Critters

Alternate titles : None

Tagline : "When you've got critters, you need all the help you can get"

When farmer Jay Brown (Billy Green Bush) spots something landing in the next field one night, it's the beginning of a non-stop nightmare, as he and his family (which includes genre regulars Dee Wallace Stone and Billy Zane) find their farmhouse besieged by some rather unfriendly alien fur balls, that will eat anything and everything, hoping to satisfy their insatiable appetites.

Charlie the town drunk (Don Opper) is the only other person who's seen the space ship land, but of course the local Sheriff (M Emmet Walsh) doesn't believe him. Help is at hand though, as a couple of shape changing intergalactic space mercenaries, Ug and Li, who touch down hoping to locate and destroy the remaining critters, and subsequently go about shooting up the entire town in their search for them.

The townsfolk are puzzled by the arrival of these two futuristic strangers, why does on of them looklike rock singer Johnny Steele (Terrance Mann)? How come the other is able to change his appearance to resemble the other townsfolk every 5 mins? and who are what are these "krites" they are searcing for?

Meanwhile, the Brown family are busy defending their farmhouse with shotguns and home made fireworks. Can the space mercenaries locate the critters in time? Will the police finally believe Charlie and come to the aid of the Brown family, or will he have to do the job himself? If you don't know, then you obviously haven't seen the film yet. If so, why not?

Whilst the film was undoubtedly released to cash in on the success of "Gremlins" in the mid-late 80's ("There's nothing new in Hollywood" as one reviewer said about it at the time), this is still a thoroughly enjoyable slice of sci-fi/horror hokum, and is definitely a must see for all those who like tongue in cheek horror spoofs.

Overall Marks :

Terrifying Trivia

• Alternate tag lines "They Bite!", "The battle began in another galaxy. It's about to end in the Brown's backyard.", "They eat so fast, you don't have time to scream".
• Although marketted as a "Gremlins" rip-off, the film was actually written long before Gremlins went into production. However, it wasn't until after the release of that film that they went ahead with this one.
• Don Opper, who plays Charlie the drunk, had previously starred in the cult sci-fi film "Android" in which he played the robot.
• The Critters were voiced by prolific voice-over actor Corey Burton, who created the Critters language for the film, which was a mish-mash of French and Japanese.
• The scene showing a Critter emerging from a toilet was most likely a spoof/homage to the scene from "Ghoulies" (1985).
• Sally, the police radio operator, was played by Lin Shaye, the sister of New Line Cinema founder Robert Shaye, and regularly appeared in various New Line productions, including the "Nightmare on Elm Street" films. She went on to star in "Ouija" and the "Insidious" films.
• This was one of Billy Zane's first movies, having appeared in only one other film before this.
• Writer/Director Steven Herek said he based the story on a nighmare he had many years ago.
• The logo on the back of the Bowling uniforms during the Bowling Alley scene was a spoof of the "Ghostbusters" logo.
• Deputy Barns, was played by Ethan Philipps, who went on to become a regular in "Star Trek : Voyager" playing Neelix.
• The "ET" toy that one of the Critters devours was a jokey reference to "ET : The Extra Terrestrial" which came out a few years prior and in which Dee Wallace also starred.

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