Critters - re:View

well J we're back on a new episode of review and we're here to talk about one of our favorite movies that features tiny monsters running amok it's 1997 film the evening star a sequel to terms of endearment you didn't even know that existed digit well Mike we're going to talk about critters and a little bit about the sequels probably more so the second one and not so much the third and fourth one these movies kind of been forgotten for the most part I would say critters is a forgotten film out of curiosity I clicked on the Rotten Tomatoes score of critters and it was like in the 20% really that's no never both really liked it you know I liked this film for the same reasons you did normally what we get are these creatures from outer space coming in tearing up the people in Planet Earth and then fighting and see who wins this film says forget the people pretty much on planet Earth let the aliens fight it out themselves well let me let me say this I don't talk about critter as much and we talked about gremlins more gremlins is the gold standard for tiny monster movies yes critters is some weird it's very tiered yes it's gremlins critters large gap Ghoulies and below that are the really bad ones yes it's just a weird little window of time when everybody was ripping off gremlins mm-hmm but it is we should know - supposedly critters was written before gremlins but it was shot after gremlins had come out and become a huge success and that certainly shows in the movie because it's not like gremlins really much at all but there is a clear influence in certain areas of the movie yes yes in montage sequences montage is a little rubber puppet monsters just reckon [ __ ] [Music] but like I was saying I don't talk about critters much one cuz I'm embarrassed to - we're doing an episode well yeah it's it it's one of those movies that I watched probably 5000 times when I was little it's even to the point where it inspired me to shoot my own little rubber puppet monster movies okay you talked about the first one I'm talking about the first one because what I've kind of not the second one interestingly enough because I was gonna say most people I think critters in this aspect is similar to Ghoulies in that when most people think of it what they're really thinking of is the second movie I [Applause] watched critters one so many times - where I recognize like every beat every line really yeah and then the second one I watch the second one and I was like I don't know about this it's okay but as an adult my opinion is completely flipped the second one is a far superior film but the first one is it does not hold up but it is very very effective and well done even for what it was it trying to accomplish well it's yeah it's it's a b-movie it was made by New Line Cinema in the early days of New Line Cinema when all they had was Freddy Krueger this is pre Lord of the Rings days it's a good example of a movie that is clearly trying to ape off the success of a larger movie but infuses enough of its own creativity where it kind of stands on its own because I I'm the exact opposite where I saw it critters to a million times as a kid and I only saw the first one maybe once or twice and then re watching it at this time I like them both probably equally part 1 & 2 but I was watching the first one and like what a what a what a treat what a delightful little dumb weird b-movie it is as an adult watching it there's so many weird things in it I would compare critters one to a typical best of the worst like sci-fi movie where you watch it and you you go what are you doing why are you doing that not watching critters where you watch it best vs. iPhone yeah you're like oh god you're doing everything wrong you squandered this you screwed this up you know obviously you had no budget but you [ __ ] it all up like a Don Dahler film you focused on the wrong aspects you've got 20 minutes and people wandering around in the woods yes yes exactly yeah Don Dahler film without the charm is a vast number of best of the worst movies but with critters you you know it's low-budget you know they didn't have much to work with but they they took all those elements and they put them all in the right places and they made a solid little tiny crappy b-movie that that works on a very simple level yeah with with with unique unique choices and very specifically what I was thinking about was the bounty hunters right [Applause] in this movie have bounty hunters and they walk around they have play-doh heads that glow green right because they can transform into anyone that they're essentially shapeshifters and they can they can look at something and mimic it which is perfect for being a bounty hunter because you have to go to alien planets and blend in yeah and so even though they're generic form is the human body yeah yeah although what they do show in critters too that they can change that body shape yes that's very important to note but the the Bounty Hunter's a typical b-movie would be two dudes yeah we were boney hood but this throws in that cute little thing where one it one takes the form of a famous rock star on TV because he's like that's it what's the thing like Johnny Steele or Johnny Steele he has a terrible rock song that plays throughout [Music] and then the other one his his quirk is that he can't really decide transform and that leads to wonderful comic moments where he is changing form into characters in the town yeah people are wondered why this priest is running around shooting critters well just the fact that the movie has intergalactic bounty hunters in it mm-hmm it's not just there's these little monsters running around and they're attacking the town most of the critter action is focused on the farmhouse and this is like the other story is the bounty hunters which could easily wipe them out but they just have to find them first so I have the movies I'm just trying to track him down yes but the idea that the critters are on earth because they broke out of a space prison they come in here to ship these little critters and they're flying around the spaceship and they went on earth it's too oddball ideas that that don't really fit that well together to me but in the Contin the whole context it works because yeah critters you think okay it's taking place on a farm kid digs up some you know frozen eggs in at the bottom of a lake that are from prehistoric times and somehow got preserved throughout hundreds of thousands of years and they hatch these are ancient but for some reason the critters are intelligent they can talk to each other and there are fugitives but really they're just little balls with teeth that want to eat people yeah they just want to feed but for some reason they're intergalactic so those two things don't work it all together that makes it fun though that's that's what I mean yeah is is is a less creative filmmaking team would say okay critters what do we do there the creatures with mouths and digs them up from the ground there yeah they live in the barn yeah other critters critters live in your walls and in the floorboards and they eat your chickens yeah but instead they they steal a spaceship [Music] so the other yeah the other half of the movie is the family I get a little bit of tremors vibes with not just the family but the town you have all the the interesting little yup the town drunk that is is vindicated and his belief in aliens and although he thinks aliens talked to him through the fillings and his teeth coincidentally vindicated yeah exactly and he he has a nice little arc between the first two movies and then they keep bringing him back for the third and fourth don opera because well I looked him up I was like who is this guy because he becomes the the the rock the base of this entire franchise writing the movies at a certain plant well he he has a weird credit on the first one where it's like additional scenes written by and I was like what does that mean but I looked him up cuz like who is this guy and he hasn't had much of a career outside of the critters movies his brother is the producer of all the critters movies it's like oh not at all big Sutton's cuz he is just worthless in three and four the writing of the first to make his character work but he's not like he's not super funny or charismatic or charming he works in those first two movies because of the character and how he was written by side care he's a side character he should not be the the foundation of the entire you're not gonna talk about the cancer that is critters three and four and we will briefly briefly mention them but not even finish the fourth one poor Angela Bassett and Leonardo DiCaprio everyone's got to start somewhere although I had I had a dream that Scott Grimes and Leonardo DiCaprio teamed up first for critters Grimes is what's-his-face um Brad Brad Brad Brown Brad Brown yes in the in the first and second film and Scott Grimes is also on the Orville he's the helmsman ha ha got you what although maybe it's it's Seth MacFarlane is a secret critters fan and you just resurrected him from his job at Pizza uh no yeah I don't think he's done much but yeah he's he's fine on that show he's back but I want to see Scott Grimes and Leonardo DiCaprio team up Brad Brown is back for the ultimate critters it'll be it'll have to be a fan film it this won't be an official release well if you could Leo in and you're not making a fan film no Lee if Leo wants in he could find the financing Jay that's true I think I want to make this picture I want to get back to my roots I'm gonna get back to my roots ah no pay homage to my very first acting role we're gonna get Martin to direct it that's gonna be called critters what would we call it critters the returned critters bite back critters bite back how's that that's not bad jam that's real good critters bite back aka critters five you give it okay you give a cameo to Angela Bassett and shows us anyone looks like a famous person now yes right Dora who's in the fourth one yeah Dee Wallace yeah [ __ ] she'll come back as Brad's mom she will definitely come back brad has to move his mom into the retirement castle and that's where the critters I don't know cuz that's when I was in the third movie it's all just in one building boring thing ever well we'll figure out our plot detail later Leo call us yeah call us I know I know you don't have many choices nowadays for roles but this is gonna be a good one mom though is played by Dee Wallace oh [ __ ] Billy Zane's back this is this is a play Lee steamrolled D ro V Wallace to talk about Billy Zane well okay Dee Wallace hot off ET one of the most successful films in the history of motion pictures right to critter right to critters well she was the mom I think she was it was in her contract she had to play the mom in any 80s sci-fi movie but yeah you got Dee Wallace in the most successful film in the history of the world and then you also have Billy Zane who was in also in one of the most successful films in the history of the world demon Knight yes now the only main cast member from Titanic that isn't in any of these movies as Kate Winslet unless she played one of the critters well one more thing about the family yeah the daughter because it's there's there's Scott Grimes as the younger brother they pulled her daughter is her name April I remember all the character's name the first one okay that's amazing she one year later she was in munchies I thought you're gonna say one year later she killed herself so that was two years later okay but yeah just just taking a step down in terms of gremlins knockoffs and jr. missing the most important acting role ever and I don't know if you noticed it but guess who's in this film who Neelix my favorite Star Trek clown who's Neelix in this he's the the one of the police officers the one that gets pulled under the car that's Neelix yeah his name is um Ethan Phillips okay we got to put our cast list together for critters bite back it's Neelix is he gonna be in it as Neelix it's space-related his feelings why not yeah a little cross it a little offshoot he like a little subtle craft from Voyager lands it's a Neelix and he's on like solo mission swept up in the plot to meet Neelix and a critter flies into his crotch he's got to fly back to Voyager for emergency surgery mm-hmm after after like five minutes of being in the film no it's Carol I show a Star Trek character for five minutes or less before paramount comes after you no but you can up to five minutes again okay four minutes 58 seconds Neelix that's when he gets a critter down his trouser ruse all right sounds good eats eats his alien ballsack your subclass genus okay so that's pretty much the movie it's very simple once you get past all the weird setup stuff but one of my favorite aspects of the movie is the the extreme excessive collateral damage that's why the Blues Brothers is the best movie ever made you know I think she's recklessly being destroyed when when the bounty hunters smashed their police car into the church Blues Brothers yeah and that's very similar to that and that not well just they're there I mean they are on their missions and they're so like stone-faced and they don't care what gets in their way and like I think it's they go to the bowling alley and they don't just open the door he just rips the flame and then of course the farmhouse gets completely destroyed once they actually know where the critters are they've got those giant cannons and they can easily take care of them it's just you're just waiting for them to get to that farmhouse well they got it they got to adapt to human culture first and we'd say there's more of that in the second movie - yes that and that that that's almost like the heart of the critters movies is Lobby high jinks with the Bamiyan yeah more so than the critters like like if if if I were to rewrite a critters you know movie it would be back and forth scenes between bounty hunter hijinks I mean so they're hunting down the Crites and and they even have that like when they get in the cop car took ten minutes as I'm trying to figure out how to drive it and then you drive it backwards first because they don't know what they're doing yeah this is wonderful well that's that's why I think the original because this was supposedly written before gremlins I think that probably was the main focus of it was these boundary bounty hunters trying to get these creatures that have escaped yeah and then there once gremlins came out there like up the up the critters the critters are fun I mean there's more critter action in the second movie I like the design of the critters have a couple little unique characteristics but they are what I would think of in a movie called critters yeah things like that are the perfect design this and they introduced something in this movie that never comes back in any of the sequels which I guess the idea is that the more they eat the bigger they get because there's the one critter that's like human size by the end of this movie that's that's completely abandoned and all the sequels what is it what is it is it it's dragging the daughter onto the ship right yes makes me think that the original scripts the original idea they weren't little critters yeah so we talked about how the original script may have been slightly different my thoughts were lizard-men you said space Apes I did yes can we play back the tape sure I think in the original script they were space Apes at the end for no apparent reason at all they dragged the daughter into their spaceship and which seems bizarre if they were a lizard men who wanted like a lady slave sure you know what I mean yeah but they're just bringing around there for food I guess even though they could have easy access to food everywhere but yeah she's like a teenage girl I mean she's not gonna provide much food yeah like you can just get the big fat guy from Town Square to get in the car or getting the spaceship or maybe like how yeah well that's what I think that originally there was maybe something else going on with the aliens but sure they're having them dragger on the ship at the end is like we need something to happen we need some reason for for Brad and and and Charlie yeah to to blow them up because obviously okay yeah go yeah look the important part is that the entire house blows up at its glorious the icing on the cake for that is the critters just do it just to be mean there's no need to do it and they just laugh well the second film is wonderful it is exactly what a critter sequel needed to be yes well it has more this is a conversation we're having this is real life like yeah they take their that original film low budget you know a couple of critters here and they're mostly boring but a couple of funny moments and I said what do people like from that one let's up that tenfold and let's do and it has a wonderful little like kind of framing device with the with the eggs and the Easter oh yeah yeah the movie takes place on Easter and there's an old grandma lady buys all the eggs like a junk dealer yeah and then they show that critters x0 painted in pastel colors I mean that's wonderful yeah the cheese no no Chief of Police has to dress up like the Easter Bunny and then yet again they destroy a church [Music] setting the stage for a wonderful reoccurring thing and all the critters movies to come unfortunately they haven't followed through with that yeah yeah it has it has more fun with the bounty hunter concepts and especially the shape-shifting concept [Music] it's a little weird than when that when Lee transforms into Eddie deezen but he's still wearing the same like sexy version of the outfit of the bunny in her outfit it's like it's nightmare fuel I didn't need to see that you know it's very disappointing to I remember being disappointed by this as a kid when it looks like Lee is about to transform into Freddy Krueger yes I didn't go all the way with it if they had a little Robert Englund cameo that would have been the cherry on top more critters there they're a little bit goofy earn more gremlins like Maria there's the great scene where they're they've taken over the what's it called the hungry heifer the hungry hippo God that song haunts me feel it's awful they destroy that place everything just gets destroyed it's so great there are so many wonderful little things and then of course the critter ball is is the big the big thing that everybody remembers what we learned from this movies the critters can combine together like Voltron and just be a giant printer ball that four or five of them combined into a bigger ball at one point yeah the flu at the farmer with the pitch work I mean it's it's there's there's a lot of one wondrous wonderous schlock and critters too so yeah the first one the main climax is in the farmhouse and then this one they up it this is a sequel should they they take everything that was in the first one and just kind of up a tree in the whole whole town trying to take down the critter yep yep even there was even a cameo from Vince Lombardi I was walking with the crowd packers coach I know who Vince Lombardi is I was unaware he was in a critter sequel okay if he weren't dead I'd say we get him back for her critters five herders bite back but I think he's long dead now no you know they couldn't get em Emmet Walsh back so they just replaced him with another actor no he was in it no the sheriff is a different actor is it in a second movie yeah well they did a good job replacing him because I didn't notice it looks completely different so guy I'm sorry I'm not an M Emmet Walsh aficionado what do you do I don't know my elderly men from the 80s by the way I had looked it up well you hey you know what sign him up critters five critters fight gotta get rolling in the Curtis five before he or he dies I want him to be the lead that whole you know I like Lin Shaye she's in all these new line cinema movies but now she's in her like 70s but she's the lead of the insidious movies let's make mmm at Walsh easily be the new lead of the critters franchise okay what about Scott Grimes he could be in it here's the premise for critters five okay Scott comes back to visit his grandma who's still alive okay and that actress Ament live still then we got to dig up her bones or we met an animatronic an animatronic version of what that thing guy doesn't make the critters they'll do it the the Chodos brothers yeah you know there was a there was a hardcore band called the Chiodos brothers in the early 2000s then they there's a band that was named after the guys who did this special effects and killer clowns from outer space yeah they directed that there was a man called she had the Chiodos brothers and then they changed their name to just she Oh toes but anyway they got to make a the Cheerios have to make a puppet of dead grandma yes grandma is still running her daycare but what the 2016 this like skeleton yeah that's like a like a plain white skeleton the twist is it's it's no longer a daycare it is a drug rehab center okay and it's all the same kids that were in her daycare all grown up and they become methamphetamine addicts in Kansas we got to find all those kid actors yes every single one regardless of what you're doing in your life you're coming back and Nana's getting them clean okay but Nana's also I thought you're gonna say it's a home for the elderly and that's why I haven't Walsh's there maybe they're lovers now okay and we have to have this like scene where I'm Emmet Walsh makes out with a skeleton quite a skeleton it's like like a maze eiated corpse she's just like the Crypt Keeper yes and and and the secret the secret power that is grandma Holtz yeah is that she's so frail and old the critters have no interest in trying to eat her oh she's the one who has to has to go in into the critters lair with a bomb she's got like at your PC don't you and that falls down like breaks her head I pictured her she can't lift the suitcase with the bomb and here she's like and we have the the critters have have over the last 30 years have burrowed into the ground and created like an alien's cavern oh yeah else they all go on the walls like that picturing like a like an ant farm almost yes exactly it's all under the town like an ant farm yeah and so they come up out of nowhere they eat the cows and come back down again and an Nana has to go down into the caves maybe the town blacksmith builds like a critter suit why would she need a critter suit though no tow rescue Nana oh okay kind of a plot of the movie is rescuing Nana well towards the end yes that's one of the the later complications is not a falls and breaks their hip then the bomb is set on the timer okay so getting at Nana before this they have to weld together like like a impervious to critters kind of suit like the Hulkbuster suit likes are like the the bear suit yeah is that the guy that built the suit anyone can attack my bears Scott Grimes has got to go rescue Nana mm-hmm and Charlie isn't in the movie at all no we're done with that guy that Don upper out of here out of here I don't know what happened to him at the end of four I didn't finish it that's that's the biggest takeaway especially in trying to rewatch them it's just how I mean the third one the only notable thing about it is that leaner DiCaprio isn't it hot off his stint on growing pains but the movie is so boring it's in an apartment complex there's not even any fun critter stuff I think at one point one of them eats and dishwashing soap and like burps bubbles yeah it's it's almost like they were trying to like as stupid as this sounds take the subject matter more seriously a little bit even more so in the fourth one the fourth one is just like a joyless slog there's no humor at all no and those characters are parables are likable liliane just think about the fourth one is the cast - because you got Dorf isn't it for some reason angela bassett poor Angela bath said and then Leo from Twin Peaks isn't it well then it gets even more he said he didn't even finish it it gets even worse at the end when ugh shows up I don't know why in all the sequels August still in the form of the rock star others like they wanted to get the same actor back but he shows up at the end and he is now for absolutely no reason a bad guy what your game is and then Charlie shoots him in the head it's ugh in the head and that's other movie ends yeah just erase those from existence that's fine there's nothing redeeming about them well we'll revive that spirit when we make Curtis five where is I've been hearing like for the last year or two there's they're working on a critters like like a web show yeah it's gonna be like a streaming service that won't exist in another year it's gonna suck it's gonna suck listen to our ideas Emmet Walsh sleeping with the Crypt Keeper and underground tunnels yeah but I mean our cast is is I mean it's it's a deal breaker we need Leo I need Scott Grimes and we need Billy Zane and Angela Bassett Billy's ain't dies though well he comes back he just has like a scar yeah he has a really bad scar okay it's like Donald Pleasence and Halloween for ya know he gets completely obliterated at the end of the second movie he's got a tiny scar on his cheek right but they show they show the meeting Billy Zane's guts and then they don't really show them like officially dead okay it was kind of like we can bring Billy Zane back yeah all right he's the blacksmith it makes the suits the critters ate out his guts so horribly that he was paralyzed from the waist down so he builds himself robot legs he's the town blacksmith okay that works and he and he's walking around at the end like like smashing critters well we have to make this happen so we can put a nice bow on the end of the the critters saga yeah I really need some closure yeah cuz that fourth one all right well we're gonna we're gonna erase three and four from existence we're jumping from two to five okay we're doing the Halloween route then where we just ignore sequels that we don't like okay full Halloween on alright critters and I don't know do the charros brothers still do do puppetry yeah yeah let's tour huh I was gonna say if we can't get them then we'll just have to get the band puppets never made a puppet before critters effects by the Charro's brothers

Channel: RedLetterMedia

Views: 1,293,852

Keywords: redlettermedia, red letter media, red, letter, media, plinkett, half in the bag, mike stoklasa, jay bauman, rich evans, critters, critters 2, new line cinema, gremlins

Id: OvcYqeukasM

Length: 30min 28sec (1828 seconds)

Published: Thu May 24 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/JE163]

Critters was awesome!

[u/charb]

Leo should have got an Oscar for Critters 3 !

[u/Shadow_Log]

Critters 1 and 2 were amazing, stupid fun.

[u/HelloMiguelSanchez]

Jesus I love these movies, even 3 and 4, I must admit.

Surprised Mike said Scott Grimes' career was sort of resurrected by The Orville. He had a successful career since Critters, like being in later seasons of ER and starring as a main character in Band of Brothers. Hell, he voices Steve Smith in American Dad, so he already had a connection with Seth MacFarlane. It's weird to see him overlook this since he's, you know, a nerdy pants.

[u/[deleted]]

Just this afternoon I was talking about that documentary about the guy in the bear armour! Haven't thought about it in years. Anyone know what it's called?

[u/mks2000]

I actually pulled this out of a box in my garage a week ago with the full intention of rewatching it for the first time in over a decade but my plans were thwarted by life.

Now this. The universe is telling me something... Something about Critters.

[u/[deleted]]

Solid B-movie. Lots of fun.

[u/Perun1701]

"Ugh. Where do they come up with this stuff?" ;-)

[u/CELTICPRED]

Mike and Jay were certainly right about Critters 2 being branded into my memory. The gigantic Critters ball especially, when that guy trips and falls and the Critters roll over him and strip all his flesh leaving just his Skeleton on the ground scarred me for life. I remember seeing that as a kid and being so terrified. This is one of favorite series they do. Nobody loves their cynicism and sarcasm more than I do, but it's really fun to hear them talk about movies that they actually love and admire. On top of being influential for their own work.