Characters in this #monsterdon so far, grouped by likability
likable:
daughter
son
weird forest guy
neither likable nor unlikable:
older boy (joshua)
dad (ambivalent likability)
unlikable:
guy in yellow
"Green."
No, puce. #Monsterdon
CRITTER POV SHOT
(It's the sound effects that really sell it. You can practically hear the slobber and puppetry.)
"It ain't me, it's them!"
Sure, that's what they all say. #Monsterdon
So the weird guy was riding his bicycle in 1984, then he saw a space ship and became a space bounty hunter and was fighting aliens or something. Then some monsters attacked everyone and I'm not sure what happened because this is probably a flashback for the other movies that I didn't see. Anyway some stuff explodes.
The older boy does not believe this story, because it sounds kind of made up.
Ah, so this recap is why there isn't any need to watch the first two Critters films before this one: they give you the sixty-second recap version right off the bat. Considerate!
this reminds me of that Mexican movie about the mummy and the robot, which was 90% recaps.
Previously on Critters.....? #monsterdon
Sure they got Leo, but Mark Ordesky is the real headliner here. #Monsterdon
wait... what's wrong with "low-grade melodramas"??!!??
"your boyfriend's gotta be a weenie, standing up a dynamite girl like you!"
a line I gotta use someday.
pal when your girl's thru with you for missing the concert, you're gonna WISH you were undead....
Nobody puts Charlie in a corner!
they better be listening to Bela Lugosi's Dead!
@CactuarJoe @trixter she was just kinda phoning it in for the second half
@klu9 @moira it's such a classic 80s kids monster movie #Monsterdon #Gremlins2
@Taweret I want my money back! From 1991.
so coming back to fright night 2 after critters 3, what a perfect pairing of movies like "surely there is not enough for another there wasn't enough for one" #monsterdon
So apparently Critters 4 was filmed at the same time.
Final thoughts: CRITTERS 3 is worth the price of admission, but it is certainly much worse than its predecessors. I would use the word "indulgent" to describe the writing.
I hope we do 4 as well sometime, despite this movie suggesting what we'd be in for. Certainly this was fun enough for me with the company of #Monsterdon.
Ugh, more like βThe Critters Take One Buildingβ. Were they trying to cash in on the success of βHome Aloneβ?
The caption βNow theyβre ready to do some REAL damageβ over a Critter tearing through a photo of a cityscape implies a *much* larger scope to the damage.
Bah, took me long enough!
this entire credits sequence for the 12 people that care about continuity #monsterdon
This credits sequence might as well be for a different movie.
Diamonds are for Lunch #Monsterdon
...From Russia with Leeks? #Monsterdon
@jonny we did it, we tied the gordian plot knot
"this is just like one of those westerns"
Far better movies than you haven't gotten away with an indulgent line like that, CRITTERS 3. You didn't earn it.
@jonny Only in a Hilbert space? #AgainWithTheMath #Monsterdon
Called it, the fire conveniently wiped away all the evidence, including Mr. Menges's detailed notes on the aliens.
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Wilhelm screams in little parts
#monsterdon
I like how it explodes into 1000 fragments and continues to scream afterwards
#monsterdon
I guess they roll up the sidewalks in LA at 7 pm.
ZANTETSUGRANDMA #Monsterdon
I do like that Marcia is going to use Phone to solve some crucial problem in this movie. I hate this extended absence she's taken from the plot.
I guess they maybe couldn't figure out how to get her gag to line up with everybody else's and this is the fillter?
Chekhovβs fart bubbles
Marcia has been robbed of all autonomy
Didn't that "person/people on top of the elevator are worried about being crushed at the top of the shaft but the cross-brace stops its ascent and prevents the injury" gag crop up in Die Hard (1988) too?
lol, unexpected romance
poor Marcia....like some Classical torment for pissing off the gods...
that's right critters, get your ass george of the jungle'd by the redeemed town drunk turned interstellar bounty hunter deus ex machina! #monsterdon
An hour in is kind of late to establish that the Critters have an elaborate language and are intelligent (but stupid), movie.
Since when could they do THAT? #Monsterdon
What about Alien's Ripley? Didn't she wear a tank top at one point?
I'm going to lose sleep over this.
lol, the lungs on that critter....
I don't want to think how bad things are for Marcia's ankle
After escaping into the false ceiling, Joshua confesses that "we came to evict you" to the daughter then expresses that he's sad that his dad died. the daughter confesses that her mom died. While they have this moment, Joshua plays with his magic electric pen thing that the weird guy gave him.
Meanwhile, in accordance with prophecy, the critter that eats the beans inflates and then farts. One critter dumps flour on the other critters. The critters are having a great time.
Some day Men, you could be as useful and heroic and this Lesbian, but not today....
That basement was a fire code violation anyway...
2????
3 profit
HA! It is indeed Michener's "Space". Really an excellent book, I would strongly recommend it if you like space history, historical fiction, or both.
This movie has a weirdly high hit-rate for me noticing small details that aren't really deliberate choices but are things I recognize. That's the 90s for you (for me), I guess
(I wish the video store had the Blu-Ray version of this film: the blacks are pretty crushed in the dark scenes on this DVD version, it's a bit tough to make out details.)
@SnoopJ yeah there's clearly some character inspiration shall we say #monsterdon
Human characters in this #monsterdon, in declining order of usefulness:
Positive Usefulness
Marsha (MVP, so far)
Daughter
Laundry Lady
Grandma (pie producer, arsenal of freedom)
Grandpa (field medic)
Weird Forest Guy (crystal provider)
Dad
Joshua (older boy)
Son (has yet to use crystal much)
Negative Usefulness
Frank (RIP)
Evil Sweater Man (RIP)
at the halfway point we have fully established critter crisis mode and an unlikely band of tenant warriors, and yet have no UFOs dropping down to deliver crite bounty hunters. the only way through is to lean on the lore of the prior movies in the last 15 #monsterdon
Was that a copy of James Michener's "Space" lmfao
MONSTER CHOMP
"Let him go, he can't help being an asshole!"
(Lighting that basement with one of those dark red road flares seems like a terrible idea. Even in the open air the fumes from those things are nauseating, and the phosphorous light is more than bright enough to destroy your night vision.)
Whoops! CRITTER KILL: phosphorous road flare? I think?
@Taweret I do think that cutting in footage of Julia Child dressing a chicken is a pretty funny way to rob the audience of an on-screen kill, though.
After his dad berates him for being squeamish toward a cooking show that is somehow on a TV, Joshua decides his dad is a jerk and says he hates him, which the audience agrees with.
After he leaves, more fuzzballs ambush Evil Sweater Man and presumably eat him, which the audience approves of. Them Marsha appears to investigate, using her Signal Flare ability. She finds his corpse in a recliner, where a fuzzball is probably eating it.
*a cylindrical garbage can or cigarette ash tray or whatever is rolled down the stairs, intercut with championship bowling footage and accompanied by bowling-ball sound effects; four or five critters are smacked in slow motion and fly straight up into the air*
Leaning hard into the camp this time, I see. Well, we knew into what we were getting.
Man alive I cannot get over how "paint by numbers" this action music is. It sounds like it came out of a catalogue, and hey, maybe it did.
At least the creators had foresight enough to use it to build up a quiet moment for that bowling ball gag, which was actually pretty fun.
Nice cut-in, I like that :D #Monsterdon
@CactuarJoe "You gotta listen to me, they're aweful!" said the other audience stand-in #monsterdon
As the most useful character in this movie, the daughter appears to rescue laundry lady from the monsters; she fights them off with a broom, gaining 20XP, then both of them go to tell her dad. Laundry lady describes the monsters as Tasmanian devils, then realizes that she's bleeding and falls over. Dad tries to help but doesn't believe in the basement aliens and thinks they are just rats (despite laundry lady's giant wounds).
Try gaslighting the ladies now dad
They really wanted Divine for this role. #Monsterdon #Critters3
The Daughter wanders into the grandparent's flat to eat more pies and hear grandpa's story about aliens, then leaves.
The son is there eating pies too, and recognizes the weird guy from a photograph of a cop in a newspaper. Then his crystal grows green, indicating that orcs... i mean... um... furry mouthballs are near.
Offbrand national enquirer as a good new source, I'm reminded of Men In Black
I forgot that Critters are basically Sonic the Hedgehog with even more 'tude
@Taweret it's weird. did the movie people get it confused with a garbage chute? #Monsterdon
I'm guessing we're doing a redemption arc with the dad who starts neglectful but then gets less neglectful.
those are some elaborate earrings while your hair is up in curlers and you're doing laundry, ma'am.
ooo,like Sonic the Hedgehog!
They glow red now?
$10 on a Critter bustin straight outa them ham and beans
hi beautiful little rat actors! :blobfoxfloofcute:
That alternating two-note musical theme while the shot lingered on the broken basement window sounded _very_ reminiscent of Jerry Goldsmith's work from Alien (1979), eh?
Anyway, the trio of Bulk, Skulk and Butch are ambushed by the family from before, which almost crashes into them in their truck because it doesn't have breaks. After it fails to kill them, we see a crabapple below the truck, which music informs us is an evil critter egg.
The characters scatter to do various errands, the daughter goes to visit her grandparents after their road trip. Grandma makes her pies and grandpa tries to tell her that the Grand Canyon is an alien graveyard.
@Taweret fingers crossed
#Monsterdon
Yayy, child employment! U S A!
Look, if I saw weird goo I would not stick my finger in it...
note: the character I have called "Bulk" is not actually all that bulky. he kind of reminds me of Danny Devito. his name is mario also.
#Monsterdon π¦ π¦ π¦ π ποΈ π¦π©Έπ±!
Elevator β
The crites ate a brake line?
#monsterdon
Please! Notify the tire technician you have put Slime(tm) in your tires.
Wow, those eggs are laid fast.
Before they part ways, the weird guy hands the son a magic crystal that grows green when monsters are near. The older boy, whose name is "Joshua" and whose stepdad is the mysterious guy in yellow, managed to steel an electric pen or sonic screwdriver or phaser or something from the weird guy before they left. On their return the mysterious guy in yellow threatens to beat Joshua.
"Are you supposed to be scary?"
"Well, crazy, so kind of?"
#monsterdon
"...the first crystal is free."
National Lampoon's Critters Vacation.