Critters Attack! (2019)

It has not been a good couple of years to be a fan of the Critters franchise. I recently checked out the series that popped up on Shudder, review here, and didn’t like it at all. At the end of the review I held out hope that someone would come along and do a proper film reboot or sequel for the franchise. Well I got my wish… sort of.

Before I start please note that this movie has nothing to do with the original franchise. It isn’t a sequel and has no connection to it other than the Critters. Don’t let Dee Wallace’s appearance fool you into thinking this is connected to the “classic” franchise. The story follows a young woman, Drea, and her brother Drake. She is trying to get into college, and he is an alien conspiracy nut. This is important because it is used as the excuse for no one believing him when he sees a spaceship crash.

The pair live with their uncle, who is also the local scruffy sheriff. This is important later in my review. Finally, we have Dee Wallace playing Aunt Dee. I guess she is a bounty hunter because she knows about the Crites and has a big gun. The Critters crash land and start eating the locals. There is also another Critter that turns out to be a good one and is there to protect the human race. We know this because she is white and well, they actually assign it a gender. Stuff happens… people die…and I was disappointed.

This movie is awful. The Critters franchise was always accused be being a Gremlins rip off and I’ve defended it against that for years. But here they went full “Gizmo” with the good Critter who loves the kids and just wants to help them. What is next? Don’t get them wet or feed them after midnight? That was a completely unnecessary plot device that misses the point of the franchise completely. These are alien invaders dropping by to snack on humanity, we don’t need good Critters! The bounty hunters filled that need in the other movies and that worked just fine.

Speaking of bounty hunters how about they explain Aunt Dee? Is she an alien shapeshifter? If not, how does she know about the Critters? Maybe she is a government agent? The movie spends way too much time on the annoying children when they had a perfectly good story to explore with Dee Wallace’s character. I don’t want to say that the child actors in Critters Attack weren’t good. It might have to do with a poorly written script that gives them nothing to do and no character arc. I’m sure if given more time the filmmakers would probably have screwed up the character of Aunt Dee as well.

I did think that they did a decent job on the Critters. The puppetry is fine, and the creature effects work was decent. Though there are times where they clearly didn’t have a way to make them move across the scene and interact with the cast. This is obvious with the “good” Critter that spends most of the time stuffed into a backpack. And while there are many attacks, they don’t have that one kill that defines the movie like the others did. For example, when Billy Zane loses some fingers in the original. Still I’m glad this wasn’t a CGI fest so there is that.

That is the only good thing that I can say about Critters Attack. It just isn’t a good movie. Fans have waited a long time for a decent entry into this franchise and I’m afraid we might have a long time more before we get one. Sadly, I’m going to recommend skipping this one.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Critters 2: The Main Course (1988)

My dive into the Critters franchise continues with this second installment. This sequel picks up a couple of years later with the son, Brad, of the Brown family returning to Grover’s Bend to visit his grandmother for Easter. It seems that after the events of the first movie the family moved away to Kansas City. Mostly because the rest of the town didn’t believe that the little monsters from space were real. This is also why sheriff Harv was voted out in the election following the first invasion. That night didn’t go well for anyone involved!

If you have seen the first movie you know that while they killed the Critters, there were a batch of eggs left behind. Well these finally hatch right before Easter when Brad is back in town. Lucky for him they were detected so the alien bounty hunters from the first movie also return with the town drunk Charlie coming back with them. This leads to a big battle, a lot more townsfolk dying, and the giant Critter ball of death rolling around. Basically, we get a bunch more mayhem and fun with the hungry homicidal puppets!

Looking at the horror movies of the eighties I’d say that Critters The Main Course might be one of the best sequels made for any franchise. Maybe that is crazy, but I honestly love this flick. The pacing is brisk and there isn’t a wasted scene in the movie. Everything is either there to move the story along or to toss a joke at the audience. The Main Course knows what the audience expects, funny alien puppets and some mayhem. It delivers on both. It wasn’t until I watched the movie for this review that I noticed the movie was directed by Mick Garris. This appears to be his first shot at helming a movie and he nailed it. 

The cast is missing Dee Wallace, always a bummer not to see her, but it brings enough of the original cast back to connect the two stories together. Scott Grimes, who plays Brad, is one of those rare child actors that never seemed to go thru an awkward phase. He plays the character here with the same charisma and energy that he did in the original movie a couple years earlier. Also returning are Don Opper as Charlie and Terrence Mann as the bounty hunter Ug. They are both really good in the roles again. Plus, they added Eddie Deezen in a small supporting role which is always awesome. You might be saying to yourself, “who is Eddie Deezen?” Trust me you know who he is!

There is a bit more blood in this than the first one but keep your expectations low. The critters do eat some folks and there are a few skeletons and eyeballs popping out, but this isn’t a gore fest. The critters also aren’t as good as the first, but we get a lot more of them. As most of the frequent readers probably know by now, I’m a big fan of puppetry being used to bring little monsters to the screen. Critters The Main Course brings the goods and gave me exactly what I expected and wanted.

Probably not a surprise that I’m going to recommend this one. I love Critters The Main Course and go back to watch it every couple of years. It always puts a smile on my face. Find yourself a copy and check it out.

 

Ó Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

Critters (1986)

Space… where they have prisons on asteroids. The movie opens with a prisoner transfer that goes wrong when some fuzzy little bastards make a break for it and steal a ship. The warden sends some shapeshifting bounty hunters after them. Seems they are eating and killing machines that need to be stopped before they get out of hand. Of course, they head to Earth and land near a small town in Kansas called Grover’s Bend with the hunters in pursuit. This brings the aliens into contact with the Brown family as they lay siege to the house while the bounty hunters terrorize the town while looking for them. People get eaten, houses get exploded then unexploded, and funny stuff happens. All in all, a good time is had.

I’ve always loved this movie. The most obvious reason is the work from the Chiodo brothers in designing and bringing the Critters to life. If you have read my reviews for the Ghoulies movies you know I love me some puppets. Here we get a ton of puppet special effects work that not only bring them to life but give them personality as well. We actually have the puppets cracking wise and being funny on screen. There is a funny bit with an E.T. toy and another time when one drops an “F” bomb after encountering the business end of a shotgun! Is it any surprise that the brothers went on to make the classic Killer Klowns from Outer Space? These guys are awesome, and it shows here in Critters.

This is a family movie so there aren’t that many kills. We do get to see some Critters explode and another set on fire. But mayhem to the humans tends to happen off-screen. Though we do get some fingers bitten off and several shoulders chewed up. Watch for a very young Billy Zane as he gets the best death scene in the movie. The most elaborate effects work is saved for the initial transformation when the bounty hunter takes the appearance of Johnny Steele.

The cast is filled with familiar faces and one that would be a staple in newer horror movies twenty years later. The most obvious is Dee Wallace playing the matriarch to the Brown clan. She is the go-to Mom for horror movies for a reason, because she is good in these roles. M. Emmet Walsh is the sheriff Harv and is solid as always. Star Trek Voyager fans will recognize Ethan Phillips as the doomed deputy Barnes. And again we get a very young Billy Zane playing the doomed city boy come courting the daughter of the Brown family. Finally, Lin Shaye who seems to be in about every new horror movie has a small part as the dispatcher in the sheriff’s office.

Damn it they killed Billy Zane! The dude survives the Titanic and he gets offed by some fuzzy alien bastards… Seriously I love this movie. Because of the PG rating this was acceptable viewing in my house while I was growing up, so I watched it a lot. Even afterwards I still keep the Critter movies in heavy rotation. I guarantee you one of them gets played every few months at Casa de Crappy Movie Reviews. I’d like to think that most of you have seen these movies but if you haven’t, I’d recommend this one. The sequels are fun but not as good as the movie that spawned them all.

 

Ó Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

Critters A New Binge (2019)

This isn’t so much a review as it is my thoughts on the new Critters series that debuted on Shudder this week. I’m a huge fan of the original movies, and yes I even like those after Critters II, so I should be a mark for this new series. I sat down and watched all the episodes last night and I was really disappointed.

Not really interested in the characters

My first complaint has to do with the presentation of the series in these short nine or ten minute long episodes. We only get eight of them so after you cut out the couple minutes of credits, we have maybe seventy minutes of material total. I blame this on the fact that the series was originally supposed to appear on some Verizon streaming service which I suppose means it was meant to watch on your phone? Not sure if that was the idea but there wasn’t enough material for a single episode much less a feature film or a series.

I also noticed while watching them that they have a choppy feel to the narrative that makes the entire story not flow well at all. Again, I’m assuming they thought that you would watch one here and there while waiting in line at the drive thru to pick up your lunch? Though I think that most people consume stuff like this in “binges”, basically all at once. That is what I did, and I found the series uneven. When a nine minutes episode isn’t holding my attention, you know its bad.

The show did do a great job with the practical effects work on the Critters going with old school puppets. There are several feature characters with their own look and of course they crack wise and land a few funny jokes. But the second half to a Critters movie are the human characters and this is where the series misses the point. Go back and watch the original movies and you will see that they have a strong cast to play off of the wisecracking creatures. This is especially so for the first couple entries in the series. Here I found the cast bland and wasn’t at all interested. Well except for an unexpected appearance from Gilbert Gottfried who shows up for a couple of scenes as Uncle Murray. He has the best and honestly the only memorable lines from any of the humans.

They at least got the Critters right. Still not enough though.

While I did like the practical approach of the Critters the series is guilty of some horrible CGI effects. One of the gags in the movie is that the bounty hunters, because there always have to be bounty hunters, crash land in Australia and have to run to Iowa. Hilarious right? Yeah well not really. With no budget they thought ‘Hey let’s just use a green screen’. Which means you get not one but two sequences of the actors running in place with a generic desert being projected behind them. I’ve seen YouTube videos with far better production values than this.

Be aware that the next paragraph contains some spoilers.  I could go on and mention that whomever wrote the script either had never seen a Critters movie or if they did just didn’t care about the established formula. Flipping it around in a ham-fisted manner making the Critters the good guys… but then not really. Oh, and the bounty hunters are bad guys and stay that way. There isn’t anyone to root for in the damn thing! Again, they miss the point of the human protagonists in the earlier movies. There is also a really dumb twist that doesn't fit at all with the rest of the franchise.

This thing is a mess that I think will disappoint all fans of the movie series. It certainly annoyed me and made me want my hour back. My hope is that someone decides to revive the franchise like they did with the recent Leprechaun sequel. I’d love to see the Critters back in action in a proper movie.

© Copyright 2019 John Shatzer