User Reviews

Two giant crab monsters, grown from poisonous radiation thanks to the H bomb(good ole reliable radiation sure provided many a screenplay with the perfect excuse to enlarge regular animal and fish life into killing monsters), terrorize a Navy science research team sent to an island to investigate the disappearance of another science team who stopped communication with their base. It seems that the crab monsters are equipped with the ability to absorb the knowledge of the heads they eat from their various victims since the brains essentially carry electrical impulses. The team will race against time to find out a way to try and outlast the two monsters hoping to study them while staying alive as the island is being capsized, by detonated dynamite, around them. The crabs can telepathically communicate through metal(!)to the crew through the voices of those they behead and eat. This telepathy, at first, is used to lure victims to them, and then as a device to threaten. It seems that bullet-fire and grenades do little to stop the giant crabs, but attacking their brains(where their ultimate power stems from)or the use of positive electrical energy are the perhaps the crew's only defense against them.

Charles B Griffith's screenplay uses science to explain the shenanigans of the crabs and their preposterous powers thanks to radiation, but this flick is ultimately for fans of creature features. The monstrous crabs are, at the very least, more effective than that hilarious patch-worked beast in Corman's other sea-creature flick, "Creature from the Haunted Sea." Russell Johnson, the Professor of "Gilligan's Island" fame has the part of handyman Hank Chapman.

(some SPOILERS)

The second expedition to an isolated island begins to meet the same deadly fate as the first -- not only do their shipmates and fellow scientists keep disappearing (and appearing, headless), but the island they are stranded on is sinking into the sea. The cause of it all is the title crab monsters -- huge telepathic creatures of the deep!

A memorable cast including Russell Johnson ("the professor" of TV's "Gilligan's Island") and Mel Welles as a frenchman.

Within the space of its 60 or so minute running time, it manages to introduce a love melodrama (the "star" trio) and some nice monster/human confrontations. The fact that the crabs speak to the surviving humans with the voices and personalities of their dead friends is creepy and amusing (Mel Welles makes a great crab monster).

A memorable cheapie from Corman and Griffith, in which he broadens the scope of the gruesome comedy that is his trademark.

As a friend of mine pointed out, if someone gives Corman $60K to make a film, he'll manage to make it look like it had a budget of a million. Alas, if he gets a million to make a movie...it'll still look as if it had a budget of a million. Of course, this also means that Corman movies have a certain look and rough charm that lets the viewer identify anything he's done within a minute of starting to watch it, even if they start in the middle.

AOTCM...well, it has its charms. As with all Corman films, there's a germ of an intriguing idea driving the screenplay, and there's mystery, intrigue,suspense,claustrophobia, and some hard working actors trying to sell the ludicrous dialog. They actually manage to get through some typically over-packed expository stuff in the beginning without bogging things down, and the screenplay cleverly lets us get to see the characters for a few minutes before introducing them by name. So "Attack" actually starts out pretty well.

Alas, about 15-20 minutes in (I count it as the spot where the geologist decides to shimmy down into a newly created pit), the brains of the movie sort of leak out its nose and ears and things get turgid and pretty silly after that. Major plot holes start developing and are never plugged up, there's a couple of plot twists that don't really lead anywhere, at least two of the characters seem suicidally dumb, and the movie just stops dead at the end as if it were a Roadrunner cartoon.

Still, I liked it for what it was and had a pretty good time. I was pleased to see Russell Johnson in the mix (his character actually has a wistful moment with the heroine which comes off pretty well), and the idea of telepathic crabs luring their victims to their doom with the voices of the crabs' previous victims has a certain zing to it.

Strictly sci fi movie fodder, like most of Corman's output, but if you like his style, you'll like this.

A group of sailors and scientists, as well as the obligatory babe, all arrive on a tiny island to determine what happened to a lost team that had been on the island researching the effects of radiation (what else for a 50s horror film?). Soon, bad things happen and since the film refers to crab monsters, it's not especially surprising that the crabs are killing the group one by one. However, what is unusual is all the scientific mumbo jumbo as well as the way that the crabs actually talk and taunt the survivors!! You just have to see it to believe it.

This is a bad movie but I suspect that because the king of the 50s and 60s B-horror films, Roger Corman, was responsible for it that it isn't more famous for being a bad movie. Again and again, despite lousy budgets, Corman was able to make some awfully entertaining horror pics. However, try as I might, I was bored by this one--apparently the Corman magic touch can only do so much with material THIS bad! However, it never quite reaches the Ed Wood, Jr. level of bad and it is occasionally almost entertaining. Plus, because the movie is so bad, I suggest you don't ignore this film but look at this as a great party movie--you know, one you watch with friends so you can make fun of it because of its ineptitude and silly "scary" monsters.

By the way, even though it was several years before he became a regular on "Gilligan's Island", Russell Johnson ("the Professor") is playing pretty much the role he played on the show. This movie and THIS ISLAND EARTH show that before Gilligan, Johnson was already used to playing the brilliant nerd scientist who could use nothing much more than coconuts, some wire and bird droppings to build a radio!

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

"Their bodies may be gone, but how about their souls?" So starts off this epic Z-grade movie that where a movie starts off with so much philosophy, there seems nowhere to go but down. "I hope that man's death is not an omen of things to come", the same character says when a corpse without a head is pulled out of the Pacific abyss. "What could be down there other than earth, water, and a few land crabs?" Well, when that hungry huge crustacean is ten times your size, not something you want to run into! (Well, maybe if you have a huge pot of boiling water and some butter and lemon...) The creatures themselves look a lot more realistic than paper, plastic or puddy created critters, so there is that to give it some credit for, although they way they move is extremely silly looking. Unfortunately, they get very little screen time, so that is a major flaw in this Z-grade thriller. And the fact that the monsters can speak in the voices of those who were lost at sea makes this all the sillier. (One of them sounds like Maurice Chevalier....makes me hungry for French food!) I just wonder if Tim Burton got his idea for talking martians from this. ("Don't run, we are your friend!")

"Well, all I can say is, why wasn't I invited to the party?", a silly foreign supporting character asks, adding "Not funny, eh?" His one line of dialog could describe the entire script with everything pretty much forced to. "Once upon a time there was a mountain. There was a mountain outside yesterday. Now there's no mountain", the heroine (Pamela Duncan) notices. Well, I guess there ain't no mountain high enough to keep these crab monsters from getting through. Richard Garland, once married to scream queen Beverly Garland, is the hero here, and I'm surprised that his ex-wife wasn't offered the opportunity to star in this with him. Her presence might have raised this up a notch, because nobody dealt with outlandish creatures better than her. So if you're in the mood for Confucious like philosophizing in a truly tacky manner, then this deliciously bad science fiction piece of cheese is for you!

It is clear from the other reviews on this site that Attack of the Crab Monsters has a good reputation amongst 'B' movie fans. I can see why.

Like other Corman quickies, it has more good ideas in it than any three other movies of its type. Probably, it has too many: giant mutated crabs with a mysterious molecular structure; group minds; quasi-telepathy and a slowly disappearing island is a lot of material to cram into 70 minutes. Nonetheless, this makes for a lively roller coaster ride that belies the movie's tiny budget. Actually, it is better produced than other Corman movies of the era. The full-scale crab prop has its flaws (the legs have no independent motion - and those eyes!) but it is surprisingly effective when shown in five second bursts. It also means that the picture actually delivers what the title promises. This, in itself, puts it above many other Fifties' creature features.

I could expand on this movie's merits, but I would only be repeating what other people have already said. More to the point, it would also mean that I was falsifying my own reaction when I recently saw it again for the first time in many years.

Rather than being delighted that it was unexpectedly good, I was disappointed that it was unexpectedly bad.

The movie has no rhythm. The story jerks along in fits and starts. Information is given in the wrong place and sometimes has to be repeated. It has a weak dramatic structure. There is no steady unveiling of a mystery and no build up of tension. Many of the scenes seem to have been jammed together almost at random.

Much of the staging is poor and shots often fail to give the information they are intended to give. For example, when one of the characters enters a room that has been trashed by a crab monster, it is only evident this has happened at the very end of the scene, when the camera pulls back to reveal that the outside wall has been demolished.

These faults are nothing to do with the tiny budget. They are all due to the lack of care taken in the drafting, shooting and editing of the movie.

Roger Corman was not the typical deluded wannabee or cynical huckster that usually lurks behind these 'Z' grade movies. He was an intelligent, talented man who surrounded himself with other intelligent, talented people. He had a lot going for him. But he also had a flaw in his make-up that is too often overlooked: no matter how little money or time he was given to make one of these movies, it was always a matter of pride with him to bring the picture in under budget and ahead of schedule. Give him a meagre five days to shoot and he would do it in four. Give him a paltry $70,000 and he would spend $60,000.

That meant he was always rushing through preproduction and shooting at breakneck speed. This way of working was obviously exhilarating for him and his colleagues, but it was always at the expense of quality. Inevitably, it compromised the real virtues that most of his pictures had.

Attack of the Crab Monsters could have been 25% better, at virtually no additional cost, if Corman had actually reviewed the screenplay before shooting; had allowed himself the luxury of a few additional reaction shots and (God forbid) the occasional retake; and if the picture had spent a few more days in the editing room. But with Corman it was always a matter of 'get it in the can and get it into theatres'.

Praising this movie for being better than others of its type misses the point. It doesn't fall into the category of 'so bad that it is good'. Rather, it is in its own category of 'good enough that it should have been better'.

The true benchmark for Crab Monsters is not garbage like Voodoo Woman, Fire Maidens or Robot Monster. It is Carnival of Souls, Night of the Living Dead and Blair Witch Project: accomplished pictures made on 'home movie' budgets. This is what Corman was well capable of doing in the Fifties, as he later proved with his Edgar Alan Poe movies.

He could have been one of the best of the micro-budget movie-makers, but he just wanted to be the quickest.

Attack of the Crab Monsters illustrates both the best and the worst of Roger Corman.

Attack of the Crab Monsters starts as a team of scientists are dropped off on an island where a previous team of scientists studying the effects of H-Bomb testing in the area mysteriously disappeared. Nuclear physicist Dr. Karl Weigland (Leslie Bradley) & his team consisting of geologist Dr. James Carson (Richard H. Cutting), botanist Dr. Jules Deveroux (Mel Welles) plus biologists Martha Hunter (Pamela Duncan) & Dale Drewer (Richard Garland) are on hand to continue the previous teams work. Navy man Hank Chapman (Russell Johnson) is on hand as well. The team quickly discover that they are not alone on the island as the radiation from the nuclear testing has created giant mutant psychic brain eating crabs who can absorb the thoughts & personality of those whose brain it eats! These killer crabs can also psychically shift land, as the island becomes smaller & more people fall victim to the crabs is there anyway the few remaining survivors can make if off the island alive & warn the rest of humanity about the killer crustaceans?

Produced & directed by Roger Corman I quite liked Attack of the Crab Monsters for what it was. The script by associate producer Charles B. Griffith tries just that little bit harder than most of the cheap monster films from this period, I don't think it would have made much difference if these were just 'ordinary' giant man-eating crabs but the whole psychic power they possess & the fact they can steal their victims personalities give Attack of the Crab Monsters something a bit different. The concept isn't exactly used to any great effect & as a whole the film is pretty straight forward but at least it tries. At an extremely short 60 odd minutes long Attack of the Crab Monsters moves along at a nice pace & it's never boring. The character's & dialogue are OK, it's all a bit clichéd & basic but everyone serves their purpose well enough. The climax feels a bit rushed & abrupt, I'd have liked to have seen more crab monsters too, I mean two crab monsters is a bit tight & the absolute minimum number of crab monsters you would need in a film called Attack of the Crab Monsters as any less the film would have had to have been called Attack of the Crab Monster, right? Anyway, this is probably one of the better 'giant monster on the loose' type films from the 50's & 60's, out of the ones I've seen anyway.

Director Corman knows how to make a film, I'm not saying he knows how to a make a good film but for the most part it's as good as one can expect & indeed hope from such a poverty stricken production. The crab monsters themselves (all two of 'em) look OK when they're static & not moving, unfortunately the special effects on them are awful, they don't so much as walk as glide across the floor, they're legs never move an inch! There is a scene with a headless body & a surprising bit when someone has their hand severed but generally speaking Attack of the Crab Monsters is pretty tame.

With a supposed budget of about $70,000 Attack of the Crab Monsters is a competent enough film when all things are considered, I've certainly sat through worse. The acting was rather stiff & static but then that's par for the course with these low budget monster films, isn't it?

Attack of the Crab Monsters is a decent way to pass an hour, it's by no means the best film ever made, far from it but it provides a certain amount of entertainment & fun if approached in the right frame of mind. Definitely worth a watch.

-Well today I decided to drop an old school Allied Artists cheapy on you. I know a lot of people out there really do not care for older monster movies well....eat me!!! I love'em and for those who want to know and have never seen this old Roger Corman flick here is my review.

Attack of the Crab Monsters is a 1957 atomic monster flick that deals with some nuclear testing that has gone haywire. The movie takes us with a second crew of people who have went to an island that was being investigated for the effects of nuclear fallout. They are also in the hunt for the first crew who has mysteriously disappeared (dun,dun duuuuuu).

The people quickly learn that not all things are as they seem for as soon as they step on shore one of the crew members has there head ripped off as they go in the water. Surprisingly enough the crew seems to shrug this off as a bit of bad luck as oppose to a crab monster ripping off the poor guys head. Anyway as the movie progresses the crew begins to hear the voices of the first crew who vanished. Could the crew still be alive or is it something playing with their minds? Of course their is something playing with their minds you retard, thats why this is called Attack of the Crab Monsters. I will not spoil any of it for you as the movie definitely lays on some sci-fi mumbo jumbo throughout its short 69 minutes run time but does entertain in a 50's B Movie way. So if you are into these kind of films (you know who you are) I'm sure you will at least find something to like about it.

"Crab Monsters" is definitely not near the top of the Monsters of the 50's food chain but it does settle nicely in the middle of the pack. Some moments in the film (like the beginning monologue and one overlong swimming sequence) just seemed either out of place or used to pad the film. I liked the Crab Monsters despite how unconvincing their attacks may have looked (which to me is the charm of it all) and there were 2 "violent for their time moments" (decapitation and severed hand) that got a smile from me. However the ending seemed rather quick and sudden and could have been handled better.

In the end "Crab Monsters" gives us an interesting premise with a slightly flawed result. Though it is not garbage or the pinnacle of 50's Horror it's still worth a look for you 50's monster movie fans: 5/10 Average: if your a fan of 50's Monster Flicks give it a go, otherwise pass go and collect your $200.00.

The DVD release of this film in the U.S. looks not so good. The movie was definitely not remastered properly (though it says it is on the back of the artwork) and falls in a category of barely better than VHS. Since it is the only way to see this film though at this time on the digital format you really have no other option.

That is all for now my little crustaceans until the next review this is Gore Mongral saying: Beware of Crabs.....not the STD but the....you know what I mean!!!

Saw this movie back in 2001 I got the VHS for a Christmas Present. Honestly on the first viewing I wasn't satisfied. But over the years I have grown to like it. It's about an island off the coast of the pacific that has had radiation effects. Mutating ordinary Crabs into giant brain-eating monsters. Some familiar faces too including Richard Johnson who would later go on to play The Professor on T.V.'s Gilligan's Island. Also Pamela Duncan & Mel Wells who played in other 50's Corman Films like The Undead from 1957. Basically The film takes place on this island. The first research term goes to the island & doesn't come back. So a second team is dispatched to find out what happened. Not much else to say the special effects are disappointing but it's a low-budget Allied Artists Film so that's what you get. I guess they aren't that bad considering the low-budget. Paul Blaisdell was to have done the effects but wasn't given enough money & time so he vowed working on The Giant Crab Effects. Pamela Duncan don't have many of her films the other being The Undead from 1957 another Corman Effort will have to look more into her work. She was very pretty I have some of her digital pin-up images as well some 50's magazines that have pin-up photos of her inside. This is to get it's proper due on DVD July 20, 2010 by Shout! Factory Allied Artsists previous DVD wasn't that great so the update will do this some good. I give this film a 6.

What, that's it??? That's how it ends??? Just when it was getting good!!! Well I know enough what to expect with a title like "Attack of the Crab Monsters", so this was right about par for the course. What I wasn't prepared for was that nonsense about the crabs absorbing the brain matter of their victims and gaining the ability to 'speak' to the rest of the humans on the island. Not only that, but the island itself was disintegrating and falling into the sea. Were the crabs doing that? I don't know. It doesn't matter.

Roger Corman produced and directed some great schlock in his time, and this is right up there. It's certainly a lot better than his 1958 film "She Gods of Shark Reef" which occupies a place on my Worst Ten Movies List of all time. But when I say a lot better, it's all a matter of degree. Let's face it, you either dig this kind of stuff or you don't, and personally, I can watch anything once.

But seriously, didn't this picture make you hungry? All I kept thinking about was getting a great big pot and steaming up some nice fresh crab legs. Maybe whip up some seafood salad and a side of crab cakes. Add a little bisque for an appetizer. Aw heck, everything about crabs is an appetizer.