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Attack
of the Crab Monsters
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Review
by
Brian Lindsey
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5
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1 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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In
1957 alone, B-movie impresario Roger Corman directed an astounding
ten motion pictures. Attack
of the Crab Monsters was one of these. Remembered more
for its title than anything else, the flick stands as a minor
monument to enterprising low budget moviemaking —
it was made extremely fast and for next
to nothing. Ridiculous and cheesy, with a nonsensical plot completely
shot through with holes, Crab Monsters
is also surprisingly fun... if, like me, you're a fan of Atomic
Age beasties in glorious black and white.
A scientific expedition to a remote, unnamed Pacific island
— ominously located in an A-bomb testing zone — has vanished
without a trace. So a second team is brought in by the U.S.
Navy via amphibious plane to investigate. Headed by nuclear
physicist Dr. Weigand (Leslie Bradley), this follow-up team
includes geologist Carson (Richard Cutting), French botanist
Deveroux (actor/director Mel Welles, who'd go on to helm
Lady Frankenstein),
and betrothed biologists Dale Drewer and Martha Hunter (Richard
Garland and Pamela Duncan, who also appeared in Corman's The
Undead that year.) Rounding out the group are technician
Hank Chapman (Russell Johnson, It
Came from Outer Space) and a pair
of Navy enlisted men to assist him.
Things begin to go disastrously
wrong practically the moment they land. A seaman manning the
launch bringing the team ashore accidentally falls overboard;
when hauled from the water only moments later he's missing his
head. Then the expedition members watch helplessly as the Navy
plane explodes just as it's lifting off. With their radio unable
to cut through interference generated by a Pacific storm they
can't contact the outside world about the tragedy. Effectively
stranded, Weigand and the others set about
solving the mystery of the first team's disappearance.
Available clues are scarce and
indecipherable. The only animal life seen is the occasional
sand crab; the rest of the native fauna have also vanished.
Booming explosions, seemingly emanating from underground, periodically
rock the island, with sizable chunks of its mass sliding into
the sea. Thus the island grows inexorably smaller. Later, while
sleeping, Martha hears the disembodied voice of the missing
team's leader calling to her. It wasn't a nightmare —
other members of the party also heard it. Then Carson, exploring
a new newly opened fissure in the ground, is trapped in the
pit below.
Investigating a cave system connected to
the pit, the rest of the team comes face to face with unbelievable
horror: giant crab monsters able to absorb the intelligence
of any human brain they eat! Bullets and grenades have absolutely
no effect on the deadly, sentient creatures. The monsters disable
the radio and set about picking off the survivors one by one
— gloating haughtily about their impending triumph.
As silly as this may sound, it gets even loopier. A lot of the
plot points in the film don't make any sense at all. Just how
did the crabs blow up the plane? Shown as huge, clumsy creatures,
how was one of the monsters able to meticulously snip apart
the vital components of the radio? They also have the power
to generate intense, focused heat waves — why is this power
never used against any of the humans once they become threatening?
What does the discovery of oil on the island have to do with
anything? And why methodically blow up the island to begin with?
Ostensibly it's to corner the surviving humans so that they
can't escape. But aren't they already stranded? What are the
crabs supposed to do once the island's completely gone? (Where
are they supposed to hang out after destroying their own home?)
Also, when the island's been reduced to only a single remaining
outcropping of rock, just what exactly is generating all that
electricity coursing through the transmitter tower? Batteries?
Actually, at only 69 minutes the flick zips
by so fast that one isn't given much time to ponder these conundrums.
And that's why it works — if only on the level of cheesy, disposable
fun. (In reality the narrative's even shorter, as in typical
Corman fashion the first five minutes are padded with pointless
stock footage.) It's also great to see Russell Johnson, best
known as the Professor on TV's Gilligan's Island, get
to play the All-American hero part usually reserved for John
Agar or Kenneth Tobey in the bigger-budgeted monster pics released
at the time by the major studios. His Hank is an amiable, 'Can
Do' type of guy, the movie's real hero. First-billed
Richard Garland really doesn't do much of anything... It's Hank
who ends up saving the day with a memorable sacrifice play I
vividly recalled from my Creature Feature-infused childhood.
(Even Marsha, who's engaged to Garland's character, starts falling
for Hank and flirting with him.)
Johnson really deserved to receive top billing
in the cast. Now whether he would've wanted it that way
is another story...
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Don't
be fooled by the rather attractive looking packaging. The DVD's
picture quality is downright piss-poor. It's dark, grainy, soft
and fuzzy, with the occasional missing frame. Audio quality is
only marginally better; dialog is understandable but there's constant
background hiss throughout. A raggedy theatrical trailer and a
"Slide Show" image gallery are tossed in as extras. Inclusion
of the gallery was actually a big mistake, as the clean, crisp
photos it uses only make the actual feature look that much more
terrible. (I was forced to use the gallery stills for this review's
screenshots because those taken from the movie looked like crap.)
If you simply must add
Crab Monsters to
your collection, for now the cheaper VHS tape is the way to go.
12/30/02 |
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