ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS (1957)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*

Following the recent demise of B-movie King Roger Corman on May 9, I decided to re-watch one of his earliest sci-fi offerings. I didn't remember liking it much, but this time I noticed more content in ATTACK than in previous Corman-directed works using the trope "small cast of characters faces SF-threat in desolate location." Griffith's script is much more focused upon the terror of "nature striking back" than the four previous SF-offerings in this vein: MONSTER FROM THE OCEAN FLOOR, BEAST WITH A MILLION EYES, DAY THE WORLD ENDED and IT CONQUERED THE WORLD.

Following a faux-Biblical quote about God destroying humankind, the audience witnesses a naval plane drop off a small team of scientists, and two sailors, onto a Pacific island. Previously the island was an atomic test site, though presumably everyone thinks it safe now. An earlier scientific expedition landed on the isle some time back, but the navy lost all contact with that group, presuming them dead by misadventure. Speaking of misadventure, once the scientists have been dropped off, the plane blows up when it attempts to take off. The scientists later seek to alert the authorities via a radio in the deserted research-station, but static interferes with broadcasts, effectively stranding the expedition. This is further complicated by the fact that at times parts of the island are simply breaking off and sinking into the sea. This may or may not have something to do with the fact that the only wildlife on the isle consists of seagulls and lots and lots of crabs.

Two scientists are in a romance: Dale and Martha (Richard Garland and Pamela Duncan, who would also appear together the same year in Corman's THE UNDEAD), while two others are played by "cult-film" performers Mel Welles and Russell Johnson. In any case, the scientists begin hearing ethereal voices that seem to belong to the lost investigation team-- and when members of the current expedition also perish, they too seem able to communicate from the other world. But the island is haunted only by atomic specters. A pair of crabs were mutated by radiation, becoming huge and capable of assimilating human intelligence by devouring humans. Further, the creatures are almost invulnerable, and are responsible for the gradual decay of the island's integrity, so that even if the survivors can avoid the two monsters, the island will eventually plunge them into the sea's bosom.

Writer Charles Griffith carefully establishes a rough ecosystem for the island. Yet my favorite part of ATTACK is his pseudoscience rationale for the crab's near-invulnerability, claiming that they've been mutated into masses of "free atoms." It's nonsense, but it works to establish why most of the scientists' assaults fail, giving the last two humans just one last-ditch maneuver. (One guess which two survive at the end, to be presumably rescued once the mutant crabs are no longer messing with radio reception.) I don't consider any of the cookie-cutter scientists to have any mythicity-- though Martha is refreshingly professional and free of stereotypical feminine weaknesses-- so that only the Crab Monsters sustain a sci-fi myth.