Critters review.
There’s a good chance you either think of Critters as an over-the-top, but fun, B-movie or as a terrible one. There’s an even better chance that you’re thinking of one of the sequels. The original movie is more subdued than you probably remember. It’s also pretty good.
Classic movie reviews will contain spoilers.
Critters
Directed by Stephen Herek
Screenplay by Stephen Herek and Domonic Muir
Starring Dee Wallace-Stone, M. Emmet Walsh, Billy Green Buch, Scott Grimes and Nadine van der Velde
Critters Review
The post Gremlins world was a wild time. We got Ghoulies and Spookies and Munchies and Hobgoblins and Trolls and Elves. Everyone couldn’t wait to race their little monsters into production. They were, almost universally, total crap. One franchise, at least parts of it, stood head and shoulders above their diminutive counterparts. Critters (and the superior Critters 2: The Main Course) are the best of the non-gremlins movies in the post Gremlins era.
A group of Krites (small aliens from here on to be called Critters) escape from their alien prison and land near a farm in Kansas. Two bounty hunters assume the look of humans and try to track them down. The critters try to eat their way through the farm as the family that lives there fights them off.
We find ourselves, once again, back in 1986. The year that horror got silly. In a, mostly, good way. Critters is no exception. With a story tailor made for a low budget B-movie and antagonists that amount to puppets being shaken back and forth…if nothing else…it was released at the exact right time.
There’s not a lot to Critters. The plot above is basically the entire deal. It has some funny moments…and some decent critter action. They don’t show up for a while and even when they do we spend a good deal of time following the bounty hunters instead. The critters’ hijinks are the highlight of the movie…which makes their sparse usage unfortunate. They can’t do much more than wobble and bite…but that combined with their fake language is more than enough.
The main thing that Critters has going for it is its cast. For a low budget movie about tiny alien invaders…there are some high quality actors here. Dee Wallace, M. Emmet Walsh, Scott Grimes, Terrance Mann Billy Zane, Lin Shaye…every scene has someone awesome in it. They don’t play with the ridiculous side of the story as much as you’d think…but they bring enough gravitas to their roles to make the absurd work.
It’s a good-looking picture too. In fact, everything about the movie has more care put into it than any of those similar films of the era. It leads to an odd feeling while watching it. It’s a low-quality story in a surprisingly high-quality production. The combination puts a cap on how good, or bad, Critters can be. It all ends up a perfectly watchable B-movie. That’s enough for it to rise above its contemporaries…but it also traps it into a less memorable place than the off the wall wackiness of some others.
In fact, I think when most people think about Critters…they’re probably not thinking about this movie. Critters 2 does have the over the top wildness and comedy that this one lacks. Critters 3 and 4 are terrible movies (3 stars Leonardo DiCaprio!). If your memory of Critters is either one of those things…it isn’t the original that’s in your head. Critters is much less dynamic…and far too watchable to be either.
What this movie does do is focus on its characters. Light on critters rampages…and patient with its action…we spend a lot of time with the main family or the bounty hunters. Thankfully, the strong cast makes it work…but it isn’t the roaring little monster movie that you expect it to be. For better or for worse.
Given how few of the little monster movies hold up at all…it’s probably for the better. Critters is an easy watch that is lighter on laughs and thrills than you’d want…but is of a higher quality than you could hope for. The franchise would ramp up those aspects two years later…and then fall off the ramp entirely after that. Looking at the success (or lack thereof) of every other post-Gremlins little monster franchise…two wins is two more than anyone else had.
Scare Value
Some people fondly remember Critters from their childhood as a comedy horror romp. Others dismiss it as poorly made nonsense. Really…it’s neither. It manages to be both less and more than its legacy. That is likely because one of the sequels actually is really fun (Critters 2: The Main Course) and the rest of the sequels are nonsense. The original? It certainly has moments of both…but adds up to a pretty good movie that makes the most out of what it is.
3/5
Critters Link
Streaming on Tubi
Rent/Buy on VOD from Vudu
Rent/Buy on VOD from Amazon
Buy the Critters Collection on Blu-Ray from Amazon
Critters Trailer
If you enjoyed this review of Critters, check out Horror in the High Desert and Horror in the High Desert 2: Minerva
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