Horror's Not Dead

Terror Tuesday Report: Critters 2

The Film

Two years after a pack of very illegal aliens (actual tagline, not my joke) gorged themselves on the Brown family farm, the Browns,  not surprisingly, have moved away to the big city in an effort to distance themselves from that all-too-close encounter. The tiny town of Grover’s Bend was able to carry on as usual by satisfying themselves that the Browns were a pack of loonies and the events of that fateful night never occurred. Unfortunately, the remnants of that night–in the form of clutch of Crite eggs–have just been discovered by a shady antique dealer and sold to the church as fodder for their annual Easter egg hunt. It’s about this same time that Bradley Brown, youngest son of the ill-fated family of the first installment, returns to visit his grandmother. It’s also about this time that those intrepid inter-galactic bounty hunters, having learned of the presence of more Crites on Earth, begin their voyage back to Grover’s Bend. Will this collective homecoming be enough to stop an even larger Crite invasion, or will Grover’s Bend be the appetizer for their eventual takeover of our planet?

I have more than a few soft spots when it comes to the subcategories within horror. One of my biggest would be the underrated horror sequel; especially unsung part 2′s. Jaws, The Fly, Demons, and Psycho all have fantastic second entries that often get relegated to the realms of the forgotten simply because of the numeral they tow. I would definitely have to assign Critters 2 into that same category as it is a terrific sequel to a campy, extraordinarily fun cult classic. I don’t think it over-praise to note that Critters 2 actually improves upon a few aspects of the original.

Re-Introducing…The Terror Tuesday Report

In January of 2010, I began a project for Cinematical’s Horror Squad. If you read myself or Pete Hall with any regularity on any of our outlets than you’re probably already sick of hearing the words Alamo Drafthouse. Well too bad, because I’m about to lavish a bit more praise upon it.

Every Tuesday for the last four years or so, the Alamo has been offering 35mm screenings of horror films both classic and obscure. My goal was to see every single film, week-to-week, that was showcased in 2010 and write up both a synopsis of the film and an overview of the varying audience reactions. Thus, the Terror Tuesday Report was born. I enjoyed writing TTR immensely and managed to attend every week, with very few exceptions. In September, Horror Squad, as well as Cinematical, was rolled into Moviefone where I continued to write the Terror Tuesday Report. But it soon became apparent that the Moviefone audience did not harbor the same appreciation for offbeat horror films as did the Horror Squad audience. The time had come to make a change. Remembering my roots as a film journalist, I could think of no better place for The Terror Tuesday’s Reports new home than Horror’s Not Dead.

So here’s how it’ll work. The reports will hit every Tuesday for the previous week’s film. On Monday (or in this case Tuesday as I am once again behind on things), we will post the trailer for the current week’s film and I’ll write a few words about my expectations. I hope you enjoy reading it. I’m back suckas!

This week (in essence what you’ll be reading next week): Critters 2