Eschewing the typical progression of a horror movie series toward more and more gore, Gremlins 2: The New Batch was a refreshingly lighter sequel. The original's violence and mean-spiritedness are gone, making this follow-up somewhat more kid-friendly. Better yet, the film lays on the in-jokes, references, and humorous cameos to such a degree that New Batch becomes a send-up of the original, and of creatures-gone-awry horror films in general. Each sequence is tacked onto the next like a new room in a funhouse, exploiting an image or gag that relates only tangentially to the storyline; the mid-film all-Gremlin production number of New York, New York is particularly inspired.