Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957) · 7:35am Nov 30th, 2018
I think Eleanor Roosevelt had baboon arms. I mean I can't totally confirm this and maybe it was just the dress she was wearing but it looked like she had some King Louis length arms going on there. It was almost as if she could scratch the back of her knee without having to reach. Again I can't confirm this but it was just something I noticed before she started reading something from General Washington (obviously this was before he became president).
It was a good reading. She had that voice that I swear you only hear from people in the early to mid 1900's. Yet, after she was done and I'd settled in to watch the Blackhawks lose another hockey game I started to amuse myself thinking about her. I wondered if she could beat Stallone in an arm wrestling competition. Chances are she probably could given the leverage she'd have over him. But then I thought with her voice and those arms she could have been Tarzan at least once.
She had the voice to do the yell and the arms to swing from vines. She was a tall woman as well so she had that going for her too. In fact I could totally see her swinging through the jungle to rescue Franklin Delano Roosevelt from some hazard like quicksand or Thomas Dewey. She'd of course leave Dewey for Harry S. Truman to finish off. That's what Truman does.
I dunno. Sometimes my mind wanders into weird places like that where all I can think of is her saying, "Me Ellen you Frank." But, I digress.
Speaking of going weird places ... ever have crabs? Don't answer that. The island in this movie certainly has them and they're really big. In fact they're so big that they are capable of sinking said island and with it the scientists who are on it. What happens to said scientists then? Well they get eaten of course!
Attack of the Crab Monsters is one of Roger Corman's earlier efforts. In it the previously mentioned group of scientists head to an island to do two things. One to figure out what happened to the previous batch of scientists that were there but disappeared and two see what the effects of radioactive fallout are on the island. Since this was the 1950s and you read the title you know what those are and things soon go awry.
This is a B-reel film. It's got a giant monster, a run time of about an hour give or take a few minutes, and a lot of questionable dialog and weird science mumbo jumbo to explain it ... maybe. The acting runs the gauntlet of acceptable to forgettable. Also, when the movie ends... it ends. Screw any sense of real resolution!
Anyway if you have an hour to kill, some friends and some beers you could give this one a shot. Just make sure you bring some butter and a hammer for the crab legs just afterward.
The Stats:
11 dead bodies, 0 breasts, 1 decapitated corpse, 2 humans shocked. stalactite to the head, antenna to the head, hand rolls, leg rolls, gratuitous plane taking off, swimming scene, gratuitous boom boom boom sound, gratuitous land crabs, explosion fu, rock slide fu.
Shout outs:
Russell Johnson as Hank Chapman who would later play Professor Roy Hinckley on Gilligan's Island for fighting the crabs like a man.
Mel Welles as Jules Deveroux for donning a Pepe Le Pew voice, thinking he can talk to ghosts and finally getting tricked by a crab.
Richard Garland as Dale Drewer for the line, "Once they were men... Now they are land crabs."
Roger Corman for cranking out a zillion movies in two seconds and this is one of them.
Tidal wave of terror, OoOooooOoooOooo.
4974775
That's how you know it's good. Also with these kinds of movies if it begins with scripture or even pseudo scripture ... that's how you know it's also trying to be classy.