Wednesday, March 21, 2012

CRITTERS 3 (1991)

A family passing through the outskirts of Grover's Bend (the scene of the first two movies) pick up some unexpected Krite visitors when they stop to fix a tire. When the family gets home to their apartment building in Los Angeles, the Krites set up shop in the basement and it doesn't take long before they're eating their way through the various tenants.

Nice try. The idea for the story is promising and the acting is passable, too bad though the budget was way too low and the script not very exciting. And don't even get me started on the Charlie character. I hated his goddamn guts in the first movie and it seems that with each passing movie his role gets fucking bigger and bigger! He's a tumor on the CRITTERS franchise.

I've been saying this for years, but it's time for a hard R-rated CRITTERS reboot. The story to the original film was very reminiscent of an Old West tale of vicious criminals breaking out of prison and terrorizing a family in a remote farm, so why not set the reboot back around 1870 and have the action take place on a remote East Texas ranch (I'm visualizing the Edwards ranch from THE SEARCHERS) and have the story about a struggling farmer fighting for his life to beat the land and create a place to raise his family when one night, one dark night when you could see a million stars in the gigantic sky, there's a "falling star" off in the distance, except that it isn't a star but instead a broken spaceship holding some pissed off Krites that would love nothing more than to viciously attack, kill and eat a family of humans, especially the young ones with the soft flesh. The key to making such a reboot an artistic success would be to, of course find a good director and an excellent script, but also to make the film as grim and shocking as possible. A lot of movies promise brutality, but very few actually deliver. The only recent film that I can think of would be INSIDE.  Strong character development, zero laughs, attention to detail, sudden and sustained scenes of merciless violence the likes of never before seen in a movie, beautiful cinematography, non-CG gore, nudity...it'd be awesome!!! Or if all that was too expensive, just have the Krites invade a nudist colony populated with wall-to-wall hot chicks. Either way it's a win for CRITTERS fans.

As for Part 3, it's worth a watch, but only if you're really into CRITTERS. Everybody else would probably just be disappointed from the lack of any real violence or tension. I did find myself wondering if maybe Leonardo DiCaprio and Aimee Brooks got it on? She ended up being kinda hot in MONSTER MAN, so I really want to know the answer to this question. Next time I talk to Angus McCootybritches (that's what I call my old friend Leo) I'm gonna ask him.

Part 1 - Critters (1986)
Part 2 - Critter 2 (1988)
Part 4 - Critters 4 (1992)

Angus McCootybritches with a Krite.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

CLUE (1985)

[Update 7/11/17: Horrible review. No idea when I will find the time to redo it.]

A group of strangers are summoned to a remote mansion for a dinner party. Each is directed to use an alias. After dinner it's revealed that each person is secretly being blackmailed and the blackmailer is no other than that dude over in the corner, Mr. Body. The lights go out and when they come back on Mr. Body is dead. Who could the murderer be? There's an entire room full of suspects.

As a mystery CLUE is weak. As a comedy it's OK at best. I never laughed or even smiled once, but I was mildly entertained.  I admit there were a few cleverly written lines, but overall it was pretty mediocre.

Watch if you want, I don't care, but in the remainder of my life I will probably watch the similarly themed THE PRIVATE EYES a dozen more times, but I will never revisit CLUE. If I do, it'll just be to scope out the maid's cleavage.