Crustaceous Humongous, by Reed Lackey

7 Sep

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Let’s get right down to business. The movie is called Queen Crab. Its plot involves the daughter of a scientist studying growth chemicals in plant life feeding her father’s experiments to her pet crab, causing it to become gigantic. How could anything possibly go wrong?

In the 1950s and 60s, a legendary visual effects artist named Ray Harryhausen literally revolutionized the industry with his award-winning stop motion animation effects. His work influenced, among countless others, the work of Tim Burton, Peter Jackson, and Pixar Animation leader John Lasseter. The films in which he worked had a sensibility where the story and production were primarily created as a vehicle for the effects, with less emphasis on a logical and cohesive narrative or strong characters. The effects themselves were the star and their ability to excite the imagination has barely lost any of its escapist power, even amidst the modern CGI-saturated industry.

Which is why, despite a pitiful script, terrible aesthetic, embarrassing sound design, and lower-to-lowest-notch acting, I still found myself enjoying some of Queen Crab’s more outrageous moments. Being ignorant to both the processes and budgetary requirements of Harryhausen’s specialized “Dynamation” technique, I found myself quite impressed with the care that went into the titular creature itself. In short, when the Queen Crab is on the scene, the movie simply drips with fun, nostalgia, and “midnite-movie-mayhem.”

What’s too bad, sincerely, is that the film in which these scenes take place would make even legendary “bad movie” director Ed Wood roll his eyes. It all begins rather promising, with cheesy foreshadowing and a silly opening credit sequence. In one moment, a scientist tells his daughter with a serious and dire tone, “Omnivorous means that crabs will eat anything.” I half expected the music to “duh-duh-DUH” me. But things quickly devolve into the kind of movie you might expect a buddy of yours to whip out at a party after the third round of drinks saying, “Hey everybody, wanna watch this thing I made in high school with my friends?”

The sound design is absolutely inexcusable. Mix levels are all over the board and half the time the words are out of sync with the actors’ mouths, not to mention the silly and often overpowering score. Again, the sound effects on Mama Crab are pretty nice, but it appears that every dime of the budget was spent on her anyway. Likewise, the videography (I can’t bring my conscience to call it “cinematography”) appears to have been the product of the filmmaker’s old JVC camcorder, except when it comes to the over-sized crustacean, which bizarrely looks fantastic.

The script has moments of genuine cleverness in the classic B-movie tradition of The Blob or It Came From Beneath the Sea. But unfortunately, they are merely single waves amidst an ocean of forced dialogue, unbelievable characters, and stilted attempts at plot progression. The actors are all likely trying hard, but they’re also likely fully aware of the kind of movie they’re in and it shows in their performances. I’d like to think they’re all talented, but this isn’t the time or place to confirm that.

Yet, there is an absurd charm to a movie like this. If you’ve ever been curious about the “so-bad-it’s-good” title, I’d submit Queen Crab to you in a blink for consideration. There’s almost nothing I can seriously recommend about this movie from a filmmaking perspective, yet I’ve seen movies half as long that felt three times as tedious. There’s a good half hour in the middle which are painfully devoid of monsters and begin to test the viewer’s patience, but the last third is drive-in fodder that’s likely to put a sizable grin on your face. I even openly giggled a couple of times out of silly, insane amusement.

And the ending is nice. Not the very last shot – which tests all the patience and good will you’ll have left for the movie – but the final story beat. It’s a fitting resolution to a cheesy, overblown, pulp science fiction piece like this and I honestly didn’t see it coming. If a reviewer’s obligation is to be honest and respond from context, I have to say that for fans of the kinds of SyFy grindhouse monster flicks that repeat endlessly on daytime TV, there’s some value in checking out Queen Crab. A line near the end of the movie sums it up perfectly. One character – the official “crab” expert of the plot – says about the final plan to stop the menace, “It’s like The Sting, but with a giant crab.”

OK, whatever. Sure.

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