Although widely believed to have been inspired by the success of Joe Dante's 1984 film "Gremlins", 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. The film grossed $13.6 million during its release in the United States, and spawned a "Critters" franchise consisting of three sequels, a web series titled "" released on Shudder and a 2019 reboot titled "Critters Attack!".