Critters: The Antihero

Today’s post is going to be a little short because it’s something that I want to address about the Crites. Yes, those of you who saw the post I made on Twitter last night know that I watched Critters again. Thanks to that movie I have the ‘Critter Skitter’ stuck in my head but I also realized something about the Crites in this movie. I stated it before on Twitter but this time I want to elaborate on what I meant.

See, the Crites are very interesting ‘characters’ because they have personality, they are smart and they lovable to a point. Unlike most alien invader movies, the aliens are always reptilian looking or weird looking but the Crites are so simple and so ‘down to earth’ that they look like little balls of fuzz with teeth. You love them but you hate them because they are vicious little monsters. I guess what I am getting at here is that the Crites are an antihero, more or less. In some way, you want them to win and you want them to succeed but you also want the real heroes of the story to win as well. It’s a bittersweet relationship and its one of the main reasons why I love Critters. What makes their personality even more identifiable is that they swear and they beat each other up, something that you rarely see in any alien invader movie.

I compared them to the aliens in Mars Attacks because the aliens in that film are also antiheroes to a point because they are wacky, bumbling and you become attacked to them. You want to see them blow shit up and scream ‘ACK! ACK! ACK!’ The same thing can be said about the Crites. Out of all the aliens that I have seen, they have to be the best when it comes to their personality and their appearance.