Horror Guilty Pleasure No. 135: Critters (dir. by Stephen Herek)

Posted on October 25, 2026 by Arleigh

Some movie monsters want to conquer the planet. The creatures in Stephen Herek’s Critters seem perfectly happy eating their way through whatever happens to be standing on it. There is something refreshing about villains with such uncomplicated priorities, especially when they look like the contents of a clogged vacuum cleaner fitted with shark teeth. This is the sort of movie where the appeal is right there in the premise: nasty little aliens descend on rural America, and a perfectly ordinary family has to survive the visit. As an ’80s genre guilty pleasure, it delivers the goods with an appealing lack of pretension.

The story gets moving when a group of carnivorous aliens escapes from an extraterrestrial prison facility and makes its way to Earth. Their arrival puts the Brown family’s Kansas farm directly in the path of a feeding frenzy, while two shape-shifting bounty hunters follow close behind. Unfortunately, these heavily armed visitors are not especially concerned about keeping the peace or leaving buildings intact. Between the hungry fugitives and their destructive pursuers, an otherwise quiet community gets more excitement than it could possibly need. The setup is ridiculous, but Herek understands that explaining it too much would only spoil the fun.

What gives Critters some substance beneath the silliness is its interest in the people whose evening gets ruined. The Browns are not especially complicated characters, but their everyday disagreements and familiar household routines make them feel like a family rather than a collection of future victims. Spending time with them before the attack also gives the farmhouse a sense of normality worth protecting. The monsters are not simply invading a convenient horror-movie location; they are barging into somebody’s home. That modest distinction helps the film generate more audience investment than its toothy little troublemakers might initially suggest.

Scott Grimes makes Brad an easy young hero to root for. He has enough mischievous energy to seem capable of causing problems before the aliens ever arrive, but he never becomes so obnoxious that his survival feels like an obligation. His resourcefulness grows naturally out of that personality, giving the movie a kid protagonist who can participate in the action without seeming completely detached from his surroundings. There is a pleasing wish-fulfillment element to watching an underestimated youngster step up when things go wrong. Grimes sells that without turning Brad into an impossibly polished miniature action star.

Dee Wallace provides another important source of credibility as Brad’s mother, Helen. She brings warmth and urgency to situations that, described out loud, sound almost impossible to play straight. That commitment helps establish the film’s balance: the audience can laugh at the monsters without feeling that the characters are merely participating in a comedy routine. The family’s fear and concern remain sincere even when the surrounding action gets goofy. Critters does not require powerhouse dramatic performances, but it benefits enormously from actors willing to treat an attack by murderous furballs as an actual emergency.

Naturally, the furballs themselves are the main attraction. They look like what would happen if the Tribbles from Star Trek suddenly decided to stop being cute and start being mean and really, really hungry. Their dark hair, glowing eyes, enormous mouths, and projectile quills turn an otherwise cuddly shape into something you would desperately want off your lap. The fun comes from their rotten personalities as much as their physical design. These are greedy, bad-tempered little creatures whose curiosity usually leads directly to destruction. Their appetite drives the action, but their attitude gives it flavor, making them entertaining even when they are doing little more than looking for their next meal.

The practical effects contribute plenty of charm, although they do not always maintain the illusion. Some movements are stiff, and certain shots make the creatures look exactly like the puppets they are. Still, their physical presence gives the mayhem a satisfying texture. They seem to belong in the same messy environment as the furniture, debris, and frightened actors around them. The movie also benefits from not making them too adorable. They can be funny without losing that unpleasant suggestion of something that might bite straight through your hand. Their limitations are visible, but so is the craftsmanship behind their grotesque little faces.

The bounty hunters bring a broader, more cartoonish kind of entertainment. Terrence Mann plays Ug, who adopts the appearance of rock star Johnny Steele, while his partner Lee cycles through human identities played by Ethan Phillips, Jeremy Lawrence, and Don Keith Opper. Mann does most of the pair’s comedic heavy lifting, giving Ug a wonderfully straight-faced intensity that makes his rock-star appearance and excessive firepower even funnier. Their destructive pursuit suggests that Earth’s rescuers might require almost as much cleanup as its invaders. These scenes provide some welcome absurdity, although they also contribute to uneven pacing. Whenever the film moves away from the farmhouse, the pressure surrounding the Browns tends to ease. The hunters are amusing, particularly Mann, but their antics are not always as engaging as the central siege.

The resemblance to Gremlins is difficult to ignore, but Critters works best when it is not treated as a contest. It offers a smaller, scrappier variation on miniature-monster chaos, with a straightforward survival story holding everything together. The scares are limited, the plotting is thin, and the effects occasionally wobble, yet the movie remains likable because it commits to its own ridiculous appeal. There is no need to pretend it is a neglected masterpiece to appreciate its pleasures. Sometimes a decent creature feature only needs an appealing cast, a little suspense, and some ugly space pests making a spectacular nuisance of themselves. Critters understands the assignment.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

Back to School Part II #42: Keith (dir by Todd Kessler)

Posted on September 16, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh, fuck this movie.

Keith tells the story of Natalie Anderson (Elisabeth Harnois), who is seventeen and has her entire life ahead of her. She’s smart. She’s popular. She’s talented. She’s going to be her school’s valedictorian and she’s going to go to a great college on a tennis scholarship! She even has a wonderful boyfriend, a South American exchange student named Rafael (Ignacio Serricchio). It’s all great, right? Except Natalie doesn’t ever have any fun!

But she’s got a new lab partner! His name is Keith (Jesse McCartney). Keith is sarcastic. Keith is rebellious. Keith doesn’t care if he’s popular. He doesn’t worry about the future. He lives in the moment! And he’s determined to make sure that Natalie lives in the moment too! Keith is also totally obnoxious but I think we’re supposed to find him charming.

It would help, of course, if Keith was actually an interesting iconoclast. Instead, he’s a movie iconoclast. He talks, acts, and looks like every single teenage iconoclast that we’ve ever seen in every teen film ever made. As a result, he comes across as being totally inauthentic. Jack Kerouac would have kicked him out of a moving car.

Now, it turns out that there’s a reason why Keith is so sarcastic. He has a tragic secret. But you know what? It doesn’t mater. Considering how serious his secret is, I hate to put it like that. But if Keith proves anything, it’s that tragic things occasionally happen to total assholes.

In the end, we’re supposed to believe that Keith has taught Natalie how to enjoy life but, really, it just seems like Natalie is just imitating Keith. And since Keith just came across like an imitation of every imitation of James Dean ever filmed, Natalie is a now an imitation of an imitation of an imitation.

Thanks a lot, Keith!

Anyway, Keith is on Netflix right now. Look for it listed under films about brainwashing.

Film Review: The Purge: Election Year (dir by James DeMonaco)

Posted on July 25, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I had really high hopes for The Purge: Election Year.

While the first Purge film was definitely flawed, it still had an interesting and thought-provoking premise behind it. What would we do, the film forced us to ask, if we could do anything we wanted to for one night out of the year? Would you hide in your house or would you go out and randomly kill people? Yes, The Purge had its flaws but it was an interesting film.

And then, in 2014, The Purge: Anarchy was released. Anarchy was one of the best films of 2014 (a film that saw no shortage of great films). It was a big, loud, and over-the-top masterpiece of the pulp imagination, one that managed to be as thought-provoking as the first film while also keeping audiences entertained. It was a political movie, perhaps one of the most overtly political to be released over the past ten years. And yet, it was also amazingly entertaining. By further exploring the type of society that would come up with something like an annual Purge, Anarchy forced audiences to think even as it gave them reasons to cheer and hiss. For many viewers, it also served as an introduction to a tough and grizzled actor named Frank Grillo. In the role of the enigmatic but ultimately good-hearted Leo Barnes, Frank Grillo gave an outstanding performance.

Well, The Purge: Election Year continues its exploration of the culture behind the Purge. And Frank Grillo is back as Leo. It should be said that, just as he did in Anarchy, Grillo supplies Election Year with some of its best moments. Much like Clint Eastwood, Grillo can communicate an entire backstory just be squinting his eyes.

But overall, Election Year is a disappointment. As I watched it, I found myself wondering if maybe director James DeMonaco should have quit when he was ahead and ended the series with Anarchy. Anarchy pushed the idea behind The Purge about as far as it could go and it is perhaps not surprising that Election Year often feels like a rehash that was constructed out of leftovers.

Election Year finds Leo working as head of security for U.S. Sen. Charlie Roan (Elizabeth Mitchell). Charlie, who saw her family massacred during an earlier purge, is running for President on an anti-Purge platform and it appears that she’s about to overtake the candidate of the New Founding Fathers, the Rev. Edwidge Owens (Kyle Secor). The New Founding Fathers decide that the best way to take care of Charlie would be to assassinate her on Purge Night. They announce that, for the first time since the Purge began, government leaders will no longer be granted immunity.

In short, anyone can be killed!

Leo’s idea is for Charlie to stay inside during Purge Night but, if that happened, there wouldn’t be a movie. Naturally, Leo and Charlie eventually end up on the streets and they get to witness a few surreal and violent moments, none of which have quite the impact of anything we previously saw in Anarchy. They are given some assistance by a deli owner (Mykleti Williamson) and, naturally, they meet up with rebel leader Dante Bishop (Edwin Hodge). Just like in the previous film, Leo is eventually forced to decide between purging and showing mercy.

And it’s really never that interesting. The whole film just falls flat. The first two Purge film worked because they convinced you that something like The Purge could actually happen. When, at the end of Anarchy, Leo chose not to murder someone, it felt like a great moment because you truly believed that Leo could have gotten away with murder if he wanted to. But Election Day is never convinces you that you’re watching anything more than a standard issue sequel. With the exception of Frank Grillo and Kyle Secor (more about him in a moment), none of the actors are particularly memorable or believable. In fact, Mykelti Williamson gives a performance that is almost amazingly bad.

I think a huge part of the problem is that the character of Charlie is never credible. Elizabeth Mitchell is a good actress and has appeared in some of my favorite TV shows (she was Juliet on Lost, for instance) but you never believe that she’s a dynamic senator who is destined to save America from itself. Every character in the film has at least one moment in which he or she is required to talk about how much they love Charlie. The film spends so much time worshipping her that it apparently forgot to make her believable.

(It’s hard not to compare Election Year to Anarchy. Anarchy advocated revolution. Election Year argues that the system will eventually correct itself, going so far as to present the revolutionaries as almost being villains because they’re not properly deferential to a wealthy white liberal.)

However, I do have to say that Election Year is occasionally elevated by the thoroughly over-the-top performance of an actor named Kyle Secor. It’s almost as if Secor alone understood that Election Year needed a jolt of pure adrenaline and, at the end of the film, he goes out of his way to provide it. He bulges his eyes. He shrieks out his lines. His entire body shakes and it’s damn near brilliant. He’s a lot of fun and his performance is probably the most entertaining thing about Election Year.

Undoubtedly, there will eventually be a sequel to Election Year. Hopefully, it’ll be an improvement.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #137: The Murder Pact (dir by Colin Theys)

Posted on September 13, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched the Lifetime original film, The Murder Pact! And I’m glad that I did because it turned out to be one of the best Lifetime films of the years so far!

Why Was I Watching It?

Seriously, how could I not watch it? It was a movie about murderous rich kids and it was on Lifetime! There was no way I could resist watching The Murder Pact.

What Was It About?

It’s about murder, lies, greed, fame, guilt, and secrets. It’s also about a beautiful house and a bunch of good-looking narcissists who have impeccable taste in clothing. It’s exactly my type of film.

At an exclusive college, there are four friends. Camille (Alexa PenaVega) wants to be a famous singer but, when she auditions, she is rather cruelly turned down because she’s a “nobody.” Annabel (Renee Olstead) is a neurotic dancer who finds herself having to deal with a catty rival named Poppy (Bailey De Young, giving a wonderfully snarky performance). Rick (Michael J. Willett) is a pill-popping athlete. And then there’s the leader of their little group, Will (Beau Mirchoff). Will is a wealthy model who wears blue contacts and who lives in an amazing mansion.

When these four friends are connected to the accidental death of another student, they try to cover up their involvement. However, a rebellious student and photographer named Lisa (Sara Kapner) witnessed what happened. Under Will’s direction, they plot to keep Lisa from revealing what she knows.

However, soon, everyone is being blackmailed by an unknown person who is demanding $4,000,000 to remain silent. And a mysterious detective (Sean Patrick Thomas) suddenly shows up and starts asking questions…

What Worked?

Oh my God, this movie was soooooo good! It was a stylish melodrama that kept viewers guessing up until the final scene. All of the actors appeared to be having a ball playing their decadent characters. They seemed to truly relish delivering every over-the-top line of dialogue and, as a result, they were all a lot of fun to watch.

I’ve always said that half the fun of a good Lifetime movie is getting to see where everyone lives and how everyone gets dressed in the morning and The Murder Pact certainly delivered on both counts. I especially loved seeing Will’s mansion. On twitter, the film’s screenwriter informed me that the house is currently for sale in Connecticut and I’m hoping it will still be on the market when I make my first million.

Also, I have to take a moment to appreciate the film’s cinematographer, Branden Maxham. The film looked gorgeous. I especially loved the chilly scenes of Will and friends plotting while standing outside in either snow or drizzling rain.

What Did Not Work?

It all worked!

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

Well, of course, I related to Lisa the photographer because we Lisas stick together! However, as a dancer, I also knew what Annabel was going through. I’ve known my shares of Poppys.

Lessons Learned

Rich people are dangerous.