Trends are something of a
blessing and a curse. On the one hand,
they do provide some form of stability and predictability. We know (to within some degree of certainty)
what will happen in any given superhero film (you could even say in any summer
tent pole film these days and you could probably also describe how each shot
will be composed, rendered by a computer, and edited, but that’s a screed for
some other time). And these films are
(generally) flocked to, because of the familiarity they engender. Of course, the better ones do something a bit
more original within their parameters.
It has always been this way.
Unfortunately, most of them are not the better ones.
On the curse side, the same
predictability of content ineffably leads to staleness, and from that point it
becomes more and more a series of motions gone through, until they are no
longer financially rewarding and boring beyond all reason. Thus do we come to lineage stretching from Gremlins in 1984 to Ghoulies to Stephen Herek’s
Critters to Munchies to Hobgoblins. After being beaten to within an inch of its
life, the trend will generally go into a coma for some time, and eventually will
be resurrected for audiences who are either unfamiliar with them in the first place
or have a nostalgic itch that they scratch for those who were around the first
time down the road. These cycles (like
almost all cycles) are nigh inescapable.
That’s why they’re cycles.
One day, on the maximum security
prison asteroid of Sector Seventeen (not to be confused with Space Station
Eleven, where the Bearded Men live), eight Crites (think porcupines but more
ornery) manage to escape while under Commander Zanti’s (played by Michael Lee Gogin and named for the
similarly themed “The Zanti Misfits” episode of the classic Science Fiction
series The Outer Limits)
wardenship. He calls upon a pair of
interstellar bounty hunters to kill the mini-space-criminals and bring back
their scalps (more or less). Needless to
say, the Crites’ purloined ship just so happens to crash land in Kansas, not
too far from the Brown family farm. Time
to feed.
Part of the film’s thematic
concern is identity. Brad (Scott Grimes) is a young teen boy,
kicking off his journey into manhood.
Yet, he still plays around with homemade explosives (back when this sort
of thing would get a pass in a film as simply youthful mischief) and delights
in tormenting his older (and sexually active) sister April (Nadine Van der Velde). His ordeal against the aliens will force him
into a role of responsibility, where he has to think of people other than
himself, because their lives are literally in his hands. Town drunkard Charlie (Don Opper) is another character who is searching for an
identity. He was a great baseball
pitcher, but when things didn’t work out, he became a souse. He also needs to accept responsibility, but
Charlie needs to rethink a purpose in life he once had. The bounty hunters are able to change their
appearances to blend in (not that their actions would ever keep them incognito
for long). The more dominant of the two
quickly settles on the persona of (super awesome) rock star Johnny Steele (Terrence Mann). His partner cannot settle on a look (“nothing
likes me”) and has to go through no less than three, before settling on the one
which brings the issue full circle (okay, maybe a half-moon).
In my opinion, the screenplay
(co-credited to Herek and Dominic Muir) doesn’t stick to one
single genre, but it blends them all quite well at the same time. Aside from the obvious Science Fiction (I
would swear that the farm setting was chosen for the steep hill which leads
down to the main house, which is strikingly analogous to the iconic hill image
from both the 1953 and the 1986 [the same year this film was released] versions
of Invaders From Mars) and Horror
genres (including a pair of red eyes staring in at Dee Wallace from outside her kitchen window, recalling The Amityville Horror), there is also
much of the Western in Critters. It takes place squarely in the American Midwest. It involves a gang of criminals converging on
and terrorizing a small town (shades of High
Noon and The Magnificent Seven). There are gun-toting bounty hunters (whose
every move sets off a sound effect reminiscent of a cowboy’s boot spurs). It has a drunkard who needs to find his inner
badass (a la Rio Bravo, El Dorado, and hell, even Blazing Saddles). There are even Westerns on various
televisions in the background.
Nonetheless, these elements feel as intrinsic to the film as any
others. That’s solid script structure
and filmmaking, in my eyes.
Not uncoincidentally, Herek’s film is also largely
Spielbergian (and especially evocative of Spielberg
circa 1986) in tone (Steven
Spielberg having been an executive producer on both of Joe Dante’s Gremlins
films). You have a destructive element
introduced into a small community, like in Jaws. You have a resourceful kid as the main
protagonist, like in E.T: The
Extraterrestrial (in which Dee
Wallace also appeared). You have a
scene with a UFO gliding over a rural road, like in Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (and an image I used to have a
jigsaw puzzle of as a youngster, in case you were wondering). One of the Crites even bites the head off an E.T. doll, as a little poke in the ribs
at the Hollywood juggernaut and his schmaltzy version of an alien creature. Further, the film is imbued with a feeling of
Americana, though it never gets too specific about it.
As you can clearly see, Critters is most definitely a
trend-following rather than a trendsetting piece of cinema, and I liken it to a
sort of fruit cup medley (to borrow the parlance of school cafeteria menu
creators everywhere). It is an
admixture, but like the proverbial fruit cup, its variegated flavors play well
with each other, and they (usually) complement one another quite nicely. The runtime flies by swiftly, and the
creature effects, provided by the legendary Chiodo Brothers, work persuasively at bringing the Crites (from the
smallest furball to the full-sized “adult”) to life. Sure, they all have one personality, and that
one is stereotypically flippant, but you just can’t help liking the little
bastards.
MVT: The glorious (and
practical, did I mention all the effects are practical?) effects by the
aforementioned trio of siblings are glorious.
Of course, a few years later they would gain cult status with their
phenomenally freaky take on a perennial bugaboo with Killer Klowns From Outer Space.
But all of their work maintains a sense of style and character which is
difficult at the best of times to
cultivate from layers of rubber, metal, and cables.
Make Or Break: The Make for
me is the multiple iterations of Johnny Steele’s hot-licks-infused rock anthem,
“Power Of The Night.” The music video
for it is both noticeably self-conscious as well as being a fine example of the
form during the heyday of Hair Rock.
Score: 7/10
No comments:
Post a Comment