This week on Coolest Alive, we’re celebrating one of the wildest, weirdest, most unexpectedly enduring franchises of the VHS era: CRITTERS! From the scrappy 1986 original that won over Siskel & Ebert, to the bonkers Easter-egg massacre of Critters 2, to Leonardo DiCaprio’s first film in Critters 3, to the deep-space madness of Critters 4, all the way through SyFy’s Critters Attack!, Shudder’s A New Binge, and the two fan-made shorts keeping the Krite flame alive — we’re covering the entire saga. Horror, comedy, sci-fi, practical effects wizardry, bounty hunters, ham-eating murderballs… It’s all here. If you love creature features, cult classics, or anything truly alive, this is one you DO NOT want to miss.

Listen, I caught Little Shop of Horrors on Broadway (many years ago now) but holy crap, it’s hands-down the greatest musical I’ve ever seen live, the way Howard Ashman’s lyrics and Alan Menken’s tunes explode with that doo-wop soul and razor-sharp wit, turning a cheesy B-movie into this wild, hilarious monster mash of temptation and chaos on stage. The puppetry for Audrey II is always straight-up ingenuity or genius, devouring the set with attitude, while the cast belts out “Suddenly Seymour” and “Feed Me” like they’re possessed, blending laughs, heart, and edge-of-your-seat spectacle that leaves you humming for days NO MATTER WHICH CAST PERFORMS IT! Catch a local production ASAP; it’s pure theatrical fire that demands to be experienced raw.

Bro, if you thought the Monty Python crew peaked with Holy Grail, you gotta hunt down Yellowbeard immediately, this batshit-insane 1983, Graham Chapman-led pirate comedy is basically the unsung fifth Python film, packed with legit Python royalty (Chapman starring, John Cleese, Eric Idle, plus Cheech & Chong, Madeline Kahn, Marty Feldman, and even David Bowie in a cameo). Chapman plays the nastiest, drunkest, most treacherous pirate ever, staggering around looking for his buried treasure while everyone double-crosses everyone in the most unhinged way possible. It’s crude, ridiculous, quotable as hell (“I’m not yellow, I’m just bearded!”), and feels like Life of Brian crashed into a rum barrel. Total cult madness that deserves way more love, fire it up, and thank me when you’re crying laughing.