Critters

**Critters** is a 1986 American science fiction/comedy/horror film directed by Stephen Herek which was released on April 11, 1986 by New Line Cinema.

## Plot

The film follows a group of small, furry aliens with carnivorous behavior who escape from two shape-shifting bounty hunters and cause chaos after landing in a small countryside town.

## Cast

* Dee Wallace as Helen Brown
* M. Emmet Walsh as Harv
* Billy "Green" Bush as Jay Brown
* Scott Grimes as Brad Brown
* Nadine van der Velde as April Brown
* Don Keith Opper as Charlie McFadden
* Lin Shaye as Sally
* Billy Zane as Steve Elliot
* Ethan Phillips as Jeff Barnes
* Terrence Mann as Ug / Johnny Steele
* Jeremy Lawrence as Reverend Miller / Preacher

## Production

Principal photography for "Critters" took place from November 10, 1984 to January 27, 1985.

Filming began on July 29, 1984 and ended on October 11, 1984 on location in Kansas and Valencia, California, lasting for 6 weeks.

Stephen Herek began a friendship with Domonic Muir while working as assistant editors for the 1985 film, "City Limits." When Herek was looking for his next project, Muir offered him his screenplay for Critters, which he had written three years earlier.

After working on the script, he pitched it to Sho Films because of an existing working relationship to get advice on how to get the film made, in which their executives agreed to develop the script.

Special effects coordinator Chuck Stewart hired Joseph Lombardi as a consultant for the scene of the barn exploding, where they rigged second-floor ceiling with Primacord that carried an explosive charge inside it.

While a contingent from the Los Angeles County Fire Department was on standby, the crew waited until 5:00am to detonate the explosion after winds died down and no brush fires occurred despite the surrounding dry bush.

The sequence of the Critter swallowing a cherry bomb was controlled by puppeteers who were positioned below in a hayloft to operate the stomach and eye movements.

Crew member Dwight Roberts commented that it took some effort to coordinate the Critters’ bulging stomach and eyes as it kneeled over in the hay due to the number of people needed to articulate it.

Corey Burton (who voices the Critters) also came up with their language, which he described in interviews as combining elements of French and Japanese.

## Box Office

"Critters" grossed $1,618,800 during its opening weekend at the box office. Overall, it grossed $13,167,232.

## Critical Reception

"Critters" has an approval rating of 52% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 21 reviews with an average rating of 5.49/10.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times rated the film three out of four stars, writing: *"What makes Critters more than a ripoff are its humor and its sense of style. This is a movie made by people who must have had fun making it."*

Writing for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Marylynn Uricchio described "Critters" as an enjoyable, if unoriginal, low budget monster film, saying that it *"isn't a memorable or even very slick movie, but it is good fun. What it lacks in substance it makes up for with a perverse kind of charm."*

Caryn James of The New York Times complained that the film lacked humor and suspense, writing: *"Critters just doesn't make the audience laugh or jump often enough."*

Alex Stewart reviewed Critters for White Dwarf #83, and stated: *"Critters scuttled by quite pleasantly. Nothing really stands out, despite M. Emmet Walsh as the sweaty sheriff, and a scene wherein a couple of Heavy Metal bounty hunters blow away a baptist church, but the film actually thinks through how the Browns react, as a family, to the anti-social little aliens."*

Rick Kogan from The Chicago Tribune said: *"For its many lighter moments, Critters is careful to balance its laughs with a number of chills. It unabashedly and wittily pays homage to other films. But ultimately it stands firmly on its own, a little bit frightening and a lot of fun."*

Eric Henderson from Slant Magazine wrote: *"Slap together a modestly budgeted horror film with an unmistakable resemblance to a recent hit film (Gremlins) and a notable inversion of another popular film’s ending (Poltergeist), insert just enough Podunk camp to ensure Joe Bob Briggs would catch its scent and you’ll guarantee yourself the birth of a franchise."*

In their review of "Critters", The Globe and Mail (Toronto) said the film *"mounts a moment or two of suspense, but director Herek has as much wit and even less visual imagination than the people who created Night of the Comet."*

Michael Wilmington of the Los Angeles Times wrote: *"Critters is a dumb, but sometimes likable little movie: maybe an odd comment, since it contains savage killings, mutilations and general bloodshed and evisceration."*

Variety magazine said that the film resembles *"oversize hairballs and roll like tumbleweeds when prodded into action, the perfect menace for this irritatingly insipid and lightweight film which unfolds with plodding predictability and leaves few cliches unturned."*

## Sequel

"Critters" spawned the following sequels:

* Critters 2: The Main Course (1988)
* Critters 3 (1991)
* Critters 4 (1992)
* Critters Attack! (2019)