The Monster That Challenged the World

Well, my first two movies this year were beachy,  so I decided to keep with that theme, so tonight I went with a little twist:  it's an inland beach on a salt lake- California's Salton Sea.

Honestly, the story is secondary to me for that.  I mean, yeah, killer mollusks are pretty cool.  And yes, it's nifty having Disney's Captain Hook, Hans Conreid, play the wise older scientist. (Seriously, in my head, I'm hearing him scream at a boy in an elfsuit).

And as a kid, watching this on a weekend creature feature, one of the monsters got a spear through it's eye and that was...impressive.

The monster is hunted by the Navy, who had a base on the sea til 1978.

But their trips off base, to the vacation destination to close the beach, was what really got me as an adult.

Because of agricultural run-off, the lake became... post-apoclayptic.  Algal bloom, fish die offs, things became unpleasant.  Life on the shores ceased to be as vacationy and things went to Hell in a handbasket.

This movie provides a snapshot of "before".  KQED produced a fascinating documentary, narrated by director John Waters. 

KQED has made available online- enjoy!

Attack of the Crab Monsters

As I was writing the post for Island Claws, it occurred to me that I haven't seen Attack of the Crab Monsters in... probably decades.

I remedied that thanks to Amazon Streaming.

There's a Joe Bob Briggs comment, when asked ,hsow many movies he'd seen,  he quotes a huge number (6,800 drive in movies) and that he'd gone to

"this one drive-in where they start at dusk and show twelve movies every night. And I said there ares't enough hours in the night time to see twelve movies...Joe Bob said 'You han't seen these movies.'"

At an hour and five minutes, this is one of those movies.

A joint navy - science team arrives on a Pacific island to investigate a missing research group.

The island is geologically unstable and there's talk about the impact of nuclear testing in the Pacific, which "explains" what happen to the previous team: crabs got them.  Not just any crabs. Carnivorous crabs that gain the knowledge of the people they've consumes.  As they've consumed scientists, they're clever crabs indeed.  Also, there pretty good mimics, replicating the voices of those they've consumed.

And arrogant as fuck.  Threatening the party, the crab tells them  "So, you have wounded me; I must grow a new claw.  Well and good, for I can do it in a day!  But will you grow new lives when I have taken yours from you?".  It doesn't call them "puny mortals" but that was some serious Doctor Doom level threatening there.

I realize Corman's movies are the big screen equivalent, or ancestors, of SyF surey originals, but they sure are a fun way to pass an overcast afternoon.

Island Claws

Well, I'm horrified.
Horrified that I haven't posted anything here in over a year.

I'm going to change that in 2019, starting with the "it totally should be a classic, why isn't it?" Island Claws from 1980.

On a small Florida coastal island, bad things are happening.  First, there's been a leak at the local nuclear plant.  Then, the local crab population, the subject of a biological experiment, seems to be getting out of control.

The ominous massings of crabs, click-click-click click-click-click, are the first indicators.  The death of the town banjo playing idiot at the hands of a crab swarm let's us know they're not playing around.  To really raise the stakes, a pretty blonde girl is their next victim.

Just to cement the fact: the crabs then kill a dog and cause a small girl to lapse into a coma.

Evil, evil crabs.

Not until the third act do we get to see the kicker that'd been foreshadowed... a GIANT crab.  As fine a special effect as anything seen in a Roger Corman movie (see Attack of the Crab Monsters), Island Claws is  a fun romp that harkens back to the fifties nature-gone-wild, like Them! and The Deadly Mantis, with an ensemble cast including Nita Talbot (the Russian woman from Hogan's Heros), Barry Nelson (Mr Ullman from The Shining), and Robert Lansing (Gary Seven! from Star Trek).

What really surprised me about Island Claws, other than seeing Ricou Browning (Creature from the Black Lagoon) in the writing credits, was how subtle and timely some of the bits were and still are- yes, the Three Mile Island-ness of the local power plant was reminiscent of Fukushima and a subplot involving Haitian refugees echos some of the recent issues with Nicaraguan asylum seekers.