Critters: A New Binge was a web series released in March 2019 that was based on the Critters film series, produced by Warner Bros. Digital and Blue Ribbon Content and originally released on the streaming service Shudder.
Set in an entirely new continuity, the series concerns a group of Crites who are sent to Earth to find a missing member of their kind. At the same time, a pair of bounty hunters arrive on the planet to try and stop the Crites before they cause too much trouble.
Tropes:
- Adaptational Villainy: The Bounty Hunters, while just like the main series are on planet Earth to kill the Crites, are also in an antagonistic role, due to Christopher is half-Crite, making him as much of a target to them as the Crites are.
- Alternate Continuity: The web series is set in a completely different continuity from the original film series.
- Big Eater: The main character Christopher is noted to have a voracious appetite. It's later established that this is because he is half-Crite.
- Eyepatch of Power: The leader of the Crites sent to Earth to retrieve the missing Crite wears an eyepatch.
- Foreshadowing: The dog whistle-like device the Crite leader uses to keep the other Crites in line is shown to affect Christopher, an early sign towards his true nature as a human/Crite hybrid.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Christopher is the hybrid offspring of his human mother Veronica and the Crite President.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Christopher wipes out all the Crites by setting the head Crite's restraining device at a pitch that will be fatal to all Crites in the vicinity. In spite of being half-Crite himself, Christopher survives.
- Kick the Dog: It's clearly established that the Crites are bad news when one of them kills and feasts on all the animals kept at an animal shelter.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: The Crite President reveals himself to be Christopher's father.
- Mini Series: The web series lasts only eight episodes.
- Red Herring: Uncle Murray is shown to have a small creature hidden away that he sometimes feeds. We're initially led to believe that Uncle Murray's pet is the missing Crite, but episode four reveals that it is actually an owl.
- Sequel Hook: At the end of the series, the surviving Crites prepare for Phase 2, which turns out to involve clones of Christopher.
- Shout-Out:
- In the fifth episode, one of the bounty hunters throws a lunch tray at a Crite wearing black clothes and sunglasses, who promptly ducks backwards in slow motion to avoid getting hit. This is a nod to the iconic scene in The Matrix where Neo does the same to avoid a hail of bullets.
- In the final episode, when all the Crites are killed by the high pitch sound, one Crite, in contrast to others that either keel over or explode, turns to dust in a reference to the climax of Avengers: Infinity War, complete with them saying "I don't wanna go".
- Tomato in the Mirror: It is revealed in the sixth episode that Christopher is half-Crite, a revelation that understandably shocks him.
- Your Head A-Splode: In the final episode, there is a red-furred Crite whose quills make people's heads explode rather than render them unconscious.
