Critters (1986) - Return to Grover's Bend

It has been a few years since I last watched “Critters” (1986), while I have revisited the sequel annually due to its Easter holiday setting. While I personally think the series was perfectly fine at two films, two more were made back to back. But the topic is the first which I watched for another retro 80s marathon this weekend (I mentioned last weekend, although I didn’t bring up yet “Night of the Comet” (1984), which I meant to review but failed to find the time), opening Friday night with the first “Critters”.

I had forgotten how damn good the casting was for the first film. The second film, in its own right, was excellently cast, but the first film even had M Emmet Walsh, Billy Green Bush, and Dee Wallace (the former, the sheriff of Grover’s Bend, Kansas, the latter two playing the married farm couple, parents to series’ favorite, Scott Grimes, now of “The Orville”). And a young Billy Zane (that Grimes’ sister, Nadine Van der Velde (of “After Midnight” and “Munchies”) wants to rumble in the hay and Ethan Phillips (Neelix of “Star Trek: Voyager”) as a deputy, both munched on by the Crites (as is Green Bush, getting his shoulder and leg gnawed on, as well as, as victim of their poison pine needles). Lin Shaye, with her vibrant hair and 50s dress style, at the dispatch for the sheriff’s office in this film (she works for the paper in the sequel), steals every scene she’s in…doesn’t she always? Can’t forget “Power of the Night”, the “Johnny Steele” song, Terrence Mann as rock star and whose face an alien bounty hunter takes the likeness of, while his fellow hunter has a problem deciding which to choose (imitating various townsfolk he encounters). Don Opper didn’t do a whole lot in his career, with the very underrated “Android” just a few years prior (I need to revisit this one this year, too!), but the Critters series is his personal franchise. The third film, which I will probably watch next week, is the franchise’s low point (not that the fourth film was any great shakes), but “Critters” (1986) made for another fun Friday night creature feature. The 80s had some good ones, too. Grimes as the young hero—who eventually locates the bounty hunters when he leaves his injured parents and scared sister for help, quite the climber (he hops into a tree and through his bedroom second story window in order to open the locked door during one harrowing sequence as the Crites are closing in on them, having rolled towards them from the barn and basement), finding his bike, and motoring it to them—puts good use to firecrackers, with help from Opper’s alcoholic, UFO-phobic Charlie, at the end when it appears the Crites are about to blast off, thanks to a Molotov Cocktail. I always get a kick out of the scene involving the Crites just laying waste to a bedroom, finding an ET doll (I had one of these when I was a kid!), tearing its head off, also shredding pillows among other things. And the explosions are quite intense. The bounty hunters have cannons that just blow big holes into walls, televisions, commodes, and doors. There is even a nifty device left behind by the bounty hunters that actually rebuilds the exploded farmhouse the Crites destroyed with a well-pointed laser blast for the Browns house. The bowling alley and church in town don’t fare any better thanks to the bounty hunters and their pursuit of the Crites, firing off their cannons and barely blinking as the targets go KABOOM!

 

The PG-13 is really stretched to its threshold, I thought. The Crites leave behind mutilated cattle and livestock and just clamp on to humans with the sharp teeth. And as they eat they grow so there is even that. These monsters even speak in a certain language when translated to English are such highlights as “Fuck” and “Uh-oh”. The family in peril as the Crites try to get into their home is quite well done. 

While I can easily see why the sequel is a favorite to fans of the franchise, I still favor the first one because I like the use of the bounty hunters, and it is a bit more 80s than the sequel which is more bright and spring-time. I do think Grimes, as a young adult visiting his grandma, in the sequel gets as good a part as in the first film, he’s the kid always at odds with his older sister, with the typical chase through the house as their harried mom tries to get the evening meal and morning breakfast together. The use of a slingshot and aforementioned firecrackers get Grimes in trouble with his father. The family dynamic I really enjoy is missing in the sequel so that is something else I think sets the first film apart in my mind. I could change my mind after another viewing, and, admittedly, I’ve watched the second film more than the first over the last ten or so years. But there is more of Grover’s Bend to enjoy in the sequel, but I think the first film alternates successfully between the two. So it is probably a matter of what you find more appealing. The first and second film are really close to me than they were when I was a kid. Chalk that up to tastes changing as you get older, I reckon.