Batman as a character has survived hundreds of different incarnations spanning several decades. Some fans appreciate the character and the DC franchise for the versatility that accompanies constant reinvention, while others are slightly more closed minded. In recent decades, Batman has epitomized a popular flavor of psychological anarchy, excess darkness and realism, and anti-authoritarian coolness. When something like Critters pops up daring to merge American Gothic placeholders for rural America with outrageous biological experimentation, in the result yielding stampeding insects and a barrage of verbal and visual puns, then many fans react as if insulted or slighted. To them, the tonal exclusivity of Batman’s universe rules out such scenarios unconditionally.
I am of a different mindset entirely. Versatility is key not only to the enduring fascination, but also to the accessibility of the DC Animated Universe, and challenges to the internal stability of Batman are posed all the time, both in terms of continuity and atmosphere. In addition to the obligatory continuity errors that crop up from time to time, there are questions of whether visual redesigns make a dent on believable narrative continuity, or whether the immense technological disparity between the world of Superman and that of Batman mars the realism of either, or how the Batman of Justice League can possibly be the same as the Batman of Batman: the Animated Series, and so on. As far as atmosphere goes, the range of genres and storytelling modes would seem to destabilize what many fans perceive as a fixed state of dark realism.
Critters is a difficult episode because it defies categorization and doesn’t appear to market itself as a unique genre piece or comic escapade. Insofar as Farmer Brown is an unambiguous bad guy who is out for revenge and as Batman and co. are out to stop him, Critters is a typical villain-of-the-week offering with no obvious fourth-wall breaks or similar meta-textual veneers. On the grounds of character motivations or interactions, suspense, pacing, etc. Critters wavers between bland conventionality and flat-out incompetence. From an immediate transition between a genetically modified cow’s rampage and the ensuing trial that condemns its engineer to lose all research funding to an out-of-nowhere stampede of havoc-wreaking praying mantises, Critters does little to nurture believability or suspense, and the collective dullness of the Bat-family never quivers.
But it is not at a loss for conceptual aplomb, taking its bizarre foundation to even more radical extremes. If the fact of a genius biological engineer who just happens to be a gaunt farmer with a hillbilly daughter isn’t enough to disarm the viewer with originality, or at the very least queerness, then there is a smorgasbord of other things that will. From Farmer Brown’s artificial farm boxed into a giant offshore silo to a talking goat that breaches the defenses of Police Headquarters, Critters is almost uncomfortable in how many unpredictable turns it takes. Fiddle and blues guitar fill in the rural horror on the soundtrack while TV Western actor Peter Breck calmly and authentically channels Joe R. Landsdale’s distinguished genre-specific dialogue.
The backlash against Critters isn’t entirely a reactionary outrage over its refusal to play by the rules; it is stiltedly directed and very poorly animated, all while preferring spectacle to characterization and nuance. But as spectacle, Critters is exceptional. It offers sights and sounds that defy all sense, and on a first viewing, no matter how egregious it may appear to the mortified viewer, I would gambit that it is impossible not to follow it with bewildered curiosity to the very end.
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