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If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Taste is unique. This is a fact that we all know. There is no real accounting for why one likes a movie that others despise, or vice versa. Often, one's personal taste is the result of accumulated life experience, which cultivate that person's view. I find it interesting, then, how that taste can change. At times, a beloved treasure from childhood will forever stay that way and even starts to inform our later tastes. No matter how much "critical review" would tell me that CHILDREN OF THE CORN is not really that great a movie, I love it. It scared the holy hell out of me as a child and it has always stuck with me as an effective horror movie, no matter how much others may bash it. Then, there is the complete opposite effect, when we revisit a movie we loved as a child and realize "my god, this is really bad". I recently had that experience with CRITTERS. This was a movie that had everything I wanted as a child. We had Dee Wallace, the perfect 80s mom for whom I held a secret crush. There were funny little monsters that swore and murdered people. There was violence, horror, comedy and the hint of sex. Finally, we had kick-ass bounty hunters, complete with 80s rock star hair-dos. It was the perfect cocktail of my childhood obsessions. It certainly helped that it became regular fare on 80s cable, allowing me to see it repeatedly.I would guess that it's been 25 or 30 years since I last saw the movie. Over the past year, I have met several of its' actors at horror conventions, which led to me pulling this 80s gem out of the cellar and giving it another spin in the DVD player. I was hoping for a nostalgic romp through a fun 80s horror flick, but I couldn't stop seeing the cracks in the foundation, eventually resorting to mocking parts of it MST3K style with my wife. Everything that I loved about it lost its' shine in those intervening decades. Most of all was the Critters, themselves. The effects are really bad. I can tolerate 80s practical efx cheesiness and, in fact, want it more in today's horror. I watch a lot of garbage horror, but these monsters are bad puppets, with bad animation. There is little fluidity in their movement. I am keeping the age of the effects in mind, along with the budget, but they are one step above being puppets on strings. All of the "laughs" I seemed to remember as a kid are gone, despite a few bad attempts at one-liners. The bounty hunters are even worse. I get that they are supposed to be "wooden" but they really take it to an extreme. Terrance Mann was so cool to me, then. Now, he's a bad actor, with a bad haircut, who sings a horrible 80s arena rock song in a video to start the movie, and as a bounty hunter just deadpans his way through it.I recognize that I am probably being far too harsh on a movie that was meant to be fun. It was low budget. It was a recognized ripoff of GREMLINS and THE TERMINATOR and E.T. and a few other 80s movies to boot. I should not be judging this movie on the same scale as, say, THE SHINING, and I don't think that I am. As I've said, I love all kinds of horror and can get behind bad horror. That's exactly all this is, though. It's the kind of movie that is beloved by a few geeks (said in the most loving way) who frequent comic cons and horror conventions and have fond childhood memories of this one. To anyone else, though, this is just going to end up playing out like a string of bad 80s clichés.

A family are terrorised by little furry animals from outer space who can eat anything, however the family are assisted by two alien bounty hunters who want to exterminate these critters.This film starred: Scott Grimes, Dee Wallace & M. Emmet Walsh.Critters is an OK film but it is a bit of a rip off from Gremlins, I don't really enjoy this film anymore because it is just boring, you can have a couple of laughs but that isn't really enough for a film that is meant to be a comedy. Not really recommended unless you are a fan of science fiction comedy and an extreme fan at that.***/***** Could be worse.

A race of small, furry aliens make lunch out of the locals in a farming town."Critters" somehow got the reputation as New Line's response to "Gremlins". This has been disputed, but the connection never seemed obvious to begin with. More interesting is the connection with "E.T.", as the film features not only an inflatable alien, but one of the stars: Dee Wallace.Providing the creature effects are the Chiodo Brothers, now best known for Killer Klowns. Billy Zane appears in a supporting role before he made it big. And most notable is the directing of Stephen Herek, who made some more cult classics in the following years: "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" (1989) and "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead" (1991).A cheesy film, "Critters" is lovable because it has a variety of science fiction and horror elements without ever getting too gory or too obscene. Rather than focus on darker or more adult themes, they chose to aim for a PG-13 rather than R rating and play up the comedy. This was a wise choice.

Talk about 80s. Perhaps my first time seeing Critters should've been back then.I have seen Critters 3 when was young, but then it was only because I was into Leonard DiCaprio at the time. (Actually, admittedly, I still am.) I just never got around to this, Part 2, 4 or whatever how many more they made that I have even less interest in.This original film (meaning, #1 in the series) dealt with fur balls from hell – uh, space – and their need to chop everything with their piranha teeth. They crash land in Smallville, U.S.A. on the most cliché family farm in movie history. I.E. Dad wears overalls all-day and drinks from a jar. (Even his real name is "Billy.")In normal 80s fashion, the family fights off the rolling little balls of Satan while two emotionless, direct from a bad 80s music video, bounty hunters aid.Despite me never seeing this before and it's been just shy of 30 years since its initial release, it holds up for me because it's 100% 80s horror/comedy fair. Even if you've never seen it, but love the 80s horror movies, you might like this little gem.* * * Final thoughts: I know they were trying to tap into Gremlins success, just like every other 80s horror film was a copycat, but at least this movie tried to shake things up a bit with the background story. Sadly, that entire (and basically, right off the set of the 1970's TV program: Wonder Woman) sci-fi opening was truly hard to get through.