Crabs!

Crustacean
Extreme

Crabs!
USA 2021
Directed by Pierce Berolzheimer
Young Gunner Films

Warning: Spoilers scuttling up the shore...

Right then... Crabs! This is not, as you might be expecting, a movie adaptation of one of Guy N. Smith’s many novels focusing on the misadventures of giant crustaceans. Instead, this movie depicts the menace as being the humble horse shoe crab, which is incidentally a very important crab used for various medical purposes due to the properties of its blue, coppery blood. A lot of that blood will be spilled throughout the movie, contrasting nicely with the huge amounts of the usual red variety as various people’s faces (and other things) are devoured by the little beach dwellers.

Set in the small, coastal town of Mendocino, the film focuses on the wheelchair bound, boy genius Philip (Dylan Riley Snyder), his equally smart girlfriend Maddy (Allie Jennings), Phil’s policeman brother Hunter (Bryce Durfee), Maddy’s school teacher mother Annalise (Jessica Morris) and their odd, foreign stereotype of a friend Radu (played by Chase Padgett in a movie stealing turn as he gives one of the most politically incorrect but absolutely hilarious performances you just don’t see actors getting away with today... heck, he even sings the ludicrous “It’s Crabs” song on the end titles).

After a bizarre scene with huge chimney stacks blowing up, showing just how cheap and nasty the CGI effects of the movie are, we switch back to the practical effects work which comprises most of the movie, as a young couple who are having noisy sex on the beach are attacked by a horseshoe crab... losing most of their faces in the process. Even this moment is comically timed as, when the girl grabs a rock to bash the crab mauling away at her boyfriend’s face, the crab jumps off just as she brings the rock down, pulping her lovers head even more. It’s all about timing folks and I can only imagine how this moment must have brought the house down with laughter when it screened at FrightFest a couple of years ago.

And, yeah, it’s a really great little movie, as various horseshoe crabs go on the rampage at the local high school’s prom night, some of them metamorphosising into giant versions of themselves, while our tireless heroes try and concoct a remedy for the menace, plus the new ‘super giant’ crab monster heading their way (I’m not sure why... I suspect the science was less than credible by this point in the film but, who cares, just go with it) as the film suddenly drifts into kaiju territory and the young tyke Phil constructs a giant exoskeleton in his garage to get all Pacific Rim on their ass... or whatever a crab’s ass is called.

It’s a very funny movie too... the smaller crabs (not the giant ones, which are much less of an impressive practical effect... man in suit, folks!) have their own personalities and it does get a bit like Gremlins in tone in some scenes, such as when the crabs are seen living it up in a local bar and even playing with the crane grabber machine. Not to mention the moment when a crab doesn’t like the DJ’s choice of music at the high school dance... so it eat’s the DJs face off, dons his hat, works the turntables and starts hitting the crowd with some ‘fresher’ tunes!

It’s true some of the effects are not really up to it (demonstrating the low budget nature of the affair) and there are some moments which are perhaps, a little on the bad taste side (if you believe in bad taste) but, ultimately, the film delivers a mix of outrageously over-the-top comedy coupled with, what everyone wants in their film, a warm beating heart at the centre of the movie.

My one criticism of the film was that, in a few scenes, composer Mike Trebilcock’s score does tend to overplay the comedy element musically when, the movie is funny enough in that those scenes might have played better supported by a straighter score, rather than a series of musical cues that are trying to score the humour. It’s just a little too ‘on the nose’ in certain scenes but, yeah, at other times it’s just right so, like any movie where the fast and furious stream of comedy gags can be hit and miss, the same can be said of the score here on some occasions.

And I have nothing much more ot say here about Crabs!, I think, other than the film doesn’t quite outstay its welcome and it kept me entertained throughout. Definitely one which will please the legion of fans who like comedy horror movies done right. It’s not exactly subtle but, yeah, how subtle could a movie called Crabs! truly be, in all honesty? I had a good time with this one.