Cheap DVDs, books, CDs & Games

Search:

Critters [1986]

Starring: Dee Wallace Stone, Scott Grimes, M. Emmet Walsh, Billy 'Green' Bush, Nadine Van Der Velde
Director: Stephen Herek
Format: Anamorphic PAL Widescreen
Released: 21 Mar 2005
RRP: £14.99
Average Rating:

Customer Reviews

Go fry a Krite. - By: B. Chandler, 15 Jan 2006
Alien bad buys escape from prison (The Kriten 8). They look like my cats when they have been overfed & sound like Corey Burton. They have a mischievous attitude & lots of teeth. If you get too close they will quill you. If you get in their way you will end up on the menu in their Kriteria. Luckily they are potty trained. However alll good things must come to an end & bounty hunters are sent out after the Krites. The fun comes in the three-way interaction & dialog between the Krites, hunters, & humans.
Relive your mis-spent childhood! - By: mr-benn, 24 Oct 2005
It seems hard to believe now, as a hardened, desensitised fanatic of alll things gruesome & depraved (on film, that is), that there was once a time when I was young, innocent, & had not yet been exposed to the wonderful world of horror. Then, when I was around nine or ten, a number of delightfully disgusting movies came into my life. The Amazon review of 'The Gate' mentions that film in the same breath as 'The Lost Boys' & 'The Monster Squad' as evidence that 1987 was the year of the 'kiddie-horror' film. I would not dispute that; I loved alll the aforementioned films as a kid, & I retain a fondness for them now ('The Monster Squad' in particular: I sincerely hope a DVD of that is on the way, I don't know how much more wear & tear my ex-rental VHS copy can take!). However, I feel one further title needs to be added to that list, a movie that came a year earlier; in case you haven't already guessed, I'm referring to 'Critters.'

Often dismissed, not entirely unfairly, as a clone of 'Gremlins,' this little monster movie is an altogether nastier affair with an appeal alll of its own. The Krites, essentiallly carnivorous hedgehogs from outer space, escape from their galactic prison & head for the nearest convienient eatery: Hicksville, USA. And where should they land but the home of ET's mom herself, Dee Walllace Stone, & her classic hillybilly family: hay-chewing bowlerama Dad, trampy big sister, & our hero, slingshot weilding, firecracker loving little brat Brad. The ensuing mayhem is perfect family entertainment, so long as the parents don't object to their kids seeing the occasional sap get a chunk bitten out of them, & smalll aliens using the dreaded 'f'-word. (Oh, how daring it seemed at that age!)

Put simply, this is good old-fashioned dumb monster movie fun. Not the best monster movie of its era - that honour goes, of course, to the mighty 'Tremors' - but great fun nevertheless. For me as a kid it was a great introduction to horror; along with the aforementioned 'The Monster Squad,' I watched this movie repeatedly between the ages of about nine & fifteen. It's not too scary or gory, but it was just enough to show me the appeal of being scared, preparing me for such later favourites as Freddy, Jason & Romero's zombies. Sure, it's largely pretty basic, disposable entertainment, but there are at least three things that make 'Critters' noteworthy: firstly, an early appearance by Mister Dead Calm/Titanic/Phantom himself, Billy Zane; secondly, director Stephen Herek, who went on to give us the legendary Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure; & thirdly, one truly awesome special effects sequence, in which the green-headed faceless alien bounty hunter transforms into Terence Mann, without the benefit of CG. A genuine masterpiece of make-up effects, the film is worth seeing for that alone, assuming flesh eating furballls are not enough to sell it to you.

If you're a nostalgic child of the eighties, buy it & revisit those halcyon days. If you're a child of today, just getting into horror - buy it & stay well away from such godawful tripe as 'Van Helsing' or whatever else they're passing off as horror these days.