Critters 3 (1991)

A neglectful father (John Calvin), returning from a vacation with his daughter, Annie (Aimee Brooks), accidentally brings “critter” eggs back to his low-rent apartment complex.  Though Aimee was warned about the monsters from bizarre alien-hunter Charlie McFadden (Don Keith Opper), she doesn’t believe until the critters start attacking.  Then it is up to her and Josh (Leonardo DiCaprio), the stepson of the unscrupulous landlord, to save the day.

Hand-puppets-of-death!  There is so much sly humor available to a movie featuring killer pieces of cloth.  It almost writes itself. Too bad the filmmakers didn’t go that route as having someone write the script didn’t work out so well.  It has nothing approaching humor.  Nor does it contain horror.

What it does have is family drama.  You see, Annie’s father has grown detached from his children since the death of her mother.  Annie is upset about this and doesn’t want to grow up too fast. In multiple scenes, she shows her frustration, by pouting or huffing or talking and talking about it.  The father shows his isolation by sitting around. Sound exciting? Hey, it gets even better.  Enter one pre-Romeo + Juliet, tween heartthrob, Leonardo DiCaprio, replacing da Vinci as the Leonardo of Western civilization. Leonardo has family problems too.  It seems his mother has remarried, and you know what stepfathers are like.  What are teens to do when their families just aren’t listening?

Ummmm.  Where are the monsters?  I could have sworn this movie was about hairy little monsters that eat folks. Shouldn’t someone get eaten?  When I’m looking for a horror comedy, something with small creatures that can devour a person’s head, I rarely am truly in search of an after school special.  I want to see hairballs chomping on people.

Eventually the critters do bite a few bad guys (only villains get hurt in this film). They then go on to drink dishwashing liquid and eat beans.  Then there’s some more family drama and some more drinking of dishwashing liquid.  Outside of a brief attack on a pair of bunny slippers, there isn’t a moment that’s amusing.

All of the Critters films suffer from being aimed at more than normally dim children, but this one forgets that children like to see little cute monsters feasting on the unwary far more than teen girls discussing their problems.

The other films in the series are Critters, Critter 2: The Main Course, and Critters 4.