CRITTERS ATTACK! (2019)

CRITTERS ATTACK! (2019)

Tagline: The Critters are back!

(Sci-Fi, Comedy, Horror) [R]

Back in 1992 the CRITTERS series wrapped up and went into a 22-year, 2-month, and 8-day cryostasis and eventually resurfaced in the form of a short film called CRITTERS: BOUNTY HUNTER, barely 7 minutes long. Unfortunately, that didn’t do anything for the fans who really wanted a new movie. Not even the TV Series CRITTERS: A NEW BINGE didn’t really help. Enter CRITTERS ATTACK! This thing was rated R, check, it brought back Dee Wallace (from the original movie), check, they were going with practical effects, check. Looks like most of the ducks are in a row. How did this thing pan out? 

In this one, we get a critter crash landing which also inexplicably involves the first female critter we see in the movie series. While the male critters are “critterizing” the entire town, Drea (played by Tashiana Washington most famous for SHAFT) has to babysit. She isn’t that excited, but the whole thing becomes a bit of an adventure when they encounter the female critter (who they name Bianca) and discover something startling about her. Can they destroy the critters in time to save the town?

The Good - Relatively obscure director Bobby Miller was given the task of bringing CRITTERS back to the screen and for the most part, he does a decent job with the practical effects. Yes, we actually get practical effects in this thing and that part makes it a bit of a blast from the past for me. The script also does a good job of giving character development and decent backstories to Drea and a few of her peers whom she runs into at a nearby college. This film also does a great job of bringing us some laughs (there are some really fun moments). A lot of this is done with “Simpsons” like humor with crazy stuff happening in the background. We also get a decent, yet updated score and soundtrack. I did like the casting overall in spite of some critiques I have coming up. 

The Not Good – The film crew was successfully able to bring back Dee Wallace as the same character she played in the first movie. Now she’s a bada-s critter hunter and that is fantastic. What isn’t fantastic is that she has very few scenes in the movie and due to a legal issue with the writer of the original movie and Warner Bros, she’s actually given a different name. It’s all very strange as much as I loved seeing her back for this one. We also don’t get Don Keith Opper as Charlie or Terrance Mann as Ug. These touches and having more of a “cheese” factor would have actually helped this thing out, not hurt it. If I am doing an installment in a beloved series from the ’80s, I am definitely going to at least give it the same look and feel as the other movies. Some touches could have done this like throwing something 80’s into this movie somehow, even an 80’s themed dance party scene, or even just some nods in the soundtrack. Finally, there is an odd and completely unnecessary change to how critters even work. In every movie, before this one, they are hatched from eggs. In this movie, for some reason, they kind of grow out of some dude after eating him from the inside out. That scene alone is probably how this got rated "R". This decision is great for horror and would have been expected if anything in the previous films had been like that. They were not, so in this one, it just comes across as weird. 

CRITTERS is probably one of my single favorite horror flicks ever. Both CRITTERS and CRITTERS 2: THE MAIN COURSE are in my top 20. Unfortunately, this movie just has too many opportunities it didn’t take and what we did get was clever, but just missed the mark.

This is a 4 out of 7. It’s definitely not bad and might have won over some newer fans of the franchise. I do like it and did buy it and will be watching it multiple times. It does find a way to be better than CRITTERS 4. However, I do wish they had handed this thing off to a production crew that could have brought back the glory days and given Dee Wallace’s character a better storyline.

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