Critters 2: The Main Course

• Directed by Mick Garris (Directorial Debut)
• April 29, 1988

A batch of Krite eggs begins to hatch and resume their carnivorous appetite on the town of Grover’s Bend.

Of the Critters films, Critters 2 is the one I remember the best. It was one of many that played regularly on broadcast TV. Having not seen it in a few years a few things faded from memory. Like the story taking place around Easter which I guess makes it an Easter movie in the same way that Die Hard and Die Hard 2 are Christmas movies. It is a witty little way to cover up how the Critters get back into things.

Brad Brown (Scott Grimes) returns from who knows where. He’s visiting his grandma (Herta Ware-the original Yvette Picard) in town because I guess his family left? She’s the wacky grandma who borders on a new age hippie. Common trope of the time meant to be comedic.

This is much more violent than Critters. There’s more gunplay and blasting of the Critters. The number of Critters they blast and the number of eggs you see doesn’t seem to match. The humor ranges from the silly to that dark as these creatures terrorize small-town America putting it much more in line with the original Gremlins in its execution. This feels like something straight out of Joe Dantes filmography. That’s not an insult.

The gore is relatively mild. It’s mostly blood with the only real shot of gross amounting to the first kill. The flaw in that is the dead body’s eyeball that looks incredibly fake. Beyond that this is tame for something with carnivorous monsters. The skeleton caused by the Critter ball is not even that shocking. It’s one of those macabre yet entertaining moments that you could find in so many 80s films. Nobody does that anymore really.

It continues the gag of from Critters of the one bounty choosing random forms, but the shape shifting ability is reframed as Lee finding something it is comfortable in. It was certainly implied to be for moving more easily among the local or even primitive population. It does get a nice reference into New Line Cinema’s best-known property at the time when Lee comes across a Freddy Krueger poster. I would’ve loved to of seen that even if it was just for a single minute.

In the small town there is a factory specifically for making hamburger and apparently everything that comes with it. But mostly hamburger. This is not a complex movie. It’s another example of dumb fun but more polished than the first one. Though a stupid film Critters 2 proceeds based on logic. It makes enough sense you can believe the goofy scenario.

Nothing really stands out. It is not a vast improvement on the original but a mild step up from the first. It asks little from the audience. It just offers up 90 minutes of fun. All big guns and explosions in a movie where you never really too many questions until the credits hit. The acting is adequate enough to get you through with a highlight being the contrast of the stunning Roxanne Kernohan selling it as the hardened Lee being a highlight.

Critters 2: The Main Course, much like the last one, is just dumb fun. It’s silly and mildly gory but ultimately entertaining.