Sharkflei
Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.
Catangro
After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.
Nayan Gough
A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.
Hattie
I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.
Paul Magne Haakonsen
"Critters" is a classic in its own rights, and it is a movie that is distinctively memorable. It is a movie that I first watched when I was in my young teenage years. And I remember the movie fondly, and it was a rather good movie back then. I have watched it a couple of times since then, and "Critters" definitely have that certain value and contents to it that sustains multiple viewings.They actually had a good list of talents to perform in the movie, and the cast list had some good enough names to it. It was particularly fun to watch a very young and inexperienced Billy Zane appear in "Critters". It was also nice to see a young Lin Shaye in the movie. And if you have been watching movies during the 1980s and 1990s, then you will definitely also recognize the likes of Dee Wallace, M. Emmet Walsh and Scott Grimes.The idea with the shape-shifting bounty hunters was also quite interesting, especially since one of them kept changing forms every now and then.I will say that people were doing good jobs with their given roles and characters, and it seemed like the people were having a great time while filming this particular movie.Taking the movie's age into consideration, then the special effects and the creature designs are actually still good and somewhat impressive. And I must say that I personally do like the design of the critters, and the malicious nature that they have. It just makes for some good, wholehearted fun entertainment. While on the topic of the design of the critters, then it was a great combination that the creatures were small and fuzzy, yet at the same time monstrous and beastly. Granted, the critters puppets were a bit stiff, rigid and unnatural in their movement, but hey this was from the late 1980s. The way that they moved by rolling forward in a curled up ball-like position, was actually quite good.The pacing of "Critters" is also quite alright, because the movie starts out quite nicely and continues on in a good pace. So writers Domonic Muir, Stephen Herek and Don Keith Opper had actually come up with something that worked quite well. And director Stephen Herek was doing a formidable job at bringing the movie together on the screen."Critters" is very 1980's, and if you have seen movies from that decade, then you definitely know what I mean by that. Whether you like that or not, is of course a matter of personal preference. I enjoy the decade and there are some good horror movies to be seen from the 1980s.This movie is a combination of multiple genres; Sci-Fi, horror, comedy and action. And the mix and match of genres do work out quite nicely."Critters" is an entertaining movie that is most definitely worth sitting down to watch, regardless of it being your first time or if you have already seen it before. And if you are new to the "Critters" franchise, do take into consideration that the movies will take on a more comedy aspect after this first movie - but they are still quite enjoyable.
TheRedDeath30
Taste is unique. This is a fact that we all know. There is no real accounting for why one likes a movie that others despise, or vice versa. Often, one's personal taste is the result of accumulated life experience, which cultivate that person's view. I find it interesting, then, how that taste can change. At times, a beloved treasure from childhood will forever stay that way and even starts to inform our later tastes. No matter how much "critical review" would tell me that CHILDREN OF THE CORN is not really that great a movie, I love it. It scared the holy hell out of me as a child and it has always stuck with me as an effective horror movie, no matter how much others may bash it. Then, there is the complete opposite effect, when we revisit a movie we loved as a child and realize "my god, this is really bad". I recently had that experience with CRITTERS. This was a movie that had everything I wanted as a child. We had Dee Wallace, the perfect 80s mom for whom I held a secret crush. There were funny little monsters that swore and murdered people. There was violence, horror, comedy and the hint of sex. Finally, we had kick-ass bounty hunters, complete with 80s rock star hair-dos. It was the perfect cocktail of my childhood obsessions. It certainly helped that it became regular fare on 80s cable, allowing me to see it repeatedly.I would guess that it's been 25 or 30 years since I last saw the movie. Over the past year, I have met several of its' actors at horror conventions, which led to me pulling this 80s gem out of the cellar and giving it another spin in the DVD player. I was hoping for a nostalgic romp through a fun 80s horror flick, but I couldn't stop seeing the cracks in the foundation, eventually resorting to mocking parts of it MST3K style with my wife. Everything that I loved about it lost its' shine in those intervening decades. Most of all was the Critters, themselves. The effects are really bad. I can tolerate 80s practical efx cheesiness and, in fact, want it more in today's horror. I watch a lot of garbage horror, but these monsters are bad puppets, with bad animation. There is little fluidity in their movement. I am keeping the age of the effects in mind, along with the budget, but they are one step above being puppets on strings. All of the "laughs" I seemed to remember as a kid are gone, despite a few bad attempts at one-liners. The bounty hunters are even worse. I get that they are supposed to be "wooden" but they really take it to an extreme. Terrance Mann was so cool to me, then. Now, he's a bad actor, with a bad haircut, who sings a horrible 80s arena rock song in a video to start the movie, and as a bounty hunter just deadpans his way through it.I recognize that I am probably being far too harsh on a movie that was meant to be fun. It was low budget. It was a recognized ripoff of GREMLINS and THE TERMINATOR and E.T. and a few other 80s movies to boot. I should not be judging this movie on the same scale as, say, THE SHINING, and I don't think that I am. As I've said, I love all kinds of horror and can get behind bad horror. That's exactly all this is, though. It's the kind of movie that is beloved by a few geeks (said in the most loving way) who frequent comic cons and horror conventions and have fond childhood memories of this one. To anyone else, though, this is just going to end up playing out like a string of bad 80s clichés.
nzswanny
Definitely a good movie! It's a fine mix of horror, comedy and sci fi all in an hour and a half! However, I would really wish that the movie was longer. If the movie was a bit longer, I'd rate it 10/10, but because it was a bit too short I rated it 8/10. But still, this is a VERY good movie. The jokes are funny, the scares are (very occasionally) scary, the sci fi is a job well done - the perfect movie for fans of horror comedies and science fiction! The humour isn't exactly pointable, and it's a bit hard to figure out...but when you figure out the joke's definition, you will laugh! This is an especially good movie for 10+ because I remember watching this when I was 9 turning 10, and I LOVED it! A must see!!!
slimer8489
This movie rocks! Anybody who just sees the poster automatically thinks it's a rip-off of Gremlins, but this isn't a rip-off, it's something completely new.Now, I have to admit: I did go to this movie because of James Rolfe's review on it (and that kick-ass "Power of the Night" song), though I knew about it ever since I saw the first TMNT movie.Anyways, this movie definitely delivers. It has awesome-looking creatures, fun characters, great music by David Newman, and a bad-ass storyline.Some creatures from space escape to our planet, and it's up to the bounty hunters to have them destroyed. I love the bounty hunters. They can disguise as anything they see with their own eyes.If you think that this is a cheap rip-off of Gremlins, you are wrong. Check this movie out!