Critters 2: The Main Course (1988): A Second Helping Of The First

Sequels are proof that humankind never learns from trauma. And yet, when the trauma involves demonic hamster-balls from outer space, who can resist a second helping? Critters 2 isn’t a movie; it’s a bar fight between imagination and self-control—directed by Mick Garris, a man who looked at the term “horror-comedy” and thought it meant “set everything on fire.”

Two years after the first infestation, young Brad Brown (Scott Grimes) returns to Grover’s Bend, Kansas—a town so beige it makes milk look adventurous. Somewhere in its wheat-choked void, an alien smuggler abandons a clutch of Crite eggs that locals, apparently too bored to live, mistake for Easter décor. Nothing screams “He is risen” quite like handing a toddler an interstellar face-eater wrapped in tinfoil. The eggs hatch, the fur flies, and soon the town is being eaten alive by what look like satanic stress-balls with fangs.

The Crites remain the franchise’s molten core—angry meatballs with personality disorders. They roll, bite, and cackle like piranhas that discovered meth. Each puppet brims with old-school craftsmanship: damp fur, glossy gums, and eyes lit by what must have been pure spite. When they swarm, the film transforms into a practical-effects symphony—foam latex, air bladders, fishing line, and fire-retardant slime all working overtime. The Chilodo Brothers, fresh from Killer Klowns from Outer Space, built these rubber demons by hand, layer upon glorious layer. They didn’t rely on pixels; they relied on nerve endings. Their creatures drool, pulse, and burn with tactile menace. You can feel the glue fumes through the screen.

One of cinema’s greatest low-budget miracles arrives midway through, when the Crites merge into a single rolling death-ball. Hundreds of puppets stitched into a sphere, rigged to roll over a stuntman who emerges a polished skeleton. That’s not CGI—just human suffering and good choreography. Today’s digital monsters couldn’t dream of that level of commitment; they’d file for union breaks. Scott Grimes does his best as Brad, the reluctant hero whose hair alone could qualify as a special effect. Liane Curtis, all denim and decibels, plays Megan, a small-town reporter trapped in an 80s montage. Their romance has less spark than a wet lighter, but no one came here for chemistry. They came for Don Keith Opper’s Charlie—a legend, a walking hangover who somehow saves the galaxy through luck, beer, and sheer density of willpower. Charlie doesn’t follow the hero’s journey; he drunkenly wanders into it and refuses to leave.

And then—like angels descending from a hair-metal poster—come Ug and Lee, the alien bounty hunters. Ug’s granite jaw could deflect bullets; Lee’s shapeshifting ability offers the movie’s most delirious detour. One moment, Lee’s a fry-cook; the next, a punk goddess; seconds later, a topless centerfold dual-wielding staple guns. It’s a sight so magnificently idiotic that Plato would’ve written about it if he’d owned a VHS player. The transformation effects are pure analog alchemy: prosthetics bubbling, latex stretching, smoke curling. Each morph looks like reality trying—and failing—to maintain dignity.

What truly elevates Critters 2 into cult sainthood, though, is its tone: equal parts slaughter and Saturday-morning cartoon. One minute, you’re watching a Crite gnaw through a tire; the next, a hamburger bomb detonates in a greasy explosion of meat and moral confusion. The Easter Bunny massacre remains a genre landmark: a man in a rabbit suit, torn apart before screaming children—a moment so gleefully perverse it transcends parody and becomes ritual. 

Cinematographer Russell Carpenter (who’d later shoot Titanic, proving that all roads to Oscars begin with puppets and gore) floods the frame with hot reds, toxic greens, and midnight blues. Every explosion bursts like fireworks over a trailer park apocalypse. The sound design is its own creature: screeching synths, squelching flesh, and those infernal Crite giggles—like hyenas swallowing radios.

Despite critics initially treating it like cinematic roadkill, Critters 2 gnawed its way into pop-culture immortality. For a certain breed of fan—those raised on VHS static and sugar cereal—it’s scripture. Midnight screenings thrive on its chaos; special-effects schools use it as Exhibit A in “What dedication looks like when you can’t afford insurance.” The Chiodos’ puppets toured conventions for decades, revered like war relics. Even today, new filmmakers cite it as the bridge between practical craft and gleeful absurdity. It’s Gremlins’ feral cousin: cheaper, louder, and twice as fun at parties.

The finale is textbook 80s lunacy. The townsfolk arm themselves like frontier patriots of nonsense—shotguns, Molotov cocktails, possibly divine rage. They lure the Crites into a barn and blow them back to hell, proving once again that rural America’s true superpower is improvised demolition. Charlie’s noble “sacrifice” (read: drunken explosion) cements him as the galaxy’s most lovable idiot savior. When he drifts off into space, it’s less a farewell than a cosmic shrug.

Final Verdict

Critters 2 is cinema’s equivalent of a barbecued Big Mac—greasy, glorious, and unapologetically American. It’s the last stand of rubber and wire before computers sterilized the monsters. Every puppet twitch is a middle finger to digital laziness; every explosion a love letter to elbow grease. Garris and the Chiodos didn’t chase realism—they chased spectacle until it collapsed in laughter.

This isn’t art that asks for your respect. It kicks down your door, eats your snacks, and leaves you grinning in the rubble. The film doesn’t wink—it bares its teeth, drenched in Karo syrup, daring you to call it stupid while you’re cheering.

Three decades later, the fur still flies, the cult still chants, and somewhere, a VHS player still hums. Critters 2 remains the gospel of glorious stupidity—the movie that proved you don’t need sense when you’ve got puppets, dynamite, and the courage to press “record.”