Attack of the
crab monsters

		Review by E.C. McMullen Jr.
ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS - 1957 USA Release: Feb. 10, 1957 Allied Artists Pictures, Los Altos Productions, Associated British Pathe Rating: N/A

"And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them."
- KJV, Genesis, 6:7

I can't imagine how many people in 1957, sitting in the dark of the theater, saw these words on the screen read to them by an intensely dour, echo-y voice, and found themselves dumbfounded by the sheer pretension.

Everyone in the audience knew that they were about to watch a movie called ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS, so that bit of deadly serious, Sunday Morning bromide had to make the needle skip into unintended laughter.

Don't misunderstand me, in this Bible passage about Noah, god found favor with sea varmints, apparently, as he only sent 40 days and nights of rain to destroy every creature of the land and fowl of the air.

For god so loved the Water varmints he gave them rule over the earth - for over a month.

The point is, to underline this passage, god sent rain not Crabs.

In fact, there's no account of god sending any type of shell creature to do his dirty work at all. Not so much as a periwinkle.

This nonsensical bit of hubris is actually one of the reasons I enjoy this movie so much.

Yes, in just the first 30 seconds Producer and Director Roger Corman, working off a screenplay by Charles B. Griffith, has us securely seated in the So Bad It's Good ride.

Hold on tight!

An inflatable boat full of people show up on an island. No sooner do they hit the beach than Doctor Jude Deveroux (Mel Wells: CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT [TV], ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE MUMMY, THE UNDEAD [1957], THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS [1960], SHE BEAST, SPECTREMAN [TV], DR. HECKYL AND MR. HYPE, WOLFEN, CHOPPING MALL, INVASION EARTH: THE ALIENS ARE HERE, RAISING DEAD) begins spouting dollops of exposition.

Not to be outdone, the Captain of the inflatable craft, Lt. Quinlan (Ed Nelson: INVASION OF THE SAUCER-MEN, THE BRAIN EATERS, TEENAGE CAVE MAN [1958], NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST, A BUCKET OF BLOOD, THE DEVIL'S PARTNER, THE SCREAMING WOMAN, THE BONEYARD), in flippant retort, fires right back, filling in all of the unnecessary details.

This is the second science expedition to this island. The first one was utterly wiped out and no one knows what happened to them.

All this talk upsets the only woman at this sausage party, Doctor Martha Hunter (Pamela Duncan: THE UNDEAD [1957]), as she had friends from the institute among the first party. Her grief inspires Dr. Deveroux to openly mock the dead as a joke, as he calls out to them by name. One of many Deveroux jokes that fall flat among his compadres and doesn't endear him to the audience.

As the group of eggheads head toward the house to set up their equipment, Lt. Quinlan goes to meet the second boat carrying the rest of the gear.

Only a few feet from shore, one of the sailors onboard, Seaman Tate (Charles B. Griffiths: IT CONQUERED THE WORLD, THE UNDEAD, A BUCKET OF BLOOD, BEAST FROM HAUNTED CAVE, THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA, DEATH RACE 2000, DR. HECKYL AND MR. HYPE), starts goofing around for the lulz and falls overboard. You can see the sandy beach lead into the water, it can't be more than knee deep, yet Tate falls into a preposterously deep area and awakens a giant crab with mammalian eyes and eyelids. Merry Mishaps occur.

In the next scene Seaman Ron Fellows (Beech Dickerson: WAR OF THE SATELLITES, TEENAGE CAVEMAN, CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA, THE DUNWICH HORROR [1970], SCHOOL SPIRIT, DEADLY DREAMS, FUTURE KICK) complains about being left alone with Tate's corpse while the body goes into rigor mortis. His fellow sailor, Jack Sommers (Tony Miller: WAR OF THE SATELLITES) mocks him for being nervous. These guys become the comedy relief.

Hey, since we're only 4 minutes into the movie,

LET'S REVIEW!

1. This party of folks have knowingly gone to an island of death where their colleagues and friends vanished without a trace. One of them makes jokes about their deaths to nobody's amusement.

2. They just witnessed one of their shipmates mysteriously die by beheading only moments before (they couldn't see the giant crab from their vantage point), yet the body hasn't so much as entered rigor mortis and already his ship buddies are chuckling over it ("Boy that wacky Tate, I tells ya! What'll he do next?"), as if whatever did it can't do the same to them.

The script is by Charles B. Griffith, the same guy who plays first victim Tate, Plus directed the Underwater scenes, Plus is Associate Producer.

But this is an early Roger Corman flick so I'm guessing Chuck was paid peanuts for all of his work. After all this $70,000 movie, just over an hour long, and with a budget calculated for inflation, would still be considered micro-budget by SAG and WGA over 65 years later in 2022.

Meanwhile back at the house,

...the boffins are treating the beheaded sailor with significantly more gravitas as well as personal trepidation. This second jaunt hasn't got off to a good start - not that the first one was any better.

The forbidding feeling is exacerbated by the fact that the island is so unnaturally silent. There's no sounds of animal life, well, except for the seabirds down by the beach and all of these little clicking crabs coming ashore.

Soon everyone hears explosions (well, you got your sound! Happy now?) and this is followed by cave-ins. The researchers will soon discover that the island is riddled by caves and they are all collapsing into the ocean. But first, all say goodbye to Lt. Quinlan who has to return to his ship in his seaplane. He promises to return by the end of the month.

Merry mishaps occur.

Well at least we know why scientists are going to this island for research. According to the Professor aka Engineer Technician Hank Chapman (Russell Johnson: IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE, THIS ISLAND EARTH, THE HORROR AT 37,000 FEET, THE GHOST OF FLIGHT 401, HELLBENDER [VG]), it all has to do with those H-bomb tests.

In addition to being an all-around handy guy to have on this team (he can fix nearly everything), Hank also provides a brief romantic tug on the heart of Dr. Hunter, who is there with her fellow scientist and fiance, the handsome Doctor Dale Brewer (Richard Garland: THE UNDEAD [1957], PANIC IN THE YEAR ZERO!), who is a decent enough chap with his square jaw and cleft chin, but not all that capable in a pinch when compared to Hank.

In fact, the most capable people on the island are Dr. Hunter, Hank, and the lead scientist, Doctor Karl Weigand (Leslie Bradley: MAN IN THE ATTIC, TEENAGE CAVEMAN). Such intelligence has a somewhat negative effect on the survivors when the giant mutant crabs eat the scientist's brains and gain their knowledge.

I don't want to spoil the movie for you, just food for thought.

And while we're chewing that over, howzabout a ...

!!!SCIENCE MOMENT!!!:
Most non-science folks don't know that one of the most intelligent, scientific things you can say when faced with the unknown, is that you don't know.

It's okay not to know.

It's never okay to boast that you have the answer when you don't, and that answer is "TA-DAH! Supernatural!"

That's what arrogant, dishonest people say. In fact, pretending you know something you don't is the apex of being both arrogant and dishonest. It's rare that arrogance and honesty go hand in hand.

In science, when you don't know something, the best thing to say is, "I don't know!" followed by, "So let's see if we can find out!"

In this world it's curiosity, not arrogance, that holds hands with intelligence. Intelligence always wants to learn. It isn't happy with thinking it has all the answers.

That "IF" in the second quote is there as a caveat because you can be a brilliant researcher who dedicates your whole adult life to researching a problem and die without ever solving it (and thousands of scientists have).

But all that said?

Holy crap did screenwriter Charles B. Griffith ever push that to the limits. I grant you that there's a whole lot of absurdity going on with this island, and blaming radiation is so far fetched that all of the researchers, when they aren't delving into mounds of exposition, are throwing up their hands saying to the effect, "I can't begin to figure out how such a thing is possible!"

And they do this so often in such a short amount of time that it nearly becomes a "More befuddled than thou!" competition among them.

- Yet -

Since this is the route Griffith took, and since nearly everything happening on this island leans into the impossible while keeping its feet firmly planted on the merely improbable, I have to grudgingly give this Science Moment an Excelsior, even if by the thinnest of membranes.

Also -

Kudos for having the technician, Hank, be a genuine engineer.

In one scene, when the physicist is describing the astoundingly impossible* behavior of the atoms in a mutant crab, Hank basically says, "That's crazy all right! Because atoms can't possibly do that unless their electrons are doing this: which would blow the doors off of more than a few concepts we have about how electrons work. Now since we're in a tight spot, and the electrons of these atoms are, doing this extraordinary thing, then we should be able to interrupt them by doing the other."

Hank accepts the impossible observation, because they are witnessing it in action. He then continues to operate under the assumption (unless proven wrong), that this is an isolated incident existing within the physical laws of everything else we believe we understand. So his unusual solution - which wouldn't work in ordinary circumstances - might work in this isolated case.

He doesn't surrender, throw up his hands and say, "F* it! It's MAGIC!"

When malicious simpletons fly jets into skyscrapers, someone like Hank would recognize a likely act of terrorism. He wouldn't turn his hands toward the ceiling and declare, "God's punishment!"

Hank applies his knowledge and experience to this particle of the unknown currently existing within the known.

He does this, having no idea what it will do or if it will be a benefit, but for Hank its the most reasonable action in an unreasonable situation.

Which is why Hank is the most capable among everyone else who is too flummoxed to think straight.

In 1957, Roger Corman (MONSTER FROM THE OCEAN FLOOR, DAY THE WORLD ENDED, IT CONQUERED THE WORLD, THE UNDEAD, WAR OF THE SATELLITES, THE BRAIN EATERS, BATTLE BEYOND THE SUN, TEENAGE CAVE MAN, NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST, THE WASP WOMAN, A BUCKET OF BLOOD, BEAST FROM HAUNTED CAVE, CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA, THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM, THE PREMATURE BURIAL, TALES OF TERROR, THE RAVEN, HOUSE OF USHER, THE TERROR, X: THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES, DEMENTIA 13, THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH, THE TOMB OF LIGEIA, THE DUNWICH HORROR, THE EVIL, PIRANHA, HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP, GALAXY OF TERROR, DEATH RACE 2000, SPACE RAIDERS, THE TERROR WITHIN, THE UNBORN) was beginning to realize that he may not have it in him to write and direct. He found that his writing and direction turned solid reputable actors into mediocre ones. His true talent was as a movie Producer - someone who discovered talent - and here is where he excelled (now with 515 movies in his catalog).

Because of that, Roger was a major influence on what we think of 1950s Horror and Science Fiction, as well as 1960s and 1970s Horror and Science Fiction. Roger also left himself uncredited on a huge number of movies he produced, but wasn't proud of, so his influence is found on 1970s Black Exploitation and soft porn T&A movies as well.

Roger's various studios over the years have launched the careers of Francis Ford Copolla (APOCALYPSE NOW, BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA, MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN, THE VIRGIN SUICIDES, SLEEPY HOLLOW, JEEPERS CREEPERS), Joe Dante (THE HOWLING, GREMLINS), Jack Nicholson (THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, THE RAVEN, THE TERROR, TOMMY, THE SHINING, BATMAN, WOLF, MARS ATTACKS!) and of course, James Cameron (THE TERMINATOR, ALIENS, THE ABYSS, AVATAR).

On his own, however, Roger's writing and direction at best, only elevated him to the level of the King of the Bs and ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS is a good reason why.

The concept is great. There is a scary, suspenseful movie here full of sinister and creepy moments that are all butchered by the heavy dependence on exposition (about half the movie) and poor character development largely brought about by too little character time and too much poor dialogue: A flaw seen in every movie written and directed by Roger. Yet it's that initial great concept that keeps his movies from being ignored.

They're bad, yes, but so Bad They're Good!

4 Negative Shriek Girls.

This review copyright 2022 E.C.McMullen Jr.

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