Main Cast: Richard Garland, Pamela Duncan, Russell Johnson, Leslie E. Bradley, Mel Welles
Release Year: 1957
Country: US
Run Time: 62 minutes
Plot
A group of scientists arrive on a remote Pacific island to investigate what became of the previous team, which was sent out there as observers of American hydrogen bomb tests and disappeared without a trace. They island is uninhabited and devoid even of most animal life, except for a few land crabs. The group's arrival is marred by the death of one of the navy crewmen accompanying them, who falls into the ocean and comes up with his head taken off. Then the navy plane that carried them there is blown out of the sky before it can get airborne, leaving them stranded and unaccounted for. Led by Dale Drewer (Richard Garland) and Dr. Karl Weigand (Leslie E. Bradley), they find the journal of the previous team, but no explanation of what happened to them, only that they'd noticed evidence of strange creatures and inexplicable physical phenomena on the island. Soon the scientists are hearing the voices of members of the previous scientific party, calling to them in the night. Their own radio is sabotaged and something has been probing the area where they're living; finally, the group is lured into the caverns where the real menace is hiding -- gigantic, bloodthirsty mutated land crabs that communicate telepathically and seem to have all of the knowledge of the previous team's members. One by one, all but three of the members -- Brewer, electrical engineer Hank Chapman (Russell Johnson), and scientist Martha Hunter (Pamela Duncan) -- are killed off and their minds and memories absorbed by the mutant crabs, who also have the power to focus infrared radiation into deadly, destructive beams that they use to gradually pulverize large sections of the island. By the end, a single giant crab has run the trio to ground on a remaining parcel of land just a few dozen yards across. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Review
A silly but lovable sci-fi cheapie from the prolific Roger Corman, this monster movie has mutant brain-eating crabs attacking scientists on an irradiated island. The cast -- including Mel Welles, Russell Johnson, and Jonathan Haze -- will delight genre buffs, and although the crabs themselves are quite unfrightening, Corman manages to keep it entertaining. Some claim that one pair of visible shoes beneath the tacky creatures belonged to Jack Nicholson. It's only 64 minutes long, well-paced, and just the thing to warm up a video monster marathon. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
Richard H. Cutting - Dr. James Carson; Tony Miller - Jack Somers; Ed Nelson - Ens. Quinlan; Charles Beach Dickerson - Ron Fellows; Charles B. Griffith - Tate; Ernst R. von Theumer - Jules Deveroux
A group of scientists land on a remote island in the Pacific to search for a previous expedition that disappeared and to continue research about the effects of radiation from the Bikini Atoll nuclear tests on the island's plant and sea life. They learn to their horror that the earlier group of scientists have been eaten by mutated giant crabs that have gained intelligence by absorbing the minds of their victims. Members of the current expedition are systematically attacked and killed by the crabs, which are invulnerable to most weaponry because of the mutation in their cell structure. Finally, they discover the crabs are the cause of the earthquakes and landslides that are destroying the island. As the remaining expedition members struggle to survive on the ever-shrinking island, they must also find a way to stop the crabs before they reproduce and invade the oceans of the world.
