Critters 3 (1991)

A bunch of eggs of the furry, ball-shaped, hungry and mildly evil titular aliens hitch a ride with teenager Annie (Aimee Brooks), her father Clifford (John Calvin) and her little brother Johnny (Christian and Joseph Cousins) to the small city apartment building they live in with a bunch of other working poor.

Not surprisingly, the Critters go on a rampage soon enough, but because the film clearly balks from them eating any of the nice people living there, the building also has an evil landlord and an evil super trying to get them out of the building by any means necessary. Because it is that kind of night for the people in the building, the human bad guys have chosen exactly the time of the Critter rampage to cut off the building’s phone lines and electricity.

Fortunately, a certain teenager turns out to be rather useful in an alien fighting situation, and the non-evil grown up people are no total slouches either. Plus, remember the incredibly annoying Charlie (Don Opper) from the first two movies? He’s coming to the rescue, too. Hooray?

Directed by pretty much completely overlooked but often very interesting female genre director Kristine Peterson, Critters 3 was scripted by splatterpunk scribe David J. Schow. How Schow came to be scripting a PG-13 horror comedy that is quite as nice to its characters as this one is, I don’t know (and would rather keep an enticing mystery to me by not googling). It certainly isn’t a film suggesting any of Schow’s generally rather more grim and leather-clad sensibilities, nor those of the usually quite a bit more hard-edged Peterson either.

However, the filmmakers stepping out of their comfort zone a little does actually work out well enough for the film. It’s not so much that Critters 3 is a great film – though it is certainly quite a bit more entertaining than the second one in the franchise if you ask me – but it is a thoroughly likeable one that seems to enjoy spending time with its slight but not badly drawn working class characters rather more than it does on too much Critters action. One can’t help but suspect the film also couldn’t afford very much Critters action – otherwise the most anarchic bit of their rampage would probably not have been laying waste to an apartment kitchen – but at least it looks for a way around that little problem and finds it. Or at least enough of a way to keep things rolling along entertainingly enough if you go into the film with small expectation. Plus, the Critters dolls (created by the Chiodos you may know from a little film called Killer Klowns from Outer Space) are great to look at, even though they seem to be even more, ahem, inspired by the Gremlins this time around.

Direction-wise, Peterson does a pretty straightforward job, with a couple of moody scenes that suggest a tenser film, always keeping the thing running smoothly and pleasantly, which is the correct approach for a film like this, I believe.


And that’s really all there is to Critters 3: a couple of talented people make a nice and friendly film in an okay franchise. Oh, and there’s the added bonus of a pre teenage heartthrob – and rather freakish looking as if to hint at the middle-aged man – Leonardo DiCaprio as the step son of the evil landlord for those of us who enjoy watching future big time stars in the horror movies they made early in their careers and now are embarrassed to mention.