Touches You

Good movie but grossly overrated

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Boy, Critters. Where do I began with this film.The story is pretty much a bunch of Carnivore, furry Hedgehog/Porcupine mixed extraterrestrial Creatures called Crites or Critters have escaped from their outer space prison, and made it their way to the other side of the Galaxy to land on the life planet "Earth" to search for food, while a couple Bounty Hunters are sent to go find them and exterminate them. Meanwhile, at the location of a farm outside of a small Kansas Town, the family is then under attack by the Man-eating Critters as it where they landed on, and tries anyways to protect themselves and attempts to killed every single one of these vicious freaks. This movie have a good cast of people, the most notable one being Scott Grimes, who portray the Red-headed kid in the film, who you may recognize being one of Seth MacFarlane buddies as he cast in several of his work such as "Family Guy" and "American Dad", as well MacFarlane most recent live-action show "The Orville". My favorite characters are Grimes' Character, the Bounty Hunters, and a character named Charlie, who is pretty much a main character within the whole film series. Grimes' character was sorta entertaining to watch, he was quite funny and very serious at times. Charlie was good in this too, as his personality was just great being pretty much the Town's Drunk, and for the most time Loser, as he doesn't have any friends except for Grimes, whose their Relationship in this film was sorta nice to see, just a classic Buddy relationship, and his belief in the Extraterrestrial makes his character more outstanding. The Bounty Hunters were like the second highlights of the film, they were so cool to see, and let don't forget the awesome transformation scene, like wow, that shows the special effects that was used for this were so incredible and this was before CGI. The effects on the Critters were good too, which are another thing I should talk about as well, the Critters, they were feisty in this one, like how they comes after these family members is very terrific and we feel how horrifying this family was in this one. They were slightly a-bit funny to watch in this as well, like their Interactions is sorta interesting, but really it not that much to be honest. Speaking of Interactions, I shall one of the two complaints this film delivers, one is that the Critters didn't have that much of Interactions with the Bounty Hunters, which is something I never really liked, instead through-out the whole until close by the end, the Bounty Hunters spend their time searching through-out the Town trying to find the Critters, now it funny of them getting into others' businesses, really were just trying to find who their looking for, but I just wished they added a few more scenes of them with the Critters. The other complaint is that the death rate is very VERY low, there only like two people killed in this one, which is actually consequentially the total amount of deaths in these films (Only by the Critters anyways), except for Critters 2. That not really why I have a problem with however, it just that only one death was shown on-screen and the other one happened underneath a car, which come on, really. But those doesn't boiled this film down exactly, it stills an entertaining piece of art with some great horror going on. Anyways, if you want to see a horror film with a classic B-Movie feel to it, and if you loved Gremlins (Which this film is competing with), you'll definitely loves this one.

Strangely enough, I enjoyed the first half of "Critters" more; the depiction of the everyday life of an average middle-class rural family is quite pleasant (including a believable brother-sister relationship and the perfect all-American mom, Dee Wallace Stone). But when the Critters enter the picture, 28-year-old director Stephen Herek, making his debut, shows that he is not in Joe Dante's (or Steven Spielberg's, of course) league; there are some amusing moments, but no particularly memorable attack or close-call sequences. Unlike the Critters themselves, the film lacks teeth. ** out of 4.

This movie is very scary. It has a great story line. It also has great acting. It also has great special effects. 6 is a good rating. But this is such a great movie that 6 is underrating it. This is one of the best sciences fiction of all time. It is so scary. It is scarier then The Exorcist and that is not easy to do. It is about space monster. I like space monster stories. Stephen Herek is a great film maker and this is one of the his best movies. This is scarier the A Nightmare on elm street and that is not easy to do. This is scarier then Friday the 13th and that is not easy to do. It is not a 6. I give it 10 out 10. One the best movies I have seen. See it. It is a great movie.

A group of 'Crites' hijack a prison ship and escape to earth where they lay siege on a farmhouse attacking the family inside. Director/writer Stephen Herek Critters is an ambitious creature sci-fi, along with fellow writers Domonic Muir and Don Keith Opper it juggles a lot of sci-fi elements despite a predominantly rural setting. There are intergalactic face-changing bounty hunters, alien creatures, spaceships and ray cannons. Herek and company in true 80's fashion spend little time in giving the creatures and bounty hunters a back story leaving it to the imagination. This works in its favour compared to the excessive exposition in many of today's films. Likewise, the Critters just happen to come across the farmhouse after chowing down on a bull. Interestingly at the time of Critters' VHS run I unjustly saw it as a rip off Gremlins, much like Munchies. Yes it cashed-in on its popularity but writers have since pointed out that it was written before Joe Dante's classic went into production and subsequently underwent rewrites to reduce the apparent (in the ether) similarities between the two films.The escaped alien Crites with their sharp toothy grins and tranquilizing dart quills amusing roll around like hedgehogs on speed. Encapsulating the sound of 1986, artist Che Zuro plays in the background among some other 80s bands with David Newman's score giving power to the action setups and menace to the Critter puppets. The encounter in the cellar where the father is attacked is quite effective, especially the preceding search and reveal by torchlight. The Critters are amusing times, at one point they converse with subtitles, "They have weapons" says one, "So what?" replies another before getting blasted away. There's also scenes where a Critter encounters an E.T. (1982) doll – tearing it apart, a toilet hiding Critter (a likely homage to 1985's Ghoulies) and also a moment where one eats a cherry bomb may rouse a chuckle. In the opening the commander of the prison hires two shape-changing bounty hunters to pursue the Crites/Critters to earth (maybe his inspired AVP Requiem's story-line). These hunters, with Space Marine like costumes get some humorous moments mainly because of mistaken identity by the small townspeople. Tim Curry-like actor Terrence Mann takes form of the rock band front man Johnny Steele, complete with a Bon Jovi hairdo. While the other takes on faces of a few locals notably Don Opper who plays a duel role of both the bounty hunter and the towns paranoid drunk Charlie McFadden. McFadden a friend of young Brad Brown have a Miyagi and Daniel san Karate Kid bond which is older man young boy relationship that are seemingly avoided in films these days. Brad played by Scott Grimes (who latter would voice American Dad's Steve) is a stereotype 80s film kid experimenting with fire crackers, bickering with his sister and trying to bunk off school. Notable is Billy Green Bush's Jay Brown as an everyday farmer and his wife played by Dee Wallace Stone). Wallace is given very little to do, the character Helen Brown is purely functional and pretty much retreads her E.T. mother role, that said she does get to fire off a few shots at those Critters. Playing Brad's teenage sister April is fresh faced actress Nadine Van der Velde (who was 24 years old at the time) and incidentally appeared in the aforementioned copycat film Munchies. Actor Billy Zane sporting a little rats tail shows up as April's boyfriend, destined to be Critter fodder. For sale-ability appeal Blade Runner's acting veteran M. Emmet Walsh plays the pretty useless local Sheriff Harv. There are a handful of stunts and although the optical effects have unsurprisingly dated the practical effects still hold up well. The impressive gooey face changing sequence is memorable and the Critters themselves are simple and effective from the rolling, to the firing quills with plenty of good old fashion blood on display after an attack. After the bounty hunters cause some mayhem in the church and a local bowling alley (the teams shirts echo a Ghostbusters logo design) they arrive at the farmhouse to capture the Critters. In the final act after the family house is invaded we have our heroes go about rescuing April from a giant kidnapping Critter. Herek gives us an obligatory end explosion, a chance for a special effect team to show off their fine miniature model skills, with moments for the editors to flex their skills. In addition, with some eggs laid in a barn there's the inevitable unashamed set up for a sequel (which came two years later in 1988).Critters still has a charm about it thanks to the novel creature design and acting of likable Grimes'. Produced by New Line's Bob Shaye (A Nightmare on Elm St.) Critters is squarely aimed at its mid-teen target audience and despite some bumpy pacing Critters delivers enough laughs and playful alien set-ups to retain a lasting appeal long after the VHS was replaced by DVD and on-demand films.