Attack of the Crab Monsters: The Roger Corman Collection

1957 was pretty prolific year for Roger Corman as he made not just one movie, but three films, the most he made in any one year. He did this not once, but three times, directing three movies in 1957, 1961 and '64 and his output as a director, never mind as a producer between 1955 and 1964 was incredible. Having already made Not of This Earth, Corman decided to make a movie with underwater scenes so, with writer Charles B. Griffith, devised another sci-fi/horror film set in a more exotic location: a small Pacific island.

When news reaches the scientific community that a group of researchers who went into the Pacific to do some experiments in order to determine the effects of nuclear experimentation have failed to return, several of their colleagues decide to go to the island where their friends had travelled to try and find them and do their own research.

It is clear straight away that something is very weird when one of the seamen taking them and their luggage from the seaplane to the island falls off the inflatable dingy and is pulled from the water with his head completely missing. They don't know what did this (and don't put in too much effort to find out, something completely understandable as they were left stranded when their plane exploded) but plough on and set up base even though there is no radio communication and the island is frequently hit by massive earthquakes. One of these opens a huge crater and it seems that one of the scientists is buried down at the bottom.

Oddly, his colleagues can still hear him, almost as if he is reaching them telepathically, and they venture out, one by one, into the night to find him. It's only a matter of time before someone else goes missing and they find that the small crustaceans they saw on the beach have much larger relatives inland.

Such as exploitative title promises fairly exploitative material: in this case giant crabs so the script is cleverly written so that the earthquake that left a hole in the middle of the island also crushed most of the crabs, leaving only one. What everyone wants to see, then, is one of the enormous titular crustaceans and Corman delivers with, what is now a rather unconvincing and laughable crab that is quite obviously papier mache as you can see the eyelids crinkle when they open very, very slowly and the crab doesn't really mean very much but, thanks to the skilled direction and editing, the shots don't linger to maximise effect.

I like these cheap and cheerful sci-fi B-movies so have absolutely no problem with a giant crab looking quite clearly fake as, although the title is all about the crab, the film is more about the group of scientists and how they deal with being stranded on a desert island with something very weird happening. This works both as a cheesy monster movie and as a character study, despite a rather bizarre French accent from one of the actors.

The Disc

The Picture
It's clear from the get go that this isn't derived from the best film stock as there is significant wobble and the picture is a little grainy. However, the contrast levels are very good and the detail level is fairly high so there is little in the way of bleeding or general fuzziness. These are the sort of films that require a pristine picture so little bit of detritus is neither here nor there and, as such, I have absolutely no problem with the image quality.

The Sound
Just as with the visuals, the sound doesn't need to be impressive as it is pretty much a dialogue dominated film with only a few scenes jolting the centre speaker out of its slumber with some crab screeching, people screaming or a few grenades being let off. When you do get these effects, they don't interfere with the clarity of the dialogue so that it run smoothly, just as you want to.


Final Thoughts
As sci-fi B-movies go, Attack of the Crab Monsters is perfectly decent fare with a fairly hokey looking monster, characters that are reasonably interesting and you only get a little bit if they survive or get caught in the giant pincers. Although the disc is utterly devoid of extras, without even so much as a menu, the film is pretty good and it's great to see released on DVD.