Critters is a 1986 movie directed by Stephen Herek and starring Scott Grimes, ET’s mum, Billy Greenbush, and M Emmet Walsh
Stephen Herek directs New Line Cinema’s answer to Joe Dante’s Gremlins and this is a sadly forgotten gem from a decade that gave us some of the most memorable practical special effects and tongue-in-cheek humour in the history of movies.
Critters tells the story of the Brown family, they live on a farm in rural Kansas. Their idyllic existence is interrupted one evening by a meteorite that crashes to earth nearby. The meteorite is actually a space ship containing the “Krites”, little aliens that resemble rabid Furbies. The Krites are some kind of galactic criminals who were on their way to a prison asteroid but have escaped and have now crash landed on earth. This spells disaster for this small rural community as the Krites pretty much only have one basic need – the need…to feed!
The Krites (or Critters) are pursued by a pair of shape-shifting bounty hunters who have to be one of the most inept duos I’ve ever seen. For most of the movie they succeed only in terrorising the townsfolk and causing needless destruction. One of them shape shifts into some fictional 80’s pop icon, Johnny Steele, who has a tremendous mullet, while the other seems to be having some issues with his shape shifting abilities and so takes the form of several different townspeople throughout the film. Their weapons appear to be modified leaf blowers too which is just a great bit of low-budget awesomeness. And their dialogue pretty much only consists of the phrases “We’re here for the Krites,” and “Where are the Krites?” which is just hilarious.
The character who does a far better job of dealing with the Critters is Brad (Scott Grimes), the annoying little brother of the Brown family who has a fondness for homemade fireworks (God I miss being a kid in the 80’s – I long for the days when toys were lethal). Brad is the rambunctious youngster who realises the danger before anyone else and spends the first act of the film trying to convince the idiot grownups that something is wrong. Once he’s got them on board it’s a frantic rush to the finish to save his family and the town and rid the planet of the evil little fuzzball menace.
There’s a lot to like in Critters. The Critters themselves are great – some really nice puppet work and they get some fantastic dialogue. They are foul-mouthed too which makes them incredibly enjoyable, they really steal the film. They actually also manage to be quite threatening, not only do they have little mouths full of razor sharp fangs, but they also shoot little poisoned spikes out of their spines. They are well-thought out little villains and would have been lots of fun to operate.
The film also features Billy Zane in a really early role. He plays the Brown’s daughter’s idiot boyfriend who has an amazingly low libido for a teenager in an 80’s horror movie. He seems disturbingly reluctant to get it on with April (Nadine Van der Velde) His excuse is he’s doesn’t want to get busted by her old man, but it’s still disturbing that even when she’s obviously keen to throw herself at him he seems more keen to watch her dad go ten pin bowling. Anyway, the Critters don’t hesitate to make short work of him which is nice. But not before he has a great line about mashed potatoes. He captures that “awkward dinner conversation with your girlfriend’s parents” thing really nicely.
I really like this film. New Line basically chucked out the PG-13 rules and made an R-rated creature feature. I’ve always liked New Line (the production company that was saved from bankruptcy by releasing a little R-rated gamble called Nightmare on Elm Street), they are not afraid to push boundaries and it’s this cavalier attitude that has established them as the successful movie house they are today (they also financed the LOTR trilogy). It also harks back to the days of drive in creature flicks like the 1960’s The Blob using the formula of a space menace terrorising a small town and the townspeople becoming reluctant heroes in order to save the planet. Far from being derided as a Gremlins rip-off, it was actually quite successful, which was both good and bad. Good, because it means it’s now available on dvd, but bad because it of course spawned a number of sequels which did the Planet of the Apes thing – became increasingly cheap and silly as they went on.
I hate to again compare this film to Gremlins but I’ll just say that it’s far more enjoyable than the other critter feature it’s often compared to. Gremlins is a good film but has Spielberg’s “group hug!” stank all over it. Critters chucks out any touchy-feely nonsense in favour of dark humour and lots of blood, and is a far better film for it. I’m nostalgic for a lot of flicks from my childhood. Some lose a lot of their magic when revisited. Critters remains just as awesome now as it was when I was still playing with toys that could kill me. A very cool way to spend 82 minutes.
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