A
Three Mile Island-style accident causes gallons of contaminated water to spill
into the ocean. That just so happens to
be the spot where a bunch of crabs do their nesting. Barry Nelson (the same year as The Shining!)
is the scientist who’s working on a way to grow the world’s food supply
exponentially. Meanwhile, crabs start
attacking the locals and before long, they are menaced by a giant killer crab
the size of a Volkswagen.
So,
wait. Was it Nelson’s super food that turned
the crab big or was it the nuclear accident?
Or was it a combination of the two?
Heck, I just watched the movie and I can’t even remember.
Most
times though, it’s just a bunch of little crabs running around. Now, I’m from Maryland so we have blue crabs
here that are way bigger and more threatening than these little guys, so the
whole thing was kind of ridiculous to me. Once the giant crab shows up, it’s good for a
laugh, but first (and only) time director Hernan Cardenas manages to screw the
pooch during the climax. I will say he does
offer up one or two effective shots when the monster is backlit. In these moments, it looks marginally
menacing. When they shine a light on it,
the thing looks fucking stupid. Luckily,
they go back to bathing the movie in total darkness soon after so you can’t see
the damned thing for the bulk of its screen time. If you think the monster scenes are handled
clumsily wait till you see the scenes of racial tension among the islanders and
the Haitian community. In fact, many of the nighttime scenes are so
dark it’s near impossible to make anything out. That might’ve been for the best now that I
think about it.
In
the right hands, this could’ve been a fun, if cheesy, Animals Gone Wild movie. It even uses the durable Jaws 2 cliché of a
victim wildly trying to kill the attacking animal, only to wind up blowing
themselves up in the process.
Unfortunately, like most crabcakes, there’s just too much filler here
for its own good.
Ricou
Browning who famously played the underwater Gill Man in Creature from the Black
Lagoon, co-wrote the script.
AKA: Night of the Claw.
I thought this film was fun enough though the pacing could've used some tightening up, I live in rural Illinois so the only live crabs i've ever seen are the ones in tanks in seafood restaurants so they came off pretty threatening to me.
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