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I’m in love with the idea of monstrous crabs. Crabs are one of the creepiest and coolest lookin’ creatures on earth, so I can easily buy into the terror of a gigantic crustacean snapping people in half with its colossal claws. Hell, crabs are so damn alien in appearance I would be perfectly happy with a barrage of regular-ass crabs swarming dopes or those majestic and horrifying coconut crabs taking out Floridians. Fuck me, these things are otherworldly. You take that very fifties vibe and throw it into the excess of the eighties horror genre and I’m practically doing a jig on my living room table as my wife finishes packing her bags and finally leaves my idiot ass. So why does an eighties movie about killer crabs make me fall asleep? We know the eighties could do fifties monster movies correctly. Look at the gross The Blob remake and the wonderfully icky The Nest. Why did they have to fumble with killer crabs? Possibly taking the inspiration from Guy N. Smith’s wonderfully scuzzy series that started with Night of the Crabs and giving him no credit whatsoever, a biological experiment involving the lingering threat of world food shortages leads to some bad business. Dr. McNeil (Barry Nelson) is developing a method to accelerate the growth cycle in marine life at his island lab and the crabs are taking to it better than any other species. Since it’s the Florida coast, you better believe a nearby nuclear spill (which is, naturally, being covered up) has done something to the surrounding waters. Now the size is hitting a dangerously rapid speed and running parallel with a violent aggressiveness in the crab population. A wonderful climax involving the giant monster finally attacking the small coastal town necessitates sitting through an opening stretch that feels like a particularly boring tele-drama which had access to a far-from-sober Robert Lansing and a bunch of crabs. Instead of giant crab attacks the film features townsfolk bickering, the lovely Nita Talbot as a local bartender, a romance subplot between a lab assistant and a pretty photojournalist (her dad is a big shit at the power plant and has a history with local tavern owner Moody) that takes up more time than necessary, plenty of normal crab footage, a small town atmosphere that actually made me hate small towns (thanks, Florida), an empty subplot involving Haitian refugees getting blamed for local issues (just like the real Florida!) and Robert Lansing delivering an Irish accent that sounds like no dialect I’ve heard… maybe East Ireland by way of Albanian with a broken jaw? Local color is shit-stain brown and ten minutes in you’ll be saying to yourself “God, crabs need to eat everybody asap.” Although it is Florida so I’d be saying that anyways. Every character is either a blurry and forgettable haze of caucasian or a memorable and racist form of caucasian unless you’re among the (ahem) celebrities I already mentioned. There is a lovable dog that doesn’t make it and you at least feel some sympathy for the Haitians because they had the misfortune of ending up in Florida. Someday having problem crabs will be a grand old time ya just can’t wait to share with friends and family, today is not that day.
I’m in love with the idea of monstrous crabs. Crabs are one of the creepiest and coolest lookin’ creatures on earth, so I can easily buy into the terror of a gigantic crustacean snapping people in half with its colossal claws. Hell, crabs are so damn alien in appearance I would be perfectly happy with a barrage of regular-ass crabs swarming dopes or those majestic and horrifying coconut crabs taking out Floridians. Fuck me, these things are otherworldly. You take that very fifties vibe and throw it into the excess of the eighties horror genre and I’m practically doing a jig on my living room table as my wife finishes packing her bags and finally leaves my idiot ass. So why does an eighties movie about killer crabs make me fall asleep? We know the eighties could do fifties monster movies correctly. Look at the gross The Blob remake and the wonderfully icky The Nest. Why did they have to fumble with killer crabs? Possibly taking the inspiration from Guy N. Smith’s wonderfully scuzzy series that started with Night of the Crabs and giving him no credit whatsoever, a biological experiment involving the lingering threat of world food shortages leads to some bad business. Dr. McNeil (Barry Nelson) is developing a method to accelerate the growth cycle in marine life at his island lab and the crabs are taking to it better than any other species. Since it’s the Florida coast, you better believe a nearby nuclear spill (which is, naturally, being covered up) has done something to the surrounding waters. Now the size is hitting a dangerously rapid speed and running parallel with a violent aggressiveness in the crab population. A wonderful climax involving the giant monster finally attacking the small coastal town necessitates sitting through an opening stretch that feels like a particularly boring tele-drama which had access to a far-from-sober Robert Lansing and a bunch of crabs. Instead of giant crab attacks the film features townsfolk bickering, the lovely Nita Talbot as a local bartender, a romance subplot between a lab assistant and a pretty photojournalist (her dad is a big shit at the power plant and has a history with local tavern owner Moody) that takes up more time than necessary, plenty of normal crab footage, a small town atmosphere that actually made me hate small towns (thanks, Florida), an empty subplot involving Haitian refugees getting blamed for local issues (just like the real Florida!) and Robert Lansing delivering an Irish accent that sounds like no dialect I’ve heard… maybe East Ireland by way of Albanian with a broken jaw? Local color is shit-stain brown and ten minutes in you’ll be saying to yourself “God, crabs need to eat everybody asap.” Although it is Florida so I’d be saying that anyways. Every character is either a blurry and forgettable haze of caucasian or a memorable and racist form of caucasian unless you’re among the (ahem) celebrities I already mentioned. There is a lovable dog that doesn’t make it and you at least feel some sympathy for the Haitians because they had the misfortune of ending up in Florida. Someday having problem crabs will be a grand old time ya just can’t wait to share with friends and family, today is not that day.
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