Critters 3 - Die Kuschelkiller kommen

Okay I was a big fan of the first Critters movie. In fact I love it with a passion, but the sequels are bad. This one isn't the worst. I would have to say that this is the best sequel that came out of the series. Plays more of a comedy than a Science Fiction-Horror flick but hey what are you going to do?

The effects were still great, the acting worked, and I liked the characters... but it was missing something.I don't know what but it was. I still recommend it of course and I decently enjoyed it. Critters 3 was not as much horror and more funny but it still worked. The critter effects have slightly changed but still basically the same. The critters are now more slimy and darker in color. It was great to see Charlie return again Leonardo DiCaprio did a great job in his role as Josh. Having a critter main protagonist was interesting and fun, and I liked the development in the other critter's characters also. It was very slightly off beat but fun to watch and entertaining. To sum it all up it was not as good as #2 but stayed true to the original.

Well if you don't have that much money, you kind of have to. This was done simultaneously with part 4 - with the cumulative budget of what they had for the very first movie. So two movies for the price of one. Which is I guess a byproduct of the failure of Critters 2 at the box office at least back then. There is a nice story about the boxoffice in the audio commentary on the disc of part 2 or in the hour long documentary.

Back to this though, which continues the "tradition" of having people that later were involved in the Titanic movie. In this case we have a very young Leonardo DiCaprio. I can't imagine him talking to anyone publicly about this movie of course, but it is one of those curiosities. So this plays out in a relatively close space - with at least one familiar face coming back to help the humans - if they can be helped of course. And again we have a PG-13 rating, but still violence and blood included

This has to be the worse Critter movie in the series, full of cheap effects and bad acting. The storyline is just as bad and the acting is terrible. Why is this movie fun? Because there is so much good material to make fun of and mock. It's not scary, and it's not really any good in the Sci-Fi department, but as a bad film to make fun of, its great. Don't watch this film if you're looking for a good movie, watch this film if you're looking for a good film to make cracks at.

In case you don't know, 'Critters 3' is best known for being the first ever film to feature Leonardo DiCaprio. Here, he plays a kid who is a kid. Then, forever after, he was destined to play an adult who looks like a kid. But then that's just me being bitter at his seeming inability to age.

Anyway, if you haven't seen 'Critters 3' then you might want to start with the first two, as they're arguably better and, well, chronology and all that. The Critters are little alien monsters who crash-landed on Earth and generally eat everyone and everything – or rather everyone and everything who isn't one of the lead cast. These baddies tend to only eat people you won't really care about. Or at least they certainly do now! I haven't seen another monster/slasher film where the villains do so little damage to so few people. If the Critters franchise was ever really classed as 'horror' (which it wasn't really – it was more only every horror with a spoonful of comedy). Now, it really is played out tongue-in-cheek with no real attempts to scare you. The Critters roll and bounce around the place, bumping into things and come across more like Mr Bean with bigger teeth than anything that really threatens humankind.

Critters 3 is a short film. And for good reason. There really isn't that much in the way of plot to fill it. You get the little monsters brought back from the countryside into a big city. You'd think that with the added number of human-prey this would make a change from the farm-country the previous two were set in. However, the whole film is basically set in one apartment block. And, for some reason, no one (Critter or human) ever really seems to make much of a play to leave the building. You could argue that this creates an air of tension and claustrophobia. But it doesn't. It's just a cheap continuation of the franchise.

Yes, I know I'm being kind of negative. And this is yet another step down for the franchise. But that's not to say that I didn't find some enjoyment in it. The Critters themselves – one again – are the real stars and, for all their 'prat-falls' they're still quite fun to watch.

If you like your eighties monster-horror films then you're probably best off sticking to the first one (which most people seem to think is best, personally, I preferred part 2, but anyway...). However, if you REALLY like the Critters and want to see more of them, you can try this – it's the sort of film where you can surf the net and watch it at the same time and still miss much. Plus, did I mention it had baby-faced Leo in it? He's being chased my fur-balls – c'mon, that's got to be worth watching, right?