Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

CRITTERS is a New Line Cinema/Smart Egg Pictures/Sho Films presentation, rated PG-13 for some violence and gore, language and mild sexuality. The 82-minute feature opened in America on April 11, 1986.

GREMLINS can be blamed for the onslaught of 1980s mini-monster movies, but it’s kind of hart to fault that movie seeing as how I thought it was a good movie. I can’t say the same about GHOULIES or MUNCHIES or any other little Nasties (TROLL can't fit in the rhyme scheme, yet is an example as well), but the Critters sure come closer than either class of monster. In 1986, CRITTERS came out in theaters and became a surprise hit , being so successful that New Line Cinema, whose only previous successes had been in unleashing Freddy Krueger, Leatherface, and Sam Raimi unto cinema audiences. They weren‘t even the widely-known company they are now back in the 1980s. I think they released the same amount of movies that decade as did Charles Band’s Empire Pictures. Anyway, the CRITTERS ate up enough green so that they defecated three rotten sequels, 1988’s shoddy CRITTERS 2: THE MAIN COURSE, the direct-to-video rubbish CRITTERS 3, and the equally hokey CRITTERS 4.

CRITTERS is toted as a rip-off of GREMLINS, but elements of classic fifties films, E.T., and also then-current hits like THE TERMINATOR and STARMAN pop up from time to time, which is quite a lot of the time. However, CRITTERS manages to have its cake and eat it by not being a blatant thief of older classics and succeeding in its own weird, winsome way. Besides, flying furballs finally became a bit more of a nuisance thanks to this one.

The setting is the small town of Grover’s Bend, California. The movie mostly concerns the life of a barnyard family presided by married parents Jay and Helen Brown (Billy Green Bush and Dee Wallace Stone), who have two children, teenaged April (Nadine Van der Velde) and younger prodigy Brad (Scott Grimes). April is the popular girl who has more boyfriends than little Bradley has firecrackers; her current squeeze, Steve (young Billy Zane), is a rich kid who drives a shiny, silver mobile, to which April’s barnyard mechanic dad replies: “Don’t look like you’re gonna haul much hay in there!” Jay’s assistant is the town’s drunken village idiot, Charlie McFadden (co-writer and series regular Don Opper), who proclaims he used to be an excellent pitcher, until some aliens met him and screwed up his teeth. Yeah. Charlie is Brad’s best friend, and the two engage in great pastimes like slinging rocks at big sis’ tush.

Little do these simple folks know something strange is brewin’ in the sky. Eight intergalactic specimens dubbed “Crites,” have seized control of a fully-fueled escape pod from a penal colony in the cosmos and are heading toward Earth because damn it, they’re HUNGRY! In desperate times, desperate measures are called: two extraterrestrial bounty hunters, who have a nasty rep in the solar system due to their appetite for destruction, are sent to Earth to intercept and destroy the Crites. They are forced to adopt real human faces instead of glowing green nothing-heads, and from a cultural history chip, the creature Ug settles on the visage of mainstream glam rocker Johnny Steele (Terrence Mann). Lee, the other fellow, finds the dead body of a policeman after they land, and assumes his look, even though he will shift his face one more time (when the duo invade a church) before settling on a permanent face when they bomb the local bowling alley: the face of Charlie!

Both bounty hunters are dressed in these long brown trench coats and futuristic cowboy gear, and have heavy-powered bazookas whose necks extend when they are ready to fire, then draw back after they are done. George Carlin made a real hilarious joke about war weapons being phallic symbols, and I guess these guys mean business.

The Crites, dubbed “critters” by young Bradley, invade the Brown family household. The worst part is that they are literally getting bigger for each fleshy live object they consume. This is a nifty idea, one which later sequels forgot to take advantage of.

In fact, the three follow-ups also tried to retain the humor and horror quotient of the original, and mostly failed on a grand level. The humor was lousy, and the most memorable moments seemed to follow the scene in this film where the Critters get a montage where they invade a bedroom and rip it to shreds. In here, though, they are actually both funny (critters assault pillows and one even bites the head off an E.T. doll) and menacing. The monsters are mischievous vermin who gorge on livestock, finger food, jugulars and intestines, as observed in this movie. They also shoot poison thorns from their hairy backsides and get bigger by the hunger.

These beasties are courtesy of the Chiodo Brothers, who also made some dastardly KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE. The most part though is that these monsters seem to be little balls of fur tossed along camera or just simple hand puppets. However, these Critters mostly get beyond their technical limitations and actually manage to be frightening, with their blood-stained teeth of razor, glowing eyes, and eat-and-run lifestyle. Thanks to this film, I wouldn’t want to be in the same room with these monsters, and I sympathize with the main characters more.

The screenplay by Opper, director Stephen Herek and Dominic Muir also has some interesting situations for the family, and as played by the winsome and natural cast (Wallace, Bush, Grimes and Nadine), are good at being an all-American family, from the sci-fi troublemaking brother to the prissy, teasing older sis to the more level-headed and strict mother and father. The scenes with the bounty hunters are also quite funny, as we see them commandeer a police car and drive to the church in skidding reverse motion and also proceed to wow the bowling champion try-outs with their pin-smashing strikes.

However, the Crites also get hilarious moments too. One furball notices they have weapons and says it to another, who replies “So what!” However, the barrel of a shotgun is pointed out the crack in the door and shoots the first Critter to pieces, resulting in the other monster warbling in Critter language the most infamous four-letter word. Fun stuff.

The movie is basically like a drive-in film about monsters, like all those classic films about giant ants, killer sea creatures and man-eating Jell-o confections were. You get the limited surroundings and the heroes running away and fending off the invaders, the invaders not intent on letting fresh meat go to waste. There’s the colorful characters, like the drunkard and the young lovers and the resourceful little boy, only this time the kid understands that little sticks of dynamite can be used as much of a weapon as rakes and shotguns are. One critter figures a firecracker is edible, and his death is surprising. Unlike a GREMLINS-type death where he blows up into green pieces of burnt flesh, he simply implodes, falls over, and heads toward that great ranchero in the sky.

There is some gore in this film though, and you will see what Critters insides look like and what color their blood is. Also, most of the Critter attacks leave a lot of bloody trails and wounds, but no considerable geysers are seen rising. Also, there’s the moment Ug’s face melts away and reconstructs itself to look like Johnny Steele, which focuses on the gruesome face while intercutting with clips from Terrence Mann doing his best video poses for his band’s song, “Power Of The Night.” The PG-13 rating was deserved.

Herek has a lot of campy, lighthearted fun directing this feature film, much like his later gem BILL & TED’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE. He can create some real authentic suspense and action with all of the Crites’ pandemonium, but also take a brief aside to have a good laugh at what’s on screen. With the limited budget and plenty of imagination (if not originality), he makes the film into something wonderful. The ending may be a bit too happy (who knew the unearthly bounty hunters provided damage insurance?), and the most of the time things get too dopey (Southern-California townsfolk, what can you do), but the most part is that this movie is a hoot.

Also, look out for M. Emmet Walsh in a presence-packing walk on as Sheriff Harv and Lin Shaye as Sally, the peppy tabloid reporter. Both characters returned for the sequel, despite the considerable loss of Walsh as the sheriff.

When all is done, the unabashedly four-star CRITTERS will have you hungry for seconds, so make sure you watch this one first and then put on GREMLINS. And whatever you do…DON’T SEE THE SEQUELS!

New Line’s DVD release of CRITTERS is presented in you choice of either 1.85:1 or 1.33:1 aspect ratios as optionally selected via main menu. Subtitles in English are optional, and you get Dolby Digital soundtracks in both 5.1 and 2.0 surround.

The picture transfer does its best to provide a clean, clear transfer of source material. No edge enhancement, artifacts, or ultra-disturbing grain ruins the picture, but the movie hardly looks as if it could have been recorded yesterday. The colors presented here are quite iffy, and don’t have hues that scream perfection, but they are produced in a natural and noise-free transfer. The film is shot in darkness for the greater part of the film, but it never seemed murky at all, even if you can argue the film sports shoddy shadow detail. Daylight footage looks quite better, and as a result, the quality is varied throughout.

Audio is rather unimpressive, with surround effects limited to outer space aircraft fly-overs and rear channels that supply the typical ambience and musical reinforcement. Frequency response is rather ho-hum and simply bares the soundtrack’s low-budgeted age. Stereo separation relied mostly on all of the action being controlled by the front channels, and bass was rather flat even though the LFE did kick in many times. But even with the presentation subdued in terms of audio, the new mix boasts great-sounding music and natural dialogue on all accounts. It’s in the later DVD transfers where you hear the wonderful surrounds caused by a flying furball.

New Line Cinema has nearly denied all matters of DVD extras for this film. There is one hidden feature that you can uncover, and that is of the alternate ending of the film, more reality-based and less happy than the one in the final film. Other than that, you’ll have to make do with the film’s classic theatrical trailer, as well as bonus trailers for the three awful sequels.

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older