Critters 2

Is Critters 2 a Cult Classic? A #TweetWithBGH Special Report

By Spencer on December 15th, 2015

The “krites” are back in town (specifically, Grover’s Bend) in Critters 2, and our contributors were deeply divided over whether they had worn out their welcome. The story is a near-repeat of the original, with the critters causing mayhem all over a small town, pursued by bounty hunters, ineffective law enforcement, and a scrappy redheaded boy named Bradley Brown. Critters 2 has less exposition: it drags its cast into new locales, because it can get away with it, and it also features some egregious PG-13 nudity, because it can get away with it.

Cast members reprising their roles is a good sign, right?

Bradley returns, solo, to Grover’s Bend to spend some time with his Nana (pretty sure she wasn’t in the first movie), who is basically the character from The Visit before things really went south. Nana is obsessed with health food, runs the most anarchic day care center in town, and spends way too much time and money on her Easter plans when she should be making sure her four-year old wards aren’t off drowning each other. Meanwhile, everyone is making a big deal about how much Bradley has grown up, as though he’s a college student, when he’s clearly still about 13. The writers are desperate to sell him as a creepy love interest to a woman who looks nearly 25….but not desperate enough to cast someone who’s already gone through puberty.

A fantastic death of a man in an Easter Bunny suit kicks things into full horror mode, and the shapeshifting routine from the first movie continues when one of the bounty hunters takes the form of a playmate after finding a Playboy on the ground. They meet up with the Critters at “The Hungry Heifer”, where the little furballs are doing their best impression of Texans at a Golden Corral. I share a special story about my childhood, and we are all starting to have very different opinions about the enjoyability of this movie…

Finally, the town rallies together, overcoming their suspicion of Bradley, the “undersized kid from the big city” (who was born and raised in Grover’s Bend, having just moved away two years earlier) to lure the Critters to a local factory where they can blow them up. Guess what! This is not a good idea.

Apparently when you blow up hundreds of Critters in the same location, you get….. a giant ball of critters, about twenty feet across, that flattens everything in its path WHILE ALSO eating the flesh off of it. Evan is not as delighted about this as we are, but he is a very good sport about it.

Can we remain amused by this campy crapfest, or will Critters 3 bring our excitement plummeting towards Earth like a crashing spaceship? Join us for the next #TweetWithBGH and find out for yourselves!

Spencer

Contributor

A loophole in his parents' "anti-scary movie, pro-literacy" policy meant that Spencer had read Stephen King's entire body of work by the time he was in middle school. He soon discovered the horror and B-movie offerings on late night cable TV and was hooked for life. He currently lives, works, and writes in North Carolina.

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