Retrospective Film Review

Critters (1986) • 35 Years Later

A group of small alien creatures escape a prison transport ship and are pursed by two shape-shifting bounty hunters to Earth.

We need to talk Gremlins. Having made one of the more notable pint-sized creature features of the 1980s, writer-director Stephen Herek keeps having to answer if he ripped off Joe Dante’s 1984 classic. As with Ghoulies (1985), it was much the same case of Domonic Muir writing the initial screenplay some years before Gremlins beat them to the punch. But we shouldn’t bemoan healthy competition, as these lower-budget knock-offs may have never been made without a bigger success paving the way. This was especially fruitful as Herek and Muir rewrote most of their script to ensure some creative distance and the sci-fi horror-comedy Critters succeeded in distinguishing itself.

Similar to how Gremlins harkens back to the Chinese mysticism of old adventure serials, Critters is a 1950s outer space B Movie throwback. Whereas The Thing (1982), The Blob (1988), and Predator (1987) all featured a mysterious alien visitor, here we start at…