CRITTERS (1986)

DIRECTED by Stephen Herek.

SCREENPLAY by Stephen Herek & Dominic Muir from a story by Dominic Muir.

STARRING  - Dee Wallace Stone as Helen Brown,  Billy "Green" Bush as Jay Brown,  Scott Grimes as Brad Brown,  Nadine Van Der Veldt as April Brown,  Don Keith Opper as Charlie McFadden,  Billy Zane as Steve Eliot,  Terence Mann as Ug/Johnny Steele.

PLOT  - In the far reaches of outer space, aboard a prison asteroid containing some of the galaxy's worst criminals, an escape bid is being made. Members of a vicious race known as the Krites (or "Critters") hijack a ship in the penal asteroid's docking bay and make thier escape into the stars. A pair of shape shifting bounty hunters are hired to track down and apprehend the small, furry killers who appear to be heading towards an insignificant backwater planet known as Earth...

Meanwhile on Earth, it is an ordinary day in a small rural community in Kansas. The Brown family are having thier day to day squabbles. Young Brad and his sister April aren't getting along and thier parents, Jay and Helen, are having to deal with thier teenage sibling rivalry over the breakfast table. Jay also has other concerns as he is awaiting the arrival of his employee, Charlie McFadden. Charlie is a good man but also suffers from a drinking problem which sometimes makes him unreliable. Lately he has been claiming that he has seen lights in the sky and is convinced of the existence of aliens.

That night, Jay and Brad witness the crash landing of the Krites stolen ship into one of the nearby fields. Investigating, they find one of thier cows has been partially devoured. Meanwhile, April is in the barn with her new boyfriend, Steve. April and Steve are attacked by the Krites and Steve is killed, his chest and throat torn open and eaten by the ravenous alien creatures.

Very soon, the family are fighting for thier lives against the horde of tiny, viscious killers. Can they make it out alive and will they get any help from the alien bounty hunters who have tracked down thier quarry, or will they instead become caught in the crossfire of a battle they do not understand ?...

DIALOUGE  - Charlie - "Call the army ! They're here !"

PERFORMANCES  - The central character in this film is a young boy - Brad Brown played by Scott Grimes. Brad is supposed to be around twelve years old, Grimes however was sixteen years old when he appeared in this film, he just looked a lot younger at the time. Hey, they have thirty year olds play teenagers in many films, so why not have a teenager play a child. Grimes is very good and pulls off playing a much younger character convincingly. Brad is a good kid who always seems to find himself in some kind of trouble through no fault of his own, he's brave and resourceful, often surprising his parents in the process. He's like a prototype for some of the kid characters in Stranger Things and makes for a likeable central protaganist.

Brad's best friend is Charlie, the town drunk and local mechanic. Charlie is played by Don Keith Opper as a slightly simple manchild. He drinks too much, I think its implied that he's a Vietnam veteren, hence the alcoholism. Opper has a gangly, awkward presence that works for this character and would go on to play Charlie many times in the sequals that this film spawned. Charlie progresses to be a major player as the series continues, eventually becoming a space and time travelling bounty hunter himself. He's always shown to be a slightly bumbling, somewhat accidental hero. He makes it out alive purely by winging it, combined with sheer good fortune rather than with any particular skill. Charlie has these qualities from the outset and its interesting to see how his character progresses through the series. Here it's early days for our boy and its nice to see a more unconventional hero emerging for once. Not all hero's have to be charismatic, muscular male models. Everyday average blokes can be heroic too.

Another character and actor who goes on to appear in later films in this series is Terrence Mann who plays the role of Ug, the leader of the bounty hunters. Ug appears to the brains of the outfit out of the duo of bounty hunters. His partner - Lee (played by several different actors as he takes on different physical forms - at one point he's played by Opper when he takes on Charlie's appearance) seems unable to master shape shifting properly and seems inexperienced and accident prone, Ug on the other hand is shown to be a consumate professional. Ug takes on the form of rock singer Johnny Steele, a character who's song 'Power of the Night' seems to be constantly playing on TV. This leads Ug to being recognised as "that guy on the TV" by several characters which inadvertently scuppers his ability to blend in as well as he would have hoped for. Mann plays Ug with a sense of cold efficiency, he never cracks a smile throughout the entire film and this humourlessnous contrasts well with the fish out of water comedy elements of the character. He's the straight man in an increasingly ridiculous and out of control situation.

The supporting actors all put in decent performances. Dee Wallace Stone does a good turn as Helen, long suffering wife of Jay and mother of Brad and April, she's your typical small town mother and housewife really and Wallace brings a sense of warmth and familiarity to the role. Billy"Green"Bush plays Jay as a hardworking salt of the Earth type father and husband, he's tough but fair to his two squabbling kids and he has some nice father and son bonding scenes with Grimes. Nadine Van Der Veldt is April and plays her as a typical teenage girl, into boys and frustrated by her little brother's perceived childishness but loving him nonetheless. There's a lovely little moment when April tells Brad to be careful when he's about to run off to fight the Krites, after all the sibling rivalry in the film's early scenes it makes for a nice pay off. We also get Billy Zane in an early role as April's doomed boyfriend Steve, he doesn't get to do much really except die horribly, but its always interesting to see where somebody who is now a well regarded character actor made thier start.

SFX - The Krites or "Critters" embody the main volume of the effects work as you would expect. Designed by the Chiodo brothers, the Critters manage to be both mischievously cute and menacing at the same time. They have a cartoonish quality to them resembling the Tazmanian Devil character slightly. The Critters are mainly a combination of puppet work, animatronics and static model work and still hold up well today. They have a lot of personality...

The two alien bounty hunters look pretty good too. In thier natural forms they have bright green bald heads with semi-formed lumpen features. They make for a memorable alien design.

One of the best effects is when the bounty hunters transform into thier human forms. Thier faces melt and flow into a human likeness. First you see a skull, and then the dermis form and finally the outer layer of skin. Its like watching somebody's face melt in reverse...

There's also a decent alien design for the creature who hires the two bounty hunters...

He looks like a cross between Bib Fortuna from Return of The Jedi and the Mekon from the old Dan Dare comics. In short, lots of nice practical makeup effects all round.

SEX & VIOLENCE - You get the classic 80's horror trope in this film of the act of sex leading to an act of extreme violence. April and Steve have just finished having sex in the barn when they are attacked by the Krites. Steve is killed in a slasher movie style, its the old adage that if you're a teen who has sex in an 80's horror film then your days are numbered.

There's also lots of chompings, bitings and scratchings courtesy of the tiny terrors along with exploding Critters blown to bits by shotguns and lasers. 

RATING - Critters is a fun little slice of 80's sci-fi/horror action. It has the plot and sensibilities of a 50's B-movie updated for the then contemporary audience. It's often dismissed as being a rip off/cash in on Spielberg and Dante's Gremlins movie, but the screenplay was actually written before Gremlins went into production. Although Gremlins strong performance at the box office undoubtedly was partially responsible for the script being green lit. It has overall good performances and good effects and is a generally fun movie to watch. 

It's slightly slow in places, there are a lot of scenes of characters creeping around in basements in the dark but this is evened out by the explosive action and moments of comedic bloodletting. Overall I think this film deserves 4 ravenous furrballs out of 5. Its another one of those iconic 80's V.H.S. movies that are all the rage again these days. Give it a go.