La garra

Reporter Jan Raines (Jo McDonnell) is doing a feature story on the creative lab experiments on crabs by Dr. McNeal (Barry Nelson, the original 007). Naturally, something goes awry, but it isn't in the lab. See Jan's dad Frank just happens to own the local nuclear power plant and they just happened to accidentally dumped 40,000 of radioactive water into the nearby sea, creating one muther of a killer crab. Did I mention that Frank also just happens to be rivals with the Moody (Robert Lansing), the town bar owner who plays surrogate father to Jan's hunky lab assistant love interest Pete (Steve Hanks)? And did I mention Frank just happened to have killed Pete's parents in a drunk driving accident years ago? With all this "just happens" drama, who cares about killer crabs?

Crabs? Seriously, crabs? Yup, the little crustacean creeps are the main villains in the Florida lensed horror flick. One can only laugh during the early scenes where people are attacked by normal sized crabs. I mean, is it too much to close a door or, I don't know, run quickly in the opposite direction? To the film's credit, there is one huge 12-foot crab dashing about, but it only shows up on screen in the last ten minutes. I'll admit the design is pretty impressive for a low budget film. The script (co-written by the Creature from the Black Lagoon himself, Ricou Browning) is all over the place though. Despite Frank Raines being the cause of all this madness, he never gets his comeuppance. In fact, he is only shown once in the entire film. And, if you have a big ol' crab, you better blow it up. Here, they just poison it and it slumps down. Director Hernan Cardenas was one and done with this flick. Lansing earned his "battling big creatures" street cred with EMPIRE OF THE ANTS (1977) and continued in this fine line of work with killer cockroaches in THE NEST (1988).

This was perhaps one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time. Because it was bad (of course!). There is no reason to sit through this movie seriously like you would with "Schindler's List" or even "Fletch". Talk with your friends through it. Laugh. Make comments. PLEASE!!!! The plot involves little crabs ganging up on people and killing a few (the best scene is where all the tiny crabs manage to overturn a trailer home and catch it on fire). There's a giant paper mache-looking crab too, but I wasn't too sure of its purpose. That goes to show how bad this film was. When you don't know why they had the giant crab (it appears on the box! grrrrr! beware humans!), then it's a bad bad movie.

Oh cool! A movie about mutated killer crabs! You don't encounter too many of those; especially in comparison with movies about spiders or rats or whatever. Like in most contemporary creature-features, the thematic animal species looks a lot more menacing in the stock footage (that the film probably stole from the National Geographic archives) than in the special effects version. It seems to take ages before anything significant happens and, in spite of a lot of crawling crab footage, it takes a while before you realize they're slowing heading towards town and plotting an attack against the community. First, though, you'll have to struggle through a god-awful and unnecessary "forbidden romance" sub plot and plenty of padding footage of a hillbilly dance festival. "Island Claws" is a boring film with practically no action, uninspired writing and zero attempts to insert any humor or cheesy atmosphere. The concept of genetically manipulated crabs running amok on an island holds a lot of potential, but the script (from the same people who made cult favorite "The Amazing Mr. No Legs") unfortunately doesn't even use up 5% of that potential. There are plentiful of weird sequences that are completely irrelevant to the plot, like the heart-breaking story of a family of Haitian immigrants stranding on the island and a totally random supportive character declining a wedding proposal. The few scenes that are relevant to the plot, however, are stupid and ridiculous. The body count is intolerably low for an 80's flick and the few deaths that are on display are tame and gore-free. Two little moments to illustrate just how stupid "Island Claws" is: 1) none of the crabs actually do any killing and 2) the island community is more shocked and upset regarding the death of a poodle, but nobody mourned for the town's banjo musician. Eventually a gigantic crustacean (thank you, Wikipedia) does show up, but it comes far too late to boost up the entertainment value.

I always feel bad when I rip on a B-movie. Most of the films in my DVD collection involve daft rubbery monsters and screaming victims. It's safe to say I don't consider myself to have a 'high bar' in terms of the movies I like and, as long as they can entertain me in one way or another, then I'm happy.

'Island Claws' is about a swarm of killer crabs on an island. Now, I've seen plenty of normal animals, always mutated to giant levels, stalking various hapless residents. So, when that's your kind of thing, killer crabs actually sound like fun.

Only there's no actual kills for roughly the first forty-five minutes and, I know the production budget isn't huge, but you'll see where it's been spent on when it comes to our clawed antagonists. There's lots of them. Some footage of real crabs has been interwoven with the anamatronic crabs created just for this. And the puppet crabs look good. In other words the look like regular crabs. But I was kind of hoping for more. Okay, so in the final act we got a - long overdue - giant crab, but there could have been at least one who shoots laser beams from his eye stalks, or something. Did I expect too much?

So the side-crawlers aren't up to much, but I guess they're a little more interesting than the humans who run around in the dark trying not to get their toes pinched by these clawed menaces.

In short, not much happens. Yes, it's a B-movie, so most of us don't expect Oscar-worthy performances, but, for all its eighties cheesiness, it's just not that fun to watch. I know remakes are often looked down on, but this is the rare occasion where I'd actually like to see one. Killer crabs is a good - but completely - silly, idea. So if it was done with a slightly higher budget and a script which knows it's tongue-in-cheek then you could actually be left with something that's quite fun.

Seaside community is besieged by a chemically enraged (and significantly enlarged) crab, that cuts of path of destruction and chaos. Various odd-ball characters are quickly dispatched, attracting the concerns of otherwise care-free locals, including Robert Lansing as the proprietor of the local saloon.

"Island Claws" is by no means the worst "killer animal" movie on the block; some good sets, pleasant beachside scenery and Lansing's rendition of the bemused publican with an accent from parts unknown, almost (but not quite) compensate for the $2 special effects and banal dialogue.

Throughout the movie, reference to the "mysterious" perpetrator is flagged by glimpses of a claw, or larger-than-usual sideways shuffle tracks in the sand. When the film's crowning glory is finally exposed in its entirety, it's easy to understand why the makers kept it concealed for 80 minutes. The concoction is laughable, but then, what would you expect?

Aside from Lansing, whose trademark ambivalence has been a familiar character trait in his portrayals in other films of the ilk (see "Empire of the Ants" and "The Nest"), only Barry Nelson can rate a mention for being a known quantity. All the other faces are virtual unknowns, with the exception of Nita Talbot in a frivolous supporting role.

Sometimes vaguely scary, but mostly puerile, if you happen to see a copy for less than pocket money, treat yourself and gain a new appreciation of the extent to which film-makers went to cash-in on the "killer animal" theme that was in vogue at the time.