It is the first film of four in the Critters series, followed by Critters 2: The Main Course. Although widely believed to have been inspired by the success of Joe Dante's 1984 film Gremlins,[3][4] Herek has refuted this in interviews, pointing out that the script was written by Muir long before Gremlins went into production and subsequently underwent rewrites to reduce the apparent similarities between the two films.[5]
