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Critters 4 (1992)

DVD Cover (New Line Studios)
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Overall Rating 38%
Overall Rating
Ranked #4,919
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Connections: Critters

Just before bounty hunter Charlie triggers his gun to destroy the last two Critter-eggs, he gets a message that it would be illegal to extinguish the race from the galaxy. He's sent a transporter where he puts the eggs - unfortunately the transporter takes him with it and then gets lost in space. --TMDb
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Review by Crispy
Added: November 11, 2007
Critters 3 was a bit disappointing, trading in all the horror aspect of the series for a Gremlins-esque cheese factor. With Critters 4 being a direct continuation of 3, and knowing the two movies were shot back to back, I was ready for another offering of camp. Sad to say, that wasn't the case, and instead we get a long bore of a movie, with an amazingly small amount of Crite attacks.

At the end of 3, Charlie was surveying the damage looking for surviving Crites. He finds two eggs, and just as he's about to blow them to Kingdom Come, he gets a call from his old friend, Ug. Apparently those eggs are the very last of the species, and despite how deadly the creatures are, they're still under protection laws. The Intergalactic Council sends a pod and instructions to send them the eggs. After putting the eggs in the pod he ends up trapped inside, and it engages its cryosleep function as it sets off on its long trip. However, for whatever reason it never reaches its destination and spends fifty years floating aimlessly through space. It's eventually picked up by a salvaging crew and we learn that the Council has long since dissolved. Apparently it's been bought out by a company called TerraCorp, who contacts the ship and tells them they'll pay triple the going rate if they'll drop it off at a nearby station, with the only condition being they are forbidden from opening the pod. When they get to the station, they find it completely deserted. Learning that the head of TerraCorp will be meeting them at the station, they ignore the red flags and make themselves comfortable. After being violently shut down by the female pilot of his crew, Captain Rick gets pissed and breaks into the pod. Of course, he quickly becomes critter chow and the two Crites roll off before Charlie can kill them. Now the remaining crew has to fend off the Crites and keep themselves alive.

That plot synopsis seemed really helter skelter, didn't it? Well, that's nothing compared to how bad the movie felt. A lot of that was inferred because this movie just jumps all over the place. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that every little plot point has to be spoon fed. I mean, let's be honest, people don't watch these movies for the story; but that doesn't mean it has to be completely incomprehensible. For example, we never know exactly why TerraCorp has assumed ownership of the Council's pod. We don't know what happened to the Council in the first place. We never know what happened at the station. We don't know why, when they find their captain eaten, our "heroes" don't just say screw it and get the hell off the station. And the biggest mystery, what the hell happened to Ug? I won't spoil that little twist, weak though it is, but they completely ruined the character. Some serious explanation is needed here, and when Charlie presses his old friend as to what's up, Ug merely responds, "Things change, Charlie." Uh huh, things change indeed. For instance, this series used to be good. Now the "highlight" is using reverse psychology to manipulate a computer. Even as bad as all of this is, the could have been somewhat salvaged if we had some decent Crite action. Sadly that is not the case. We get two badly executed kills throughout the entire running time, and the rest of the time is not made up of the mischievous gremlin-like behavior like 3 was. While we do peak in on them using some machine to...do something that again is never explained, we spend a lot of time watching the ship's crew run around aimlessly. An edge of your seat experience, this is not.

Like the last offering, Opper and Mann are the only Critters alumni returning, and as usual, neither disappoints. I can't say the same for our newcomers though. Paul Whitthorne, Angela Basset, Brad Douriff, Anders Hove and Eric DaRe were all perfectly aware that this movie was a piece of shit and acted accordingly. While I can certainly understand the lack of fervor, some additional enthusiasm might have carried over to the viewer's enjoyment.

And so ends the Critters saga. A fifth movie was planned, but due to the understandingly poor response to these last two, the idea was scrapped. I thought the first two were really solid sci-fi flicks, and it really is a shame to see it end like this. Personally, I recommend you stick with those and pretend this final romp with the Crites doesn't exist. 1/10.
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