Critters

    Critters
    1986

    Synopsis

    Carnivorous aliens arrive unannounced at a Kansas family farm; two intergalactic bounty hunters soon follow, determined to blow them off the planet.

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    Cast

    • Dee WallaceHelen Brown
    • M. Emmet WalshHarv
    • Billy Green BushJay Brown
    • Scott GrimesBrad Brown
    • Nadine Van der VeldeApril Brown
    • Billy ZaneSteve Elliot
    • Lin ShayeSally
    • Ethan PhillipsJeff Barnes
    • Don Keith OpperCharlie McFadden
    • Terrence MannJohnny Steele / Ug

    Recommendations

    • 75

      Chicago Sun-Times

      What makes Critters more than a ripoff are its humor and its sense of style. This is a movie made by people who must have had fun making it.
    • 75

      Chicago Tribune

      For its many lighter moments, Critters is careful to balance its laughs with a number of chills. It unabashedly and wittily pays homage to other films. But ultimately it stands firmly on its own, a little bit frightening and a lot of fun. [15 Apr 1986, p.3C]
    • 60

      Empire

      Derivative but tongue-in-cheek enough to have a following.
    • 60

      Time Out

      Judging from the title, Spielberg's Gremlins would be the immediate target, and indeed Critters does share a sardonic similarity. In fact, Critters looks like several dozen films without looking like any one of them, the action and characters lifted whole from a dissimilar plethora of cinematic sources and underscored with a sizzling sarcasm which elevates it from its source material.
    • 50

      Slant Magazine

      Slap together a modestly budgeted horror film with an unmistakable resemblance to a recent hit film (Gremlins) and a notable inversion of another popular film’s ending (Poltergeist), insert just enough Podunk camp to ensure Joe Bob Briggs would catch its scent and you’ll guarantee yourself the birth of a franchise.
    • 50

      TV Guide Magazine

      One of the most enjoyable films of the summer, Critters harks back to the low-budget science fiction films of the 1950s and balances the thrills with heavy doses of humor.
    • 50

      The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

      Critters mounts a moment or two of suspense, but director Herek has as much wit and even less visual imagination than the people who created Night of the Comet. [16 Apr 1986, p.C6]
    • 50

      Los Angeles Times

      Critters is a dumb, but sometimes likable little movie: maybe an odd comment, since it contains savage killings, mutilations and general bloodshed and evisceration. [25 Apr 1986, p.8]

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