Critters - Is it just me, or has this film not aged well?

I used to watch ‘Critters’ a lot in the eighties and loved it, so I thought I’d invest in the DVD box set containing all four films and take myself on a trip down memory lane.  At first, the film started off well... despite the slightly outdated special effects showing the outer space penal colony where the titular aliens escape from, it’s actually quite enjoyable.  The alien prison guard is fun and the bounty hunters he send to capture the critters (or ‘Crites’ as they’re technically known) are dry and menacing at the same time (for heroes anyway!).

Anyway, the Critters land on – guess where – Earth and start terrorising the occupants of a farm in America.  For a start I’d forgotten how little the actual Critters are in it.  We don’t really see them until about half way through and I know that people will claim that the lack of actually seeing them builds tension, I just wanted to get them on screen, as they’re clearly the stars.

Oh, yeah, the stars – it’s unlikely you’ll have heard of most of the actors, but you’re probably not expecting to when comes to eighties horror B-movies (unless you’ve watched Star Trek: Voyager and know the alien crewmate ‘Neelix’ or seen – a normally older – Lin Shaye in other horror works).  The Bounty Hunters are fun in a silly over-the-top kind of way, but their silence doesn’t really open them up to carry the film when the monsters aren’t stealing the show.

The second half picks up, simply because we get to see the beasties more.  Every scene the Critters are in is pretty good.  Yes, it’s a comedy horror and – in my opinion – the emphasis is truly on comedy.  Critters isn’t that horrific – I won’t go into details as to how many people are killed, but it isn’t that many.  The Critters don’t really get going as a murderous death squad, but they are still cool.

The ending feels a little like an anti-climax, as if the writers didn’t really have any idea of a fitting climax.  The – very – end then feels like an afterthought of cheesy niceness which doesn’t really go with the rest of the film’s tone.

Overall, Critters is still fun.  I still liked it, but I think it was more suited to the ‘boy-me’ as opposed to the ‘adult-me.’ I’ll probably watch it again at some stage, but now I’m left with a box set with three other Critters films to watch – all of which I loved growing up.  Now I’m scared they won’t live up to what I remember!

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that