Critters (1986) is the movie for this Sunday’s “monsterdon” watch party over on Mastodon, our fediverse sibling!
- Just start watching that movie this Sunday, March 9, 2025 at 9pm ET / 8pm CT / 6pm PT, which is
2am Monday UTCCORRECTION 1am Monday UTC bc of US daylight savings - and follow #monsterdon over on mastodon for live commentary. For example, you can follow that hashtag here: https://mastodon.social/tags/monsterdon
- I usually open two web browser windows on a computer side-by-side. But you could follow the mastodon commentary on a phone app while watching the movie on TV or something.
How to watch the movie:
- someone plans to stream it on https://miru.miyaku.media/ at that time
- tubi (US, England, Canada, Australia, NZ?; uBlock Origin adblock on firefox works): https://tubitv.com/movies/100001406/critters
- if you want to pay and/or watch ads, look here: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/critters
The plot follows a group of small, furry aliens with carnivorous behavior escaping from two shape-shifting bounty hunters, landing in a small countryside town to feast on its inhabitants.
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On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 52% approval rating based on 50 reviews, with an average of 5.5/10. The site’s consensus reads: “While Critters ekes out some fun from a game cast and screwball tone, the titular monsters fail to deliver the credible menace that makes a creature feature satisfying”.[7] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times rated the film three out of four stars: “What makes Critters more than a ripoff are its humor and its sense of style. This is a movie made by people who must have had fun making it”.[8]
Marylynn Uricchio, film critic for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette described the film as an enjoyable, if unoriginal, low budget monster movie. Uricchio wrote: “Critters isn’t a memorable or even very slick movie, but it is good fun. What it lacks in substance it makes up for with a perverse kind of charm”.[9] Caryn James of The New York Times complained that the movie lacked humor and suspense: “Critters just doesn’t make the audience laugh or jump often enough”.[10]
Alex Stewart reviewed Critters for White Dwarf #83, and stated that “Critters scuttled by quite pleasantly. Nothing really stands out, despite M. Emmet Walsh as the sweaty sheriff, and a scene wherein a couple of Heavy Metal bounty hunters blow away a Baptist church, but the film actually thinks through how the Browns react, as a family, to the anti-social little aliens”.
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