Critters 4 (1992) — Triskaidekafiles

CRITTERS 4

WRITER: Rupert Harvey and Barry Opper

DIRECTOR: Rupert Harvey

STARRING: Don Keith Opper as Charlie McFadden
Paul Whitthorne as Ethan
Angela Bassett as Fran
Anders Hove as Rick
Eric DaRe as Bernie
Brad Dourif as Al Bert
Martine Beswick as the voice of Angela

QUICK CUT: Charlie tries to clean up some hairballs left behind.

THE MORGUE

Charlie - Our lovable goofball is back, and he’s still hunting Critters. Not sure how good he is at it these days, but he’ll keep trying.

Rick - The captain of the starship Tesla, an opportunistic, egotistical man. So, a salvage captain, really.

Ethan - An apprentice engineer, who is more interested in where they’re going than what they’re doing, and practising his juggling.

Al - Ethan’s teacher, a bit of a misanthrope, and probably the smartest one in the movie.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! Here we are, at the last of the 'classic' cycle of the Critters franchise. I've honestly yet to check out the latest entries, but we'll see what next year brings. For now though, it's time to pack up your Crites, change your face, and launch yourselves into spaaaaace, because of COURSE it's the fourth movie, time to go to space. At least that makes SENSE with this franchise...

The movie opens up with our ol' pal Charlie hunting through the credits and finding a pair of eggs. He's about to blast them out of existence, when a message comes down from Ug not to do it, they are the last two Critter eggs, and are thus a protected species. So literally, he almost blased them out of existence.

So they send a pod down to collect them, and Butterfingers Charlie ends up getting frozen along with the eggs and launched into space.

From there, we watch as the pod floats through space for about fifty years, until humans have become a spacefaring race, and we meet our real cast, the crew of a salvage vessel, who are more than willing to bend the rules to make a buck. And let me tell ya, I felt every second of those 50 years.

Naturally, and fortunately for the plot, they find Charlie's pod, and Brad Dourif brings it in. And lemme tell ya, Brad is the best thing about this movie. Although being named Al Bert makes me angry.

We spend a good long twenty minutes or so meeting the crew, and it's not until 30 minutes in before we finally get back around to freeing Charlie from the pod and releasing the eggs to move the plot.

I get wanting to intro the new world and the new crew, but there is so little going on otherwise...this is such a slow movie

Spoiler: That is a literal Chekov’s gun.

Anyways, they determine the pod has actual owners thanks to a mark on it, contact the old galactic council or whatever, which has since the time of the first movies been disbanded and reformed. They get informed to take the pod to a nearby space station to make the proper transfer and get paid for finding it.

Oh, and Ug is now "Councilor Tetra" and in charge of TerraCorp, the new organisation. And for some reason he's gotten pretty shady over the last 50 years. For no particular reason. Who needs character development? Just change him randomly!

They reach the station, which seems utterly abandoned, save for the computer system, voiced by Martine Bestwick. Quite a long way from Sister Hyde.

I know everyone is all “DiCaprio was in the third movie!!” but Angela Bassett is the more shocking star to me.

Oh, and Al figures out the best way to get the computer to respond is to ask it for the opposite, "just like my ex-wife". Ah ha ha, because it's funny.

Finally, the captain gets just as bored as I am to get this plot rolling, as well as feeling like he could get way more money on the black market, so he decides to open the pod.

Thanks to Space Science, Charlie has miraculously survived being frozen, thaws out, and then realises that so too have the eggs. And newborns are hungry. Very hungry. They are growing boys who make short work of the captain. Yay!

We get a few misunderstandings over the dead Captain and Charlie standing there with a gun, but it's all brushed aside pretty quickly, so we can wander around the station some more.

Charlie does what Charlie does, and goes looking for the escaped Critters before they can cause too much damage. He comes across a lab where they were experimenting on stuff to try and increase growth rates, and he eventually goes climbing into the vents, because there are always vents.

And they end up sliding straight on down into a waste disposal room, so this is pleasant.

One thing's for sure, we're all gonna be a lot thinner.

On top of that, the computer is so futzed that it refuses to accept they're not trash, because they must be waste material, because they're in the bin.

They eventually get out, the plot chugs along, such as it is, with everyone deciding it's best to get out, even with Tetra on his way to pick up his eggs.

After the Critters chew down on another crew member, they make it even more imperative, and quickly move to escape before everyone dies.

Of course, it's never that easy, as the nuclear power core begins to go critical all of a sudden for no other reason besides plot. Sections of the station close off, making things much more difficult. Or they would, but they literally just climb down through the floor.

Also since it's the third act, Al heads to his room and, I shit you not, grabs Chekov's gun with the small handful of bullets he has, and hands it over to Charlie.

One of the Critters shows up to cause problems, Charlie shoots at it, and disables the ship, because we don't have enough problems already.

Fed up with the movie, Ethan takes the gun to go take care of the last Critter. He finds it in the lab, trying to create more. Remember? The Crites are smart, space faring creatures. And creating more better versions? Oh yeah, they'd do that. This should've been the movie. But nah, we're almost done here. The genetically altered Critter is barely a footnote.

Oh yeah, Tetra finally arrives, and Charlie is reunited with Ug in his newer more douchier form.

There's a bit of a face off, and Tetrug blasts Al in the gut. Quick, just find a doll to put his soul in, he'll be fine, and in a much better franchise.

But hey, the soldiers Ug brings with him go searching for the Crites, and boy, do they find 'em! Sadly, they get massacred off screen. This movie only seems to have had the two puppets, and made the least of them.

It’s the power of the night Charlie. Can’t you here it, the streets are calling.

Ug is losing his shit, wanting his eggs, and oh look! Our little juggler had a reason for being a juggler! Gasp, surprise, strange character quirks come into play!

Ethan carries in several of the new eggs, juggling them to act as a distraction, breaking several on purpose to make Ug think there is only the one last Critter left, and then tosses it into the air so it can draw Ug's attention and he can be punched out. He pops back up briefly to threaten Ethan, and then Charlie shoots the faceshifter that used to be his friend.

Anyways, the three survivors pile into the TerraCorp ship, after frosting once last Critter, and blasting off as the station explodes, because remember that bad nuclear power core? Yeah, neither did I.

Mmm, frozen Critesicle, my favourite summertime treat!

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It looks just fine. The production values are the biggest flaw here.

Audio: Just fine as well.

Body Count: Pretty unspectacular for a Critters movie. They couldn’t even slaughter a bunch of puppets for us.

1 - Nearly 35 minutes before Captain Rick is eaten by Critters.
2 - Bernie gets munched on
3 - Al gets killed by Ug
4 - A lab full of soldiers gets eaten by a lab fuller of Critters
5 - Ugtra gets shot by Charlie.

Best Corpse: The captain’s death is the most stand out, since they milked it and had some effects.

Blood Type - D: I barely recall much blood at all, and the puppets are okay, if barely used.

Drink Up! Every time you see a Critter

Movie Review: I will defend this by saying there is a genuinely good idea buried in here. The idea of Critters running amok on a cramped space station, experimenting on themselves, and becoming bigger threats is hugely intriguing. Unfortunately, the movie we got was utterly uninterested in doing any of that. Almost nothing happens, and if you didn’t notice, this may be the shorted Trisk I’ve ever written. Two out of five Critter eggs, because it at least was well made for what it is, and there’s a good germ there.

Entertainment Value: Sigh. Brad Dourif is in it, but under utilised. We often can at least cheer at the antics of the Critters running around causing chaos. But they are barely in this movie. The characters are all just kinda there, and don’t do much, while we sit and wait. Two out of five space pods.