Crabs! (2021)

We see a nuclear plant explode because that happens sometimes. Then it transitions to a shot of lady boobs as a couple is getting busy on the beach. A crab interrupts them, which freaks the girl out but the guy, after some initial frustration, decides to mess with it. This leads to his face getting eaten off and an unfortunate attempt to help him with a big rock. Okay movie you have my attention.

We are now introduced to our main characters. Phillip the teen stuck in a wheelchair, his chipper bestie Maddy, Phillip’s deputy older brother Hunter, and Maddy’s super-hot science teacher mom Annalise. Oh shit I almost forgot my new favorite character, Radu the exchange student. They are going along minding their own business, which means Phillip is building mechanical legs to allow him to walk, when the crabs show up. The nasty little critters start to kill everyone leading to a big showdown with the momma crab that is the size of Godzilla. Lucky for us the same power source that allowed Phillip to make mechanical legs also power the giant mecha that they build to fight the creature. This movie is awesomely weird.

If not clear yet this movie is a comedy that also works well as a science fiction/creature feature flick. The pacing is fun with laughs and occasional gore tossed in along the way. This is the tried-and-true creature feature formula that we all know and many of us love. I dig that they don’t try to reinvent the wheel but rather focus on the execution. They made a fun flick that gives you damn near everything you could want in a movie like this. Likeable characters combined with cool monsters and a splash of blood. The jokes all land and had me giggling consistently from start to finish. I enjoyed the character of Radu who has the best lines. He is the perfect comic foil for the story to not so much focus on but have pop in now and then with something silly to say.  

Time to do some SCIENCE!!!

The creatures look good and are all practical effects work. We even get a bit of Kaiju action in the finale which is also brought to the screen with dudes in rubber suits. The crab monsters look cool and have a couple of different forms. The kills, while not overly bloody, are satisfying and we get a lot of them. There is some real carnage at prom, which all good horror movies should have! Some highlights for me are the dangling eyeball, the DJ blood spray, and a dude bro losing his face. There is a bit of CGI for a nasty looking dead whale, but that didn’t ruin things for me. All in all, this was an excellent effort on a budget, and I give the filmmakers a lot of credit.

A flick like Crabs! is why I never stop watching weird movies. Sometimes you stumble over one that sticks with you and that you want to share with people. Please do yourself a favor and go find a copy of this one. You won’t be disappointed.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer