31 Days of Cheese Day 14 - Attack of the Crab Monsters

Roger Corman

Well you knew his name was going to show up eventually. His fingerprints are all over B-movies for the last 50 years (including last year’s made for TV epic Sharktopus).

He pretty much had b-movie making down to an assembly line. He knew that if he made a film that cost X of a certain type he would make money. If he spent more he wouldn’t. Simple as that.

In some ways his greatest ability was to tell young talented and hungry actors directors and such that “I can’t pay you anything but you’ll get to make a movie.” A deal that they would jump at. Hell I’m middle aged and untalented and I’d jump at it that deal if he green lit Bikini Zombies but that’s for another time.

In addition to producing, he also directed some 50 films himself per the IMDB; sometimes I think he did it to save money.

By common consent Attack the Crab Monsters is one his better directing jobs. Now just to ground everybody, we’re not talking Hitchcock, Casablanca or Seven Samurai level good here. The truth be told, Corman’s not a very good director. His films tend to plod along, with shots that go on a bit too long, plot elements that get discarded later because of script changes but the film was already in the can and we can’t waste that and really cheap effects.

All of which comes into play here. We follow the adventures of team of researchers who land on a tropical island to find out what happened to the first team of researchers who seem to have vanished into thin air. (Hint, if the film has Crab Monsters in the title you should be able to guess what happened – they were eaten). Soon they find out what happened, and soon members of their party get eaten as well. Also the Crab Monsters, using a variety of skills, special powers, dynamite and stock footage are sinking parts of the island the better to stalk the survivors.

The Crab Monsters are of course mutants spawned by radiation. It’s the fifties what else was going to happen?

An interesting bit is that as the crabs eat the folks they absorb their memoires and such and thus the crabs can talk to the people using the voices of the folks they just ate. It’s an interesting idea but because the film is so short (63 minutes) and we have to get on to the next crab attack, it isn’t as well developed (are these the actual people in disembodied form or are the crab monsters just using these voices like a mask, you never learn). There is also a bit of a love triangle between an engaged scientist couple and the guy who played the professor on Gillian’s island but again because the film is in such a rush to get to the crab’s next meal it’s kind of just dropped.

And the crabs are nothing special. They are just there, pushed around by unseen stage hands – and even for crabs they are stiff and immobile.

All and all a standard B monster movie from the 50’s with some interesting ideas but they don’t give them time to develop.

Enjoy with canned lump crabmeat.