes up with are actual characters from Gremlins 2 that are so outlandish and dumb that they seem to have been made up. It's a brilliant sketch but it sets a standard that the movie simply cannot match.

As wild as this Hollywood Script Doctors ideas for Gremlins 2: The New Batch are, the movie never feels that wild or outrageous. Instead, it feels deeply disjointed, often desperate, and unfunny. Gremlins 2: The New Batch has the feel of a sequel that was thrust upon director Joe Dante who responded to the burden by trying to sabotage his own movie. Dante comes up with several bad ideas, executes them poorly, and delivered a final cut that I can only imagine left everyone mortified but unable to not release the movie. Trying to cull a plot description together seems like a fool's errand but here we are.

Gremlins 2: The New Batch returns Zach Galligan as everyman Billy Pelzer. Billy is now working and living in New York City with his small town gal-pal, Kate, played by an also returning Phoebe Cates. Also having moved to New York City is Gizmo, the cutest of the Gremlins. How and why Gizmo is now in New York City is a plot contrivance. He's needed in New York for this dimwitted plot to unfold. A Trump like developer named Daniel Clamp (John Glover) is eager to buy the shop owned by Mr. Wing, a returning Keye Luke, so he can continue to reshape the New York skyline in his tacky image.

When Mr. Wing dies, Clamp gets his wish and Gizmo is left homeless. By coincidence, Gizmo is found by a pair of twin scientists who work for Daniel Clamp's top scientist, played in utterly bizarre fashion by Christopher Lee. Lee's scientist is eager to experiment on Gizmo but a further series of coincidences, including Billy happening to work in this building and offhandedly hearing about the cute creature in an upstairs lab, leads to a Billy/Gizmo reunion. Naturally, things go off the rails pretty quickly as Gizmo gets wet from a malfunctioning water fountain and dozens of new Gremlins are born and wreck havoc.

Not a single one of the new Gremlins, who use the chemicals in Christopher Lee's lab to genetically alter themselves to vary the species design, are funny. A Gremlin with Spider Legs is a pretty good horror visual but since Gremlins 2 is clumsily straddling the line between horror and family friendly, kid friendly, comedy, the horror elements are drearily watered down. That all of the Gremlins described in the Key & Peele sketch are indeed real provides a semblance of fun but that's coming from the absurdity of Key& Peele's comedy magic and nothing that the movie is doing.

As presented in the movie these wild ideas are strung together by the thinnest of threads and are barely brushed over. Each of the newly created Gremlins mentioned in the Key & Peele sketch, get showcase moments in the movie but you'd forget about them entirely had not the sketch pointed out the brilliant insanity of these ideas. The movie just isn't memorable on its own merits. Are these Gremlin ideas weird? Absolutely, but they somehow don't stand out in the amateurish, slapdash presentation of Gremlins 2: The New Batch.

The high point of the incredible Key & Peele sketch comes with the addition of Hulk Hogan to the movie. Randomly, with no warning whatsoever, seemingly as if the filmmakers ran out of ideas, there is a real cameo by Hulk Hogan. For a brief few minutes, the movie breaks the fourth wall and has the Gremlins ruin the very movie we are watching. They've gotten into the projector booth and stopped the movie and are making shadow puppets on the big screen. The theater manager, seeing no other option to get the movie going again, has Hulk Hogan, who happens to be in the audience watching Gremlins 2, stand up and cut a promo warning the Gremlins that Hulkamania will run wild on them if they don't put the movie back on. And then the movie just continues.

It's a funny idea, I guess. But as executed in the film, it's just random and odd. It's unwelcome. I grew up loving Hulk Hogan and I am sure that if I did see Gremlins 2 when it came out, I would have been happy to see The Hulkster. Watching this oddity today however, it's just so random that its honestly confounding. Why? Why do this? What was the point? Just doing it to do it? I know as well as anyone that Hulk Hogan was, briefly, a cultural icon, but this scene is a waste. It's the filmmakers just throwing up their hands and hoping that any random thing they do might get a laugh.

It plays far funnier as a goof in the Key & Peele sketch than it does when it actually happens in Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Truly, the Key & Peele sketch is the thesis statement about why Gremlins 2: The New Batch is a terrible movie. In just over four and a half minutes, Key & Peele get more laughs at Gremlins 2 than the entire movie generates in just over 90 minutes. Without Key & Peele, Gremlins 2: The New Batch is in a bin somewhere, a completely forgotten oddity that people scratch their heads over, trying to recall it.

The ideas are insane, they are over the top silly. The execution is a complete failure. Joe Dante is a talented guy but he doesn't appear to care in the slightest about whether Gremlins 2: The New Batch is any good. He seems to be laughing at the concept of a sequel entirely. In fact, if that is indeed what's happening, that's a funnier joke than anything in the actual movie. Was Joe Dante just messing with us? Did he just piss away millions of dollars on making the dumbest waste of money he could possibly make? Is the actual art of Gremlins 2: The New Batch a prank on dimwitted, mercenary studio executives trying to make a quick buck off of a well known I.P? Oh how I wish that were the case.

This piece on Gremlins 2: The New Batch is the latest entry in my book project, Horror in the 90s. I am watching and writing about wide release and narrowly released horror movies from 1990 to 1999 to mark the trends, the stars, the filmmakers, and the tropes that defined this pivotal decade in horror movies. You can read previous serialized entries from the book on Horror.Media. I plan to go further with these pieces in the book but I cannot finish the book without your support. Consider making a monthly pledge or leaving a one time tip here on Vocal. Or, you can donate to support the book via my Ko-Fi account, linked here. Every dollar helps me closer to making my first book a reality. Thanks!