Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957)

How sad is this?

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Without a doubt one of the corniest, most illogical and unintentionally funniest of the 1950s "attack monster" movies. Some familiar faces claw their way across a remote island, playing a shell game against creatures who move slower than a glacier, but somehow manage to keep catching their prey. I guess the crabs can eat their cake AND have it too.Those intrepid scientists have great difficulty doing in those denizens of the deep, and were apparently unaware that the island rests on a major fault line, causing it to be shaken into the sea.But if you think there is nothing that can surprise you in this little gem, we haven't even mentioned the absorbed brains and talking inanimate objects!

As many reviewers have mentioned, Roger Corman was the king of "b" movies in the 50's and 60's. I've seen a fair amount of them, some of them good, some of them not so good. He continues to be involved in movie making to this day.One of the recurrent themes in a lot of horror/sci fi movies during this period was mutations due to radiation (spiders, ants, praying mantis, grasshoppers, leeches, you name it). This one features crabs with a great twist - once they kill you, they take on your personality and intelligence - they can even "speak" through metal, leading some characters in the film to their demise. However, creatively speaking, all of the usual elements are there - the military, caves where the creatures dwell, guns that don't work (and they continue to try to shoot, as expected), science speak, etc. which shows that the writer, Charles Giffith, did follow the expected formula and didn't take any chances other than with the story line. That exception, however, is what makes this movie great. The acting, overall, is passable but sometimes a little bland, especially the female. However, for a low budget flick, the acting is much better than in a lot of other movies of this type I've seen. If you are a fan of 50's-60's "b" movies, this one is a must see. If this was a "b" movie site, I would absolutely rate this one a 10. Be aware that this movie was done in 1957 and the special effects are as cheesy as would be expected for something low budget. If you can get past that, it should be worth your while.

Yes you read it correctly, we are really plumbing the B-movie depths here with this little beauty. Attack of the crab monsters huh, just when you thought they had used every known bug and fishy-type thing possible, they throw this at you, what's next...lobsters, ahem! Yes its yet another 1957 flick, the year of the giant creature feature, and yet again the movies poster is completely bullshit, at no point does a female get grabbed by a giant crab like that. You notice every one of these giant creature B-movies has an almost identical poster layout.Believe it or not this movie is actually a Roger Corman offering. Maybe not so surprising seeing as this Hollywood legend has seemingly been around forever, making movies in all genres and having worked with everyone. In all honesty I was a bit surprised as I didn't realise Corman went back this far into the 50's giant bug phenomenon.Plot wise its a bit different than the usual fair, not as straight forward as you might expect. OK...first off the basic premise is what you would expect, a team of scientists are sent to a remote Pacific island to look for the last team that went missing. At the same time they are also following on with the research into the effect of radiation in the area after nuclear bomb testing (of course). Naturally some giant mutated crabs ate the last team (shocking), and are a result of the bomb testing (you don't say). The interesting and bizarre twist comes in the fact that these crabs absorb the minds of their victims and are able to telepathically communicate with other living humans. When this happens the telepathic messages from the crabs are in the voices of the dead victims that have been eaten. So not only is this a giant creature feature, its also a weird kind of spiritual ghost story of sorts, well that's the way it comes across at times.Now its clear to see this movie was made on a small budget, the fact its a Corman movie means you can bet your bottom Dollar it was probably made for a pittance. What gives this notion away? well for a start there is nothing to look at, no fancy sets, no lovely locations, no swish props or costumes etc...nothing. It was clearly shot on the coast in America somewhere and inside a small hut for the most part, probably a basic set was used. The giant crabs in question also look pretty terrible it must be said. Yes they do have some decent scale to them, they are large mechanical puppets that do look like crabs and the actors are able to interact with them. The problem being they obviously don't move too well, they tend to just sit in one place and move the odd limb around in jerky motions. The other problem being they have two large humanoid eyes, why would you do this?? it looks ridiculous. This has happened in other giant bug movies before, giving the creature humanoid eyes which in turn gives the creature a face, emotions, something you don't wanna see on a large killing machine. What's more these eyes look dreadful! big pupils, big eyelids and they almost look like they have eyelashes, they make the creature look like a giant child's toy. Seriously what were they thinking?!Speaking of eyes, the lead female character (played by Pamela Duncan) sports some incredibly obvious and large fake eyebrows. Seriously these things look like they've been painted on with a thick brush and look totally out of proportion, its quite absurd really. As for the cast and their acting skills, well, there's not much to say really. We've seen this type of acting in all these big bug B-movies, its a very formulaic type of performance which doesn't really tend to change much. The characters are all the same too, the handsome lead, the older scientist, the attractive female and a few other blokes that are essentially monster fodder. The only difference here is the inclusion of a French character, it doesn't add anything really, other than a different accent to listen to.In general, I didn't like this movie, the plot is just weird with all the telepathic nonsense going on. Other plot explanations just don't make any sense either, like how on earth these crabs manage to create earthquakes on the island, and why, but mainly how. Apparently the crabs want to reach the mainland so they can eat more humans and absorb their minds, no clue why they would wanna do this, or how this benefits them, but there you go. It feels more like an alien invasion sci-fi flick with all this talk of absorbing human minds, mind you (no pun intended), the film is atmospheric at times I'll give it that. There were moments when it did feel a bit creepy, especially with the haunting telepathic messages and the clicking noise the crabs make. There was also the odd bit of gore too, a decapitation and the loss of a hand, don't get too over excited though.4/10

How a film called Attack of the Crab Monsters could ever not be celebrated amongst the cinematic greats is beyond all sense and reason. The title alone is so evocative and exciting that it would hardly be more noteworthy if every word were followed by an exclamation point. What's more, this glorious title does not even mislead its audience – no false advertising with this titan of excitement, this goliath of grotesquery. Make no mistake, the crab monsters do attack… and then some! Director Roger Corman, immortalized in film history as the man pivotal in kickstarting the careers of Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper and Robert De Niro, as well as the creative force behind recent masterpiece Sharktopus, here delivers his opus, his most decadent gift to the industry and viewers alike. Who could forget those blaring opening title cards? "You are about to land in a lonely zone of terror! You are part of the second scientific expedition dispatched to this mysterious bit of coral reef and volcanic rock. The first group has disappeared without a trace! Your job is to find out why!" The very assembly of words is more shocking and chilling than a jellyfish popping up in the midst of one's swim trunks. Indeed, the film becomes all the more horrifying through the weight and responsibility it bestows upon the viewer. Who would dare to fail to find out where and how the first group disappeared?! No idle watching here! And then. Tension, so thick, it feels ready to crack like an overcooked crustacean leg, as the smouldering scientists sear the screen, steadily speculating that the seemingly idyllic island is not as tranquil as it seems. What are those mysterious noises at night? Why does the voice of the French (?) professor continue to be faintly heard by the intrepid heroes, nights after his tragic and mysterious disappearance? Is he a ghost? Or have they merely descended into the bowels of… madness? The twist, of course, is as elementary as it is cunning: the professor has been absorbed into the psychic hive mind of the giant, radioactive land crabs, which also absorbed the essence of the former expedition crew! Whether this classic scene has been watched once or a thousand times, it never loses its raw poignancy, its emotion, its numbing fatality – an effect none of its countless imitators and parodies through the ages can do justice to. Indeed, as the intrigue continues, the crabs craft an increasingly persuasive argument to the benefits of being part of their psychic hive mind. No more feeble physicality, only a mass of mercury! No more moral quandaries, only some mighty impressive claws! Who could argue for tiresome autonomy and humanity, when faced with the prospect of having claws like that? Even the absurdist fretting of Ionesco pales in comparison to the existential torment embodied by Corman's masterpiece. As such, the film's genius lies not in its cutting edge special effects (groundbreaking even today), but in the psychological fearlessness of its narrative. Why be human, when you could be a crab? Such a message lingers long after the film's (surely purposefully) jarring ending, haunting one's thoughts, like the murmurs of oh so many psychic crabs. Like the man whose hand is pointlessly severed by a falling rock, all we can do is gape in stunned horror that Corman's treatise on the human (and crustacean) condition has yet to attain its rightful recognition. -5/10