User reviews

I last saw this film in 1963 on "Chiller," a locally produced TV show out of Minneapolis which showcased B horror movies every Sunday night. For years my friends and I would toss around the line, "I can grow a new claw--can you grow a new life?" I recently purchased a copy on the Internet and had a chance to watch it again. Except for the conventional bumbling around that characters in this kind of movie do (wandering in the dark in the middle of the night; responding to amplified voices as they lie in their beds in fear; going alone through caves where there is only one exit and the crabs are definitely around) this is pretty entertaining. I'm not sure whether these crabs have world domination in mind (revenge for those little forks and drawn butter) or just want to rid the island of humans. They do a real number on the eco-system. Will they have any beaches left to go to. Will they eventually go back to being "just crabs" or will they take their ventriloquist act on the road? We really don't know.

I think the strength of the movie is the cool, oppressive atmosphere and threat posed by the enterprising crustaceans. A weakness is that there is no explanation of their fine motor skills. They seemingly knock down everything in their paths in their lumbering way, but are still able to destroy just the right parts to dismantle a radio and are able to blow up a plane. If you don't do too much criticizing or thinking, you will enjoy this early Roger Corman gem.

A bunch of people are on a remote island. They're there to study the effects of an H bomb explosion that took place nearby (uh oh). There was a former group there--but they disappeared without a trace (double uh-oh). Then they start to hear the voices of the former crew call to them at night...

I'm making this sound creepier than it actually is. This is basically a low LOW budget B movie with an admittedly novel idea (which I won't reveal). The cast of characters are the usual assortment we get in movies like this--a bunch of scientists (including Russell Johnson years before he played a scientist on "Gilligan's Island"), a muscular hero type (Richard Garland) and a hot woman (Pamela Duncan). The acting is actually good and the script pretty literate for this type of film. As for the giant crabs-----well it IS a Roger Corman picture! They're pretty funny--they look like they're made of paper mache and move VERY awkwardly. They're more funny than anything else. Still, this is a fun if silly B picture. You could do worse. I give it a 6.

Ah, Roger Corman, the purveyor of the finely tuned art of ten-dollar-to-shoot-and-distribute sci-fi movies. This, Attack of the Crab Monsters, is part of the minor boom in the B-movie world of the GIANT THING THAT WILL KILL YOU craze, where anything that could be done to capitalize on the threat of *the* bomb (remember, kids, by the way, duck and cover!) could be marketable for a short time, as long as not much real solid thought or questions were raised. Charles Griffith's script posits a group of scientists- off to seek out another expedition that went missing, on some small island out in the middle of A-Bomb-nowhere's-ville, and encounter a super-atomic species of land-crab that get possessed by those that they kill. They (or rather one at a time as Corman's budget had only enough for one crab at a time to shoot) project telepathically the 'souls' of those they kill, and can only be controlled by, gasp, electromagnetic fields!

So, once you get past the fact that there's not a shred of intellectual engagement here, that there's an opening title scrawl that comes out of a video game directing 'You' to be apart of the crab team and that the voice of the crabs are like the voice of God, and that the crab itself happens to have Asian eyes, it's fun crap. Crap, of course, not to be taken likely, as you and your friends can make a very fine MST3K right in your living room for no additional charge! On that level, it's classic stuff, and seeing one guy get his hand chopped off by a random rock, lots and lots of long takes of two of the scientists in deep-sea diving gear looking around for s***, is good for a gas. And the action is a real hoot, in that no-budget 50s tradition that combines miniatures that are really the production designer's toy-towns made by their kids and stock footage of LOTS of A-Bomb explosions, plus the crumbling field or two. Did I mention you can see the strings puppeting the crab? Will these directors never learn?

Whether Roger Corman likes it or not this is one of the movies he will always be remembered for. Radiation gets the blame again and spawns mutant crabs who can walk forward (something no real crab can do), talk, and absorb the brains of the people they eat. These ambitious soft shelled terrors want to conquer the world and digest the brains of several scientists to gain the know-how to do that. Believe me, a giant crab with a PHd. is a dangerous thing! Corman's usual stock company does very well here. Mel Welles and Leslie Bradley sport believeable accents, Richard Garland and Pamela Duncan (both of whom would be in THE UNDEAD the same year) are a fine couple, Russell Johnson is great and Beech Dickerson is the comedy relief. If we can believe Ed Nelson, he is the one who was under the giant crab and he also dimly recalled Jack Nicholson hanging around the location pestering Roger for something to do so maybe Jack was helping move the crab around too. Gore is non existant (it was 1957 for cryin' out loud!) except for a decapitation at the start of the film (interestingly (symbolically?) the victim is Charles Griffith who wrote the screenplay). Can I get serious for a moment now? Would someone get in touch with Roger and get him to round up the cast members who are still alive and release this on DVD with an audio commentary track? There IS a market for this movie out there and a 45th anniversary edition would, in my opinion, sell very well. Roger . . .er . . .Mr. Corman, if perchance you should read this, get in touch with me.

Attack Of The Crab Monsters is one of the fabulous drive-in flicks of the Fifties, the kind of film it's still a pleasure to watch today.

Actually producer/director Roger Corman came up with a novel idea for a monster in this one. Not the looks of it because with the low budget it looks as dopey as most of the Fifties radiation created monsters. But the idea that the people eaten as food are completely ingested with all their intelligence intact, making this monster just about the smartest creature on earth. Now if it only had opposable thumbs.

Anyway some Navy folks and some scientists come to a South Sea Pacific island where some nuclear testing is going on to find out what happened to some others who just vanished with no trace. They find out soon enough and the audience is as creeped out as they are when the monster starts talking in voices of the missing people.

The monster is a giant crab which grew and developed these special talents courtesy of massive radiation. The last guy the thing absorbed was a nuclear scientist, so the sky was literally the limit if this thing got into civilization.

Some familiar folks in this are Ed Nelson from Peyton Place and Russell Johnson the old professor from Gilligan's Island.

Even though there's only one crab monster because I'm sure Roger Corman's limited budget only could afford one, it's still a fun bad science fiction film.

I've got to tell you right from the start; I'm not a fan of these giant monster films. I am, however, a big fan of Roger Corman - and even though this silly flick isn't anything near as good as films such as his 'Edgar Allen Poe series', The Attack of the Giant Crab Monsters is a worthwhile B-movie. The film is typically low budget and not very well made, and it's not hard to believe that Roger Corman churned out dozens of these films. As the title suggests, the film follows the idea of a bunch of giant crab monsters - and when Corman says 'Giant Crab Monsters', he really isn't kidding as these things are huge! Basically, we follow a bunch of scientists researching a nuclear bomb site. The plot is hardly original, but seeing the giant crabs is fun and the acting in this film is always going to raise a smile. Attack of the Crab Monsters does show some imagination with its monsters, however, as the crabs have the ability to take in their victims conscious. It's not the greatest idea in the history of bad B-movies, but it is strangely chilling and the film is better for it. I can't say that there's a lot here for people who aren't into B-movies, but those that are should check it out.

Roger Corman's Attack of the Crab Monsters is just one of many cheapo monster movies from the 50s to blame nuclear fallout for messing up nature, and features lots of the elements one might quite rightly expect from the genre—a team of brave US scientists (including the obligatory pretty female doctor), wooden acting, unconvincing locations, and crummy effects. However, it also manages to present a few unique ideas that elevate it above many of the standard 'mutated monster on the loose' creature features of the era.

The critters that grow to massive proportions in this film are land crabs that have been exposed to radiation from A-bomb tests, but rather than simply being scaled-up versions of regular crustaceans, these guys possess an atomic structure consisting of liquid in a permanent form, making them extremely hard to destroy; they also have the ability to assimilate their victims, absorb their knowledge, and lure further victims to their death by talking to them telepathically. Pretty far-fetched I know, but very creepy, the crabs eerie, echoey, disembodied voices being surprisingly effective.

Of course, given the movie's low low budget, the monsters themselves are pretty rubbish—awkwardly moving lumps of papier-mâché with gangly legs dangling uncontrollably, coat-hanger antennae, and massive human-like eyes that look really daft—but I wouldn't have it any other way: a badly designed, poorly constructed monster is half the charm of a B-movie like this.

6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for a couple of surprisingly nasty moments (a decapitated body and a severed hand—in black and white, but still pretty gruesome) and the somewhat unnecessary but enjoyable underwater swim by Pamela Duncan.

Yes, I gave the film 10 out of 10. I'm not proud. Where this movie is concerned I have no shame. I loved this movie from the moment I saw it on New York's Creature Features way back in the late 1960's as a five year old.

At five this movie scared the crap out of me, now its just cheaply done fun. How can anyone who reads the title or the plot, about a research team on a lonely island being stalked by giant crabs that eat the brains of their victims and then can then talk like them, and expect it to be anything other than it is? If you're interested by interested the plot, then odds are you're going to like it.

What makes the film stand up as more than just a grade z piece of trash is the fact the actors sell what they are doing. You believe that that believe. Had this film been done now it would have been a nod and a wink and it all would have been forgotten ten minutes after the cameras finished rolling. The visual effects, the destruction of the island and the crabs themselves are a cut above the typical 1950's horror/sci-fi monster, there is something ominous about them, even if they don't movie all that well.

A great popcorn film.

Any movie that passes off a 1950s' home in the Hollywood Hills as a research center located atop a shrinking Pacific atoll, a well-foliaged hillside as a fresh landslide, Griffith Park's Bronson Caves as a passage to the sea, a dyed-blonde Mel Welles as a "French" scientist, and a rolling and flopping papier-mache model with humanesque eyes as a terrifying monster crab is MY kind of movie! Artistically, probably one of Corman's worst, this still is great FUN. Like many other "bad" horror movies of the fifties, I can watch it over again and again! Unfortunately, though, the only print that seems to be available--either on VHS or DVD--is not a very good one. Enjoy! (NOTE: An earlier reviewer indicated that Beverly Garland is in this film; she is not.)

I don't know why I am haunted by the movie. I first was it in the late 50's and for some reason it captured me. it is not shown much if at all anymore on TV. I had all but given up ever seeing it again let alone owning a DVD. I looked at all the sites that offered it and finally found it on DVD on Overstock.com. OH JOY! OH JOY!

Of course, I ordered it and found it to be every bit as entertaining as I had remembered. Mel Welles deliciously over-acting as did most of the cast. What a treat!

You don't have to wait long for the Crabs to attack. They hit as soon as the characters land on the beach. They begin dropping like flies.

If you get the chance, watch this forgotten little flick. I think you'll like it.

Here's another great title from Roger Corman, but it's a shame about the movie itself which has a lot of potential but doesn't really take that anywhere. The silly script and bizarre storyline seems to have been made up on the spot (knowing Corman's track record, maybe it was) and is a far cry from the acclaimed Poe adaptations he would be creating a few years later. Instead what we have is a campy, no-budget B-movie in which giant, poorly-designed crabs go around and kill a few people with their rubber claws. Oh, and they're indestructible and can communicate telepathically with people, okay? Still, it's not the worst film ever made and will pass the time moderately well for bad movie lovers, and the best thing is that it's admirably short.

The strange storyline and ridiculous plot elements (the island on which our cast are stranded is shrinking all the while) make for one weird film which plays like a bad nightmare. To make matters even more bizarre, a scene halfway through the film which shows a man falling down a rope into a pit is actually tacked on to the beginning of the movie, so you start off in the thick of the action and wonder what the hell is going on! There is no explanation for this error and it just added to the experience for me.

The cast will be an unfamiliar one to people who don't watch a lot of these type of films, although Mel Welles appears in a small supporting role as a scientist. Richard Garland is the boringly straight hero while Pamela Duncan makes for a voluptuous heroine who looks great in a swimsuit. The movie is surprisingly gory in places for the time in which it was made, with the standout being the discovery of a headless corpse. However, the crabs fail to be the least bit threatening - or even plausible - with one risible moment showing a crab apparently "snoring". That's a new one on me! It's a shame that the budget and technical proficiency behind this film was so low, as the spirit was indeed willing as you might say. This is a film which will only appeal to those devoted to Corman's career or crappy B-movies of the '50s in general.

Roger Corman directed this cult favorite about a group of scientists(played by Richard Garland, Pamela Duncan, and Russell Johnson) and soldiers who are investigating a remote island that had been used for atomic bomb testing. The first expedition disappeared, and the next group discover to their horror that they were killed by giant mutated crabs who are the results of radiation exposure. They have consumed the brains of their victims, and have absorbed their intelligence, enabling them to speak! To make matters worse, the island is sinking, and soon they will all drown... Ambitious script and good acting cannot save this under budgeted thriller, with some downright goofy scenes of telepathic talking crabs! Also is far too short, with an abrupt ending.

For the most part I have enjoyed many of Corman's quickies and his more elaborate budgeted films as well(with the exception of Creature from the Haunted Sea which I despise!). Attack of the Crab Monsters has his quick yet taut style, cheap but acceptable special effects, and an array of decent character acting. In this film we have a scientific crew out to investigate the scientific crew that was sent before them - only to find giant crabs that can eat their human victims and then use the human brains to become disembodied voices that lure other humans to their deaths. The premise is barely worth legitimizing and we get things like electric signals turning the crabs into dust. Large crab eyes having wires move the eyelids up like a movie screen. Mel Welles doing a funny and intriguing French accent. There are a bunch of other directorial faux pas and scripting worthy of re-examination, but director Roger Corman and writer Charles Griffith bring this ludicrous tale to life - campy life - but life nonetheless. Richard Garland(Beverly's husband), Richard Cutting, Leslie Bradley, Pamela Duncan, and Mel Welles(Mr. Muscnick in Corman's Little Shop of Horrors) play the scientists out to discover what is causing all of the life on the island save gulls and crabs to disappear, huge pits form that were not there a day before, and eventually race against time to defeat the killer giant crabs with the minds of their fallen friends. Russel Johnson(the professor from Gilligan's Island) has a role as a hero and does a nice job. The film is barely above an hour and zips by with a very quick pulse. I don't know if it ranks with Corman's Little Shop or, in my opinion, his best quickie - A Bcket of Blood - but Attack of the Crab Monsters is a quality B film in every respect of what makes a great B film a great B film.

I remember have the smut scared out of me by this turkey when I was about 5; but it did ignite a short-lived infatuation with crabs and especially their claws. Just watched it again for the first time in 57 years and kept wishing for a barely-clad Dawn Wells to show up with a coconut cream pie for Russell Johnson AKA "The Professor" (except in Season One as "the rest") in "Gilligan's Island". Alas, no such luck - just car-sized radiation-mutated crabs who - for some reason - can channel the voices and memories of people they kill. I suppose by 1963 standards this was a creepy movie, but it's pure nostalgic silliness today.

This movie was released with the lowest of budgets but at a time when similarly themed movies were made just as cheaply. Admittedly the last time I saw this movie was probably 1957, but it still stays in my mind because the monsters seemed impossible to defeat up until the end. Many movies of this type usually gave away their ending in the first 10 minutes - The heroes were definitely going to win or the monsters were just too powerful for there to be any hope. Among those films released in the same time period Attack of the Crab Monsters was more than a cut above the norm. In century of extremely sophisticated computer generated images, the special effects in this movie must be compared with those for the 50's (not much better). If you give it a chance I think you will give it a place in your collection as it is in mine.

Directed by the King of Schlock, Roger Corman, "Attack of the Crab Monsters" is about a group of soldiers and scientists who journey to a distant "uncharted" atoll to try to determine what happened to a group of US Marines who disappeared on the island some time before. The island is beset with "earthquakes" which they soon discover are caused by giant, atomic-mutated crabs. These nasty crustaceans have a taste for human brains, from which they acquire the knowledge of their victims.

This movie is funny on multiple levels. First, their transportation to this distant, uncharted atoll is in a 14 foot fishing boat powered by a 6 hp outboard engine - hardly something you'd take to the sea in for a long journey. We have the ever-present busty, tight-sweater-wearing love interest of the lead scientist. It has Russell Johnson, better known as the Professor on "Gilligan's Island" some 12 years later, and we have some preposterous monsters, in this case talking giant crabs. Still I found it mildly entertaining... I give it 4 stars.