Critters might be a Gremlins knock-off but it’s B-movie magic

In the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, while Leonardo, Donatello and Michelangelo are partying in the sewer, Raphael decides to go out and catch a movie. A short while later, Raphael is seen exiting the theater in his trench coat and fedora. “Ugh,” he groans, “where do they come up with this stuff?”

On the marquee, the movie is revealed to be Critters, and for anyone not into cheesy B-movie horror, their reaction will likely match Raphael’s.

Critters is about a race of aliens known as Krites. In the beginning of the film, the Krites crash land on an Earth farm and begin eating everything in sight, including the family dog and the boyfriend of the farmer’s daughter. The family is nearly overrun by the ravenous, hedgehog-like little monsters, but a pair of alien bounty hunters comes to their rescue and subdues the Krites.

Critters was directed by first-time filmmaker Stephen Herek, who would go on to direct a number of notable films like Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, and The Mighty Ducks. It was written by Herek and producer Domonic Muir, who conceived of the idea and wrote the original script in the early 1980s. When it was written is significant because the film came out in 1986, about two years after Gremlins. Most people familiar with Critters regard it as pretty much a Gremlins knock-off, though Herek claims Muir wrote his screenplay before Gremlins even went into production.

Gremlins knock-off or not, Critters became a cult hit, and it’s easy to see why the B-movie horror crowd loved it. The acting is hammy and big in a fun way, especially when the critters shoot their porcupine-like quills into their victims, making them fall asleep (literally no one in the film makes this believable). There’s plenty of blood, as the Krites are vicious little guys and the movie never shies away from gore. Many of the effects are delightfully cheesy, too. The Critters are able to roll up into a ball like a hedgehog to get around, but whenever this happens on screen they just look like fuzzy softballs being thrown from off camera.

The best thing about Critters though is the Critters themselves. The practical effect puppets were made by The Chiodo Brothers, also known for Killer Klowns from Outer Space. And despite being deadly little bastards, there’s something downright cute about the Krites. Maybe it’s because they’re small and furry and have full-on conversations in subtitled growling sounds. More likely it’s their huge mouths full of way too many spiky little teeth, which fixes their expressions into a permanent grin. Whatever it is, the little devils were so beloved that three sequels were made in pretty close succession.

Like any good horror franchise, each installment knew how to up the ante. While the original restricts the Critters to a farm, in the second movie they attack a whole rural town. In part three, they attack a city, and in part four they’re in space. The middle two are probably the best of the series. Critters 2: The Main Course introduces the Critterball, where all the Critters gather into a huge sphere and roll all together. Critters 3 has the most pure Critter action after the filmmakers finally learned that nobody cares about the bounty hunters who took up way too much screen time in the first two movies.

The space-oriented Critters 4 came out in 1992 and after that, the franchise went into suspended animation for a while. In May 2019 though, Shudder premiered the reboot series Critters: A New Binge which consisted of 8 episodes that were about 10 minutes each. A few months later, Critters Attack! a direct-to-DVD film was released that later ran on SYFY. While neither of the recent incarnations have been all that successful, they deserve some respect, if only because the Critters themselves are still brought about with practical effect puppets.

As a franchise, Critters is certainly not for everyone, mostly because none of the movies are really any good. But if you’re into the hallmarks of practical effect B-movies, and little monsters that are equal parts horrible and adorable, they’re a lot of fun — even if a mutated turtle in a trenchcoat thinks they’re ridiculous.

Critters is streaming for free on Plex and Hoopla