![]() A couple of months later Roger phoned to say the actors were on their way over to Chuck’s house so he could teach them how to scuba dive. Chuck was inspired and decided to write in lots of underwater scenes into his own script, then he promised Roger he’d shoot the scenes himself for the bargain-basement price of one hundred dollars. Because of this there are moments when Attack Of The Crab Monsters takes on the characteristics of an old fashioned ghost story, when the voices of the dead call to lure their friends into traps.Ĭhuck Griffith was in the middle of writing the screenplay when he saw a movie called The Silent World (1956) which was full of incredible underwater scenes. In essence, each victim becomes part of a collective whole, a hive mentality, working for the survival of the crab. Every meal raises the monsters IQ a few more points. But in Chuck’s scenario they also absorb the knowledge of the victim. ![]() Now, it was typical for these sort of giant monsters to eat people, suck them dry, whatever. Attack Of The Crab Monsters was one of those films, and one of the few to radically alter the formula.ĭirector Roger Corman demanded suspense or action in every scene of Attack Of The Crab Monsters, and writer Charles B. Jack Warner may have thought it was crap, but the audiences loved it, so much so that for the next decade Them! set the pattern for dozens of science fiction films about giant insects and other life-forms. Them! was the first film to suggest the possibility that radiation could cause giant mutations, in this particular instance an army of monstrous twenty-foot-long ants. ![]() At the preview he expressed his extreme displeasure and stated that he never wanted to see another one like it. For instance, the squat alien overlord in It Conquered The World (1956) looked the way it did because he was supposed be from Venus, with a heavier gravity and all that physics nonsense.Īttack Of The Crab Monsters really started back in 1954 when Warner Brothers released a film called Them! (1954) and it took everybody by surprise, including producer Jack Warner himself. These creepy crustaceans can also send out arcs of heat to melt and fuse chunks of the island, eventually whittling the island down to one small corner – I haven’t said too much, have I?ĭespite the clumsiness of his early film-making, Roger Corman really did try to keep it within the bounds of science theory. The damn things are almost impossible to kill because they’re made of free atoms, a mass of liquid with a permanent shape. These creatures have the ability to absorb the knowledge of their victims and mimic their voices. Here’s the story so far: On a mysterious island, giant crabs mutated by atomic radiation pick off a group of nosy scientists one by one. This week I discuss for your immense displeasure the film described by the lurid poster art as From The Depths Of The Sea, A Tidal Wave Of Lobster Bisque…I mean, Terror, in the Roger Corman classic Attack Of The Crab Monsters (1957)! Would you like any cracked pepper on that? Will any of them manage to escape?” (courtesy IMDB) To add to their problems, the island is slowly sinking into the ocean. The team soon discovers that the island has been taken over by crabs that have mutated into enormous, intelligent monsters. Well, excuse me for shooting my mouth off, but the journal didn't say anything about the sea - just talked about worms.“A group of scientists travel to a remote island to study the effects of nuclear weapons tests, only to get stranded when their airplane explodes. They've been know to grow much longer than five feet. It's just that McLane didn't really mean to imply that the flesh was from a big worm. Why don't we work out tomorrow's schedule and then get some sleep?īut what about that five-foot nightcrawler? Well, excuse me for being so stupid. Fire was applied to the tissue and the corollary result." The journal ends there. Most intriguing is the tissue's consistency: it proved impossible to cut - knives passing through the flesh leaving no mark. With this section as a measure, the worm-like creature would be more than five feet in length. "Friday, March 12: This afternoon Professor Carter found a large piece of flesh having the same composition as that of the common earthworm, but measured twenty-four inches by eight.
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