"Critters 4" fails to add anything to franchise, and even though it's directly connected to the third (they were shot back to back), since that one made no sense, they dig themselves in deeper here. Every set is cheaply made, the title creatures only actually kill two people on screen the entire movie, and it just drags along without any sense of pacing. Toss in a computer ripped off of "Alien" and you have a complete disaster. (* out of *****)
If you watch it in either widescreen or in pan & scan (on the same disc), you won't see much. Out of the four discs, this one looks the worst. Heavy grain obscures the actors more than a few times and compression is really noticeable in a few scenes. Fine detail is completely lost due to both problems. The dark interiors are kept that way by the usually flawless black levels, but that's about the only positive to come out of this disc. (**)
This fourth movie in the series uses the rear speakers slightly more than the previous one, but since the third didn't use them at all, that doesn't say much. There are a few echo effects once in a while and the spaceships move around the field effectively, but almost everything is centered as it was before. It's not surprising since the movie went directly to both VHS and laserdisc, but you can always expect more. (***)
Trailers for all four films are included. That's it. Now, since I have time, who designed this cover art? All they did was take the same photo of a Critter, paste it in four different places, and popped a moon in front of them. You've got a great art design department New Line. (*)
It wouldn't be surprising if this were planned to make a theatrical run. It's likely that after the studio seen the finished product, they thought better of it. This is a sad finish to a series that started off on fire. Not even a current resurrection could salvage this series now.
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