Took in this last night. It is one of two CRITTERS reboots/sequels/whatever that hit this year and apparently this is the better of the two. Which makes me truly fear the Shudder series CRITTERS: A NEW BINGE because this one is terrible. The Krites and their voracious appetites descend up a small town looking for their queen and poor babysitting college student Drea (Tashiana Washington) gets caught in the middle. Shot in South Africa, this constitutes the fifth entry in the film series as producers Rupert Harvey and Barry Opper return. Dee Wallace also shows up for about 10 minutes and the filmmakers try to remake her in full Sarah Connor/Laurie Strode bad ass mode, which is tough because she was 70 when she shot this (scenes of her running showcase this). Even worse, they can't be bothered to state if she is the same character from the first film. Sure, you can make that mental connection (why else would she be monitoring alien activity in a bunker?) but she introduces herself to characters as "Aunt Dee." WTF? The filmmakers steadfastly refuse to use ANYTHING to use to the film's advantage. Example: We see the return of the infamous critter-ball and at one point it runs over a victim. Now this would be the moment for a gore gag - this is the first in the series to be rated R - where we see it roll over him and a few seconds later we could see a bloody, picked clean skeleton, right? Nope. Director Bobby Miller just has the guy fall and that's it. Hell, the town attack is five people running round a shopping mall parking lot with a critter puppet sewn to their pant leg. My favorite example of how lazy this film is - at one point Drea goes to see the disbelieving sheriff, her uncle, to tell him about the aliens. Now they legit have a good alien in their bag (a la GREMLINS). The Sheriff says, "I don't believe you" blah blah blah. Instead of ripping open the bag to show him and go, "Yes, they are real!" the lead girl goes, "Okay, guys we're leaving." Now I'm not asking for high art with films like this, but dammit Peter Jackson made BAD TASTE for $25,000. With so many talented folks working in the horror industry, how do folks like this get selected to make dreck like this?

Begins somewhat interesting with that cheesy 80s monster movie feel, but quickly descends through mediocrity to downright dull. While better than the tripe that was A New Binge on a filmmaking level, storywise I'm not so sure. And why is this rated R? It's not scary or gory, and unfortunately not funny either. Give it a pass.

A belated sequel to the CRITTERS series and you'll wish they hadn't bothered. This is one of those generic and soulless '80s homages purely designed to make a bit of cash. The only thing it really has going for it are the FX; the creatures are refreshingly low fi which I appreciated, with only a few CGI moments. But the human cast is entirely weak and the storyline merely join-the-dots plotting. No thanks!