Attack of the Crab Monsters, 1957, dir. Roger Corman. Watched on YouTube so you don’t have to.

What’s the attraction of this one? Well – who doesn’t like crabs? I don’t mean pubic lice, of course, although they’re fascinating in their own right, and you can get some medicated lotion from the pharmacy that will sort them out, no problem (so I’ve heard). NO – I mean the seashore variety. I love the way they move, like someone shifting an awkward box sideways, waving their free claws saying ‘Can I get a little help here?’

‘Attack of the Crab Monsters’ sounds a bit hysterical, if you ask me. A bit punchy. But if you’re putting together a horror title, you couldn’t really say ‘Nuclear Waste related Crustacean Mutation and the Unfortunate Events Pertaining’ and expect anyone to come. Not that I think many came to ‘Attack of the Crab Monsters’, to be fair.

However you like your crab, then, let’s settle back with some appropriate and socially acceptable snacks, as we press… PLAY!

Credits: Hyperactive, blaring, migraine-marching brass as the camera pans down over the animation of a twisted wreck on the seafloor, animated fish swimming past – the kind you might draw if you were five, or a Christian. ‘Attack of the Crab Monsters’ in white lettering like the title got holed on the surface and sank – which I hope isn’t an omen. (Dearest Viewer: It is).

Favourite name on the cast list so far: Mel Welles. Well, well – if it ain’t Mel Welles.

I must admit this title sequence is growing on me. It’s the kinda nightmare you’d have if you went to bed too soon after a big paella.

Second favourite name: Curley Batson. Don’t know why.

Closing image of the title sequence: a giant octopus tentacle sweeping across and grabbing the wreck as Roger Corman’s credit arrives. So he’s totally owning this picture. (Sucker).

1:28 Booming voiceover: ‘And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the Earth. Both Man and Beast and the creeping things and the fowls of the air. For it repenteth me that I have made them.’

Repenteth? Really? So I Googled it – and yep, there it is. Genesis 6:7.
For it repenteth me. Not ‘I regret’ or ‘I repent making them’ or ‘I made all these things and then had second thoughts because they were annoying and made the place look messy’ and such. Nope. ‘For it repenteth me’. Which is supposed to make it sound more official. Less like a child throwing a toy out the window.

But enough about religion. On with the crabs.

1:47 A boat coming ashore. Soundtrack is melancholy oboe, top notes of diesel outboard motor.

‘Make that line fast! Everybody ashore!’ shouts the Lieutenant in charge, completely unnecessarily. (What are they gonna do? Stay in the boat on the beach? What kinda film would THAT be?)

A guy in an enormous trench coat and sunglasses is first out the boat. Well – the sunglasses are normal size, but the effect overall is of a big guy who maybe wants to look bigger.

2:24 ‘You can only see a small part of the island from this spot, but you can feel the lack of welcome, lack of abiding life.. uh?’ says one of the team, a thumb-like guy in a clip-on moustache who looks like he eats with his arms around his food.

‘Yeah – I felt the same when I came here before to rescue your first crew,’ says the Lieutenant, sneeringly. He obviously rescues a lot of people. Only shoots a few.

‘Please Lieutenant! Some of those men were our friends,’ says a woman in coiffed hair and ski pants, her collar turned up. Must be a scientist.

‘Maybe if I call to them their ghosts will answer!’ says thumb guy, who now sounds French. (Maybe he always was). ‘McLane!!’ he shouts. Then ‘Hallooo!’ with his hand alongside his mouth, like someone who doesn’t just shout hallo but likes to mime it as well, in case they’re watching but can’t reply. In which case they’d have to throw a rock or something. Not sure. He’s the scientist.

A load of birds flies up. (Is that the collective? A load?) Anyway, it’s unsettling. Especially as the violins are now sawing away neurotically.

The Lieutenant tells them where the research station is located. He’s very direct, the Lieutenant. It comes with the hat.

3:00 The boat has gone back to the plane for more supplies (what plane? a sea plane? so many questions 3 minutes in). The Lieutenant shouts at the boat as it approaches the beach, as per, but despite all his shouting they still screw it up and sink. You see one of the men go down with his arms straight above his head, like he gave up the instant he hit the water and wanted it over quickly.

Cut to: an enormous eye suddenly opening on the seabed; the sailor screaming underwater.

03:30 The Lieutenant shouts instructions to the sailors on the boat – useful things like: Get him up! Get him outta there! – but when they do they find his head is missing. I’m surprised they don’t look over the side of the boat to see if they can see it floating, like a duck at the fair. Something they could hook.

‘Cover him’ says the Lieutenant.

4:05 The sailors have pitched camp on the beach and they stock it with rifles and ‘pineapples’.
‘I don’t know when we’re gonna use these out here anyways’ he says, tossing one hand to hand, like a baseball player.

4:45 Meanwhile, raincoat guy (I’ll find the names out shortly) and the others are at the science station, busy loading it with rifles and erm… pineapples.
‘Took his HEAD off? His HEAD?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ says the Lieutenant
‘I hope that man’s death is not an omen of things to come’ says the trenchcoat guy (who I THINK is Dr Weigand).
‘Something about the island is wrong,’ says Dr Weigand. (Yep).
‘No animal noises of any kind’ says the Lieutenant, screwing up his eyes and looking at the sky.

Inside the research station, we have a long scene where various characters demonstrate unsafe manual handling procedures.
‘Looks like we got the dynamite by mistake’ says one of them, almost backing into the female scientist and blowing her up.
‘I’m so sorry, maam’ says the guy.
‘That’s quite alright,’ she says. ‘Just call me Martha.

She looks around.
‘You know – the navy boys really fixed this place up,’ she says, like she can’t wait to get back to Hawaii and the clubs there.

06:05 ‘I don’t want to annoy you, Lieutenant,’ says Dr Weigand. ‘But nothing was left? Not a hair or a fingernail clipping?’

The Lieutenant seems much more relaxed around Dr Weigand than I would be.

06:25 Three sailors and some other guy (sorry to be so vague) are walking back down to the beach with another box of dynamite. They stop when they hear explosions in the distance – maybe anxious it might give their box ideas. They look around. The sky. Even behind them. I’m surprised one of them doesn’t check his pockets.

Meanwhile, the scientists and the Lieutenant are also heading back to the beach. When they hear the explosions they stop and hold on to a tree, which is touching.

The explosions set off a rockslide – which the sailors dodge pretty nicely, I have to say.
‘You okay, Mack?’ says one.
‘Yeah. Nothing that getting off this island won’t cure,’ he says, straightening his hat. He might as well be wearing a t-shirt that says Crab Fodder.

7:32 Mack jumps in the boat and starts the outboard, which sounds like a cow giving birth (not that I’ve ever heard a cow giving birth. But I can imagine.)

Everyone gives them a cheery wave off from the beach, never mind there’s a headless body on board.

08:08 Two sailors and another guy (wait a minute, okay?) watch them from a cliff.
‘Hey Hank! You’re a scientist!’ says one sailor. ‘How come they want demolition guys on this expedition?’
‘I’m no scientist,’ says Hank. ‘I’m a handyman.’
So that’s Hank. Full hero mode. Bomber jacket, utility belt, cleft chin. He stares moodily off to the side and the sailors swap glances.

Hank tells them what happened when there was an atomic test nearby. ‘The one that blew Oojamaflip island right outta the ocean’. Apparently it blanketed the area in magic dust (I’m paraphrasing), the kind that makes crabs go bad and not in a culinary way.

Hank then tells us who each character is as they walk up the cliff (finally!)
Dr Weigand – nuclear physicist (explains the sunglasses)
Dr Carson – geologist
Jules Deveraux – botanist
Martha Hunter and Dale Brewer – biologists. Martha also takes care of seafood, apparently.

They all line up on the cliff top to watch the seaplane takeoff. It goes along nicely for a while then blows up. Maybe pineapple related, not sure.

09:45 The island is engulfed in a terrible storm, Scooby Doo lightning, the works.
They all gather round the radio in the lab.
‘There’s something!’ says Martha.
‘A commercial station!’ says Dr Carson as some yodelling comes on.
‘All those men killed!’ says Marti, shivering.

10:43 They all gather in the living room to hear Dr Weigand read from a journal he found. (I’m guessing the storm took out Netflix). He’s still wearing his sunglasses, even though it’s dark inside. Maybe he’s got terrifying crab eyes or a stigmatism or something.

‘Friday, March Zwulf,’ he says. ‘Professor Carter found a large lump of flesh having the same composition as that of the earthworm….’
The camera pans along the faces of the scientists to see how they take that. They all look shocked except Dale, who smokes with the kind of intensity you only ever see in biologists.
‘… fire could not destroy the flesh, knives could not cut it…’
Dr Weigand snatches off his glasses. His eyes look a little crossed but that’s about it.
‘The journal ends there,’ he says.

Hank is worried about the worm. They try to reassure him it was probably a sea worm, which apparently you get onland sometimes (erm…). At that moment more explosions rock the joint. It passes, though. No biggie.

12:21 Hank is trying to get some shut eye on a camp bed, but the lab mice won’t shut up. He goes to look at them. Puts a sack over the cage. Hank – practical as ever.

Meanwhile, Dale is talking to Dr Weigand about the journal. Why did the professor stop in the middle of a sentence? It doesn’t make sense.
‘Unless something unusual happened’ says Dale. ‘You know – I haven’t seen any insect life since we arrived.’
‘Quiet!’ says Dr Weigand. ‘Listen!’
There’s the sound of snapping and rustling – the kind of sound someone makes trying to unwrap goddamn toffees in the auditorium. I mean – can’t you wait till the film’s over? What are you – a toffeeholic? Can’t you sate your appetite with something squishy like grapes?
They go to investigate.
It’s outside.
‘Just the wind!’ laughs Dr Weigand.
Sounded more like something snacking on bones, to me, but I’m not a nuclear physicist.

14:10 Martha is in scuba gear, flippering out into the sea. When she goes underwater you get the usual harp music. You always get harp music underwater. Harps and Sharks.

She gets to the sea floor okay. Fondles some fronds. Holds them up to her mask in a scientific way.
Close-up of some monstrous mouth approaching. And I don’t mean Hank.
(Lots of the fish shots here are stock footage from San Diego Aquarium, I’d guess).
She’s joined by another diver. Who that is I’ve no idea. (The mask is obscuring his dimples).

They find the wreck of a ship. Martha looks at some more fronds. Maybe she’s a frond specialist. Back home she’s probably got lots of fronds.

Meanwhile the guy paddles around aimlessly. I don’t think he’s got any specialty. Except maybe paddling and looking clueless – which he does pretty well.

Next thing you know, they’re wading out of the ocean!

The guy holds Martha’s arm as they walk out of the water together. Not sure why. She was perfectly alright going IN. He also helps her take her things off. Again… seems unnecessary.
‘You nearly frightened me to death!’ she says, shaking out her hair.
‘You looked scared down there!’ says Hank (It’s Hank)
‘I was scared. And lost, too!’ she says.
Close up of a crab on the beach – a normal one, though. Gives you a little taste of the crab horror to come.

18:00 The others wave to Hank and Martha from the cliff top. When they get up there they see a big landslip. Dr Carson wants to go down there but Dr Weigand won’t let him because he’ll be crushed to death and anyway they can’t afford the insurance hike. They notice the rocks are glazed, like they’ve been fired in a kiln. Hmm. They tell the crab fodder – sorry, sailors – to put lamps round the edge so no one falls in.
‘Right!’ say the sailors, who obviously have no idea. They frown, putting their hats on.

19:16 Nightime. With violins (always tense).
‘Martha!’ says a disembodied voice. ‘Awake! It is McLane! Martha! Come to me!’
(McLane is the leader of the missing expedition. I only know cos I looked it up. I mean – I’m embarrassed. Barely twenty minutes in and I still have no idea who’s who. Despite the cliff top introduction. That’s why no one invites me on expeditions. And if they do, why they keep me away from the pineapples).

‘Help me! Help me, Martha!’ says McLane’s voice.
She tosses on some clothes.
‘Martha! Come to me!’
She heads for the beach.
(Careful, Martha. It’s a classic crab trap.)
Dr Carson pops out and makes her jump. (What is it with these scientists, always making Martha jump?)
‘So you heard it, too!’ he says, menacingly. ‘How could the navy search this whole island and miss a survivor?’
(I don’t know, but going on how they handle headless bodies, pineapples, seaplanes, I’m not that surprised).

20:57 They go to the landslip. Dr Carson ropes-up ready to go down there.
‘Jim! You’re not going down there!’ says Martha.
‘Yes I am!’ says Dr Carson.
‘But – Karl was against it!’
‘He’s afraid of cave-ins!’ says Dr Carson. ‘I’m not’
Martha watches as he lowers himself down.
There are more explosions. Martha lies down, immediately unconscious. You hear screaming from Dr Carson down in the pit.

21:57 The others rush out. Dale picks Martha up.
‘She’s fainted. No more,’ says Jules Deveraux, botanist.
She wakes up.
‘Where’s Jim?’ asks Dale.
‘He’s in the pit.’
Dr Weigand shouts into the pit. ‘Are you alive?’
‘It’s my leg. It’s broken,’ says Dr Carson.
They decide to get down to him by going through some caves.
Dale takes Martha back to the station.

23:40 Jules and Dr Weigand meet two sailors coming back up the path. The sailors say they thought the whole island was coming down.
‘We must go quickly!’ says Weigand. ‘There is very little time!’
‘Little time for what?’ asks one sailor as the two scientists hurry on.
‘That is Dr Weigand’s small secret,’ says Jules Deveraux, botanist.

24:41 They all meet up outside a cave on the beach. One of the sailors gets told off for throwing a rock at a crab. (He didn’t have a pineapple, so…)
‘Have you ever seen those things go at a marine?’ says the sailor. ‘They’ll pick him clean in five minutes.’
(Really?)

The five of them go into the cave.

25:10 Meanwhile, back in the station, Martha is checking the journal to see if there’s any mention of the caves.
‘It always happened at night,’ says Dale, leaning over her in a creepy way.
They’re interrupted by more explosions and then some more snapping sounds, like someone’s at the goddamn toffees again.
Dale gets a gun out of a drawer. I’m with him on this.

Crashing sounds from behind a door.
‘Don’t go in there!’ says Martha.
Dale goes in there.

A giant claw knocks the gun out of his hand!

He hurries back outside and hugs Martha. Doesn’t say anything. Just hugs her. Maybe he’s figuring if he tells her about the claw and she faints, he won’t be able to carry her and outrun the crab.

26:08 Back in the caves.
‘Come quickly!’ says Carson’s disembodied voice.
‘We must move with caution!’ says Dr Weigand.
‘Why?’ says the sailor.
(It looks like the dumber you are in this film, the more likely you are to wear a hat).

26:43 Back in the station, the crab trashes his room like a rowdy teenager and Dale and Martha wait outside like hopeless parents. The lights fizz out and the crab screams. Maybe he was trying to amp-up his decks and shorted the circuit? Too early to tell.

26:52 Back in the caves. They come to the pit, find blood but no body.

Dr Weigand insists they come back in the morning when there’s more light. He also insists they climb up the rope rather than retrace their steps. Why? Who can say.
‘Our tent’s just outside the cave,’ says a sailor. ‘We don’t have to go up the rope.’
‘Up the rope!’ says Dr Weigand.
The sailors pull a kind of ‘yeech’ expression, then follow Jules Deveraux, botanist, up the rope.

27:54 Back in the station, Martha lights a lamp. The dreadful teenage noises have stopped, so they feel safe enough to go into the room and maybe tidy up a little. But everything’s destroyed, including the radio.

29:25 Next morning, the others have joined Martha and Dale in the wrecked control room.
‘Well!’ says Jules Deveraux, ‘all I can say is – why wasn’t I invited to the party?’
He waves his hat. ‘Not funny, eh?’ he says.
No Jules, it’s not.

Dr Weigand gives a summary of where we are to date, cradling a microscope in his hands to give his speech more authenticity. I’m not sure how far the speech gets us, though. It’s all a bit vague. A mountain has disappeared. A science team. The station is smashed up. ‘Everything that has happened… from the death of the first sailor to the destruction of our radio… must be somehow related… they are too far from the normal scheme of things to be … separate accidents…’

Well, now, professor – ya THINK?

‘Let us again seek Dr Carson!’ concludes Dr Weigand, struggling to hold the microscope AND tuck his tie in.

31:15 So the five of them go back to the caves with their surprisingly ineffective torches. (It doesn’t look like they went down via the rope, though – which is safer but inonsistent).

They prod about in the caves but can’t find Dr Carson anywhere.

There are more explosions. Rocks start falling. Jules Deveraux falls over and gets his hand neatly severed by a rock. I mean – even the wrist watch is untouched. Jules stares at the stump, screams, then faints. Martha takes off her belt to make a tourniquet or gag, not sure. The two sailors run in and say most of the island has ‘fallen into the drink already’. They all help Jules up, his stump wrapped in a hankie.

32:42 Back at the station. Jules is in bed, feverishly speaking bad French as Martha mops his brow. Not with a mop, though.

She stops mopping when he passes out.

33:23 Back on the beach, the two sailors are playing poker in the tent, which is sweet. They’re using sticks of dynamite for money. Which isn’t.

Their game is interrupted by the weird clicking sound. First sailor takes the stogy out of his mouth and frowns.
‘What’s that?’ he says. (A stogy is a cheap cigar. You’re welcome).

First sailor takes the lamp, looks outside, looks up, screams, dodges back in the tent as something huge bears down on him and the tent collapses.

34:19 Back with Jules in the sick room. He’s woken up by a chorus of disembodied voices (they’re getting bolder as well as more numerous). They tell him to come meet them in the pit. ‘I’ll be there,’ says Jules, even though he just lost his hand and everything. These French botanists are a tough breed and always up for it.

He staggers outside. Goes to the pit. Stands there asking where they are.

‘Right here, professor’ says a voice, as a giant claw grabs him round the throat. (Still manages to scream, though).

His screaming wakes Martha up, who throws on some fronds and slippers and hurries out. She meets up with the other three scientists who come out of separate rooms, all buckling their belts, though, which looks a bit suspicious.
‘Jules?’ says Martha.
‘Yes,’ says his disembodied voice. (I should totally copy & paste the word ‘disembodied’).

They carry on chatting to the disembodied Jules – who seems to think that merely by talking to them in a suave French way they won’t notice that actually his bed is empty. But for some reason, when Dr Weigand picks up a candlestick holder, the voice says congratulations, and promises to be back for the rest of them the next night.
‘What does it mean, doctor?’ says Dale.
‘… we are dealing with a man who is dead – but whose voice and memory live.’

37:45 Next morning, Hank goes down to the beach to check on the sailors. The other three are way ahead of him, standing around the wreck of the tent.
‘Where are the bodies?’
‘They were eaten’ says Weigand – who seems to know a lot about this kind of thing.

38:45 The four of them are sitting round a table, smoking.
‘It’s long after dark,’ says Dale. Even though it was morning about five seconds ago. Things happen fast on this crabby island. Hank plays with his pistol.
‘Good evening, mes amis’ says disembodied Jules. ‘Harken to all things metal, for I may be in them.’
They all look at Hank’s pistol. Great. Thanks, Hank.
But at least it explains the candlestick holder mystery.
‘Something remarkable has ‘appened to me,’ says Jules, apparently from the pistol. ‘I would like you all to come and see for yourselves.’ (Please don’t say the pit)
‘Where are you?’ says Martha, to erm… to the pistol.
‘In the pit,’ says Jules.

39:55 The three guys go down the pit. In through the caves, not down the rope. Just saying.
Martha isn’t with them. She must be staying behind taking care of seafood.

‘We are here!’ shouts Dr Weigand. ‘Show yourselves!’

They hear the annoying clicking sound, and head in that direction.

Suddenly an enormous crab lurches puppetly into view. They shoot at it. Hank throws a pineapple, which takes a claw off. Nasty. Then Dale throws a pineapple which blows a row of stalactites (note: stalaCtites from the ceiling down – stalaGmites from the ground up). The crab gets well and truly forked.
‘I killed it!’
‘Yes. By the sheerest luck!’ says Dr Weigand (who could choose his moments, honestly).
He knocks off a claw for them to take with them – what for exactly, I’m not sure. Maybe lunch?

Another enormous crab bobs round the corner. They run away after lighting some dynamite – which goes off but I’m not sure to what effect.

42:37 Back at the station, the guys are repairing the radio and Martha is rustling up a tonne of bisque. Dr Weigand tries to explain stuff about atoms and electricity while Martha stares at the others as if to say: what a dweeb. Apparently the crab is made of free atoms, all disconnected. (Same)

‘That means the crab can eat his victim’s brain, absorbing his mind intact and working?’ says Dale.
‘It’s as good as any other theory,’ says Dr Weigand, decanting fluid between test tubes. He’s in his element here. Or one of them.

‘Okay professor,’ says Hank. ‘How are the crabs blowing up the island…?’ (Which is the single greatest quote from this film, I’d say).

Martha passes round some polaroids of the crab. She says it’s maybe pregnant. Which explains the mood swings.

45:30 Hank puts on some gloves and zaps the claw with electricity. The claw disappears.
‘That proves the crab is negatively charged,’ says Dale.
‘Hank! You must create a trap of positive energy!’ says Dr Weigand. (Which doesn’t sound like Hank at all).

They rig up two electric fans and decide to take them into the caves.
‘But they’re underwater now!’
Martha and Hank put on their aqua gear.
They climb down the rope (huh?)

47:40 Martha and Hank are busy putting polystyrene rocks round the fans.
‘It’s lonesome in here,’ says Martha (which is not the kind of thing I’d be saying if I was down in a cave with a giant crab after me, but still).
‘I bet you could be lonesome in a crowd,’ says Martha, not willing to let it drop. ‘Unless you found that special someone…’
Hank goes to kiss her, but gets interrupted by some heavy breathing (not Martha).

Hank goes to stab the crab to get some mercury (huh?) in much the same way he went to get a kiss from Martha – but the crab wakes up and knocks the knife out of his hand with a well swung claw. They run, and the crab wobbles after them, making an annoying snapping noise as it goes.

49:12 Hank and Martha are underwater now, pursued by harps and a giant crab.

They make it ashore. So does the crab.
Dale shoots at it from the cliff top.
‘So! You have wounded me!’ says the crab, his googly eyes crazy wide. ‘I can grow a new claw! But can you grow a new life when I have taken yours from you?’ (Which is a mixed up sentence, but hey – the crab’s maybe in shock or something.)

More of the island starts collapsing.

Back at the station, everything’s shaking.

Hank fixes the radio. Dale and Dr Weigand head back outside to check on the island.
‘I guess it’s about time I fixed us some food,’ says Martha.

52:38 Hank finds some Hawaian music on the radio. DJ Pineapple Jo. He smiles and lights a cigarette.

52:59 Dale and the Dr are back on the cliff top. The pit’s gone, at least. They hear more explosions and head that way.

53:20 ‘Where did you ever learn to fix all these things?’ says Martha, fiddling with his knobs.
‘In the navy during the war,’ says Hank. ‘And I knocked around a lot in the TV and radio repair business’ (taking a long drag of his cigarette, like the TV and radio repair business was the coolest thing to work in EVER).
She says she and Dale will get married when he finally gets his promotion.
Hank looks peeved.

54:30 Dr Weigand finds oil and wants to locate the source. He’s not so worried about the crab now, as it very helpfully makes an annoying noise before it strikes, like a rattlesnake, or maybe someone eating toffees in a cinema, seemingly unable to wait until the end so they can trough as many as they damn well like in the foyer and their pancreas will explode and no one will care.

‘At the first sign of a rattle, get outta there!’ says Dale.
‘Alright! Don’t worry! says Dr Weigand, who seems to be getting a big kick out of all this.

Dale follows a stream of oil into a cave. Without a torch. On his own. With a giant man crunching crab on the loose. Just saying.

Dr Weigand goes into another cave. (At least he takes his sunglasses off).

Dale sees the crab, but manages to avoid it by the scientific application of ‘hiding’, then runs back outside.

56:08 He runs up the path towards Martha and Hank, who’ve obviously had enough of all the light entertainment and want more horror. Hank has two pineapples slung from his belt, which is a look.
‘We’ve got to get Dr Weigand out before it’s too late!’ says Dale.
‘Well let’s go!’ says Hank. ‘Stay there, Martha!’

56:28 Dr Weigand finds the electric fans and fiddles about with them. The crab appears. Dr Weigand runs away but gets electrocuted by the fans. The crab makes some appreciative noises (preferring his meat well done) and sets about nipping off his head. The other three scientists run around a bit, then Dale throws a lighter into the oil and sets off an explosion.

‘That was quick thinking!’ says a disembodied Dr Weigand. ‘But one day all fires must burn out!’

They hurry back to the station.

58:36 Hank is busy tapping out morse code for ‘Help we’re being attacked by crabs’
‘Hah ha ha!’ says disembodied Dr Weigand (or DDW for short). ‘I’m afraid that won’t help you, Hank. By the time ships and planes arrive, this island will have vanished beneath the waves. But don’t worry. You will be a part of me. And we will wait in the caves and plan our assault on the world of men…’

More explosions. The ceiling comes down and the island falls to bits.

The three of them hurry outside and climb to higher ground as the ocean rises.
The DDW taunts them through the aerial at the summit.
Hank and Dale pool their pineapples.
The crab advances towards them out of the sea.
They toss their pineapples (I’d be tossing my cookies).
‘Foolish! Very foolish!’ taunts the DDW.
Hank runs in with his last pineapple but gets whacked by a claw.
Hank climbs the aerial, trying to pull it down on top of the crab.
The crab winks at him, which pushes Hank to even greater fury.
Hank falls with the aerial onto the crab, and both of them get fried.

‘He gave his life’ says Dale, kissing Martha’s hair.
‘I know!’ breathes Martha, not sure if she’s ended up with the right one. She coulda been with Hank, the handy radio and TV repair guy. But still – the crab n’all.

As the music and everything else swells…

And that’s it!

So what’ve we learned?

1. Toffees are absolutely NOT an appropriate snack item for consumption in the cinema auditorium. If you MUST eat, why not take in a punnet of strawberries?
2. If you’re stuck on an island with man eating giant crabs, probably best not get distracted playing poker. (Or smoking stogies, if you’re using dynamite as chips.)
3. Giant man eating crabs that absorb your brains and thoughts are one thing, but creeps who knocked around a lot in radio and TV repair are something else.
4. A crab can eat a marine in five minutes. An officer, three.
5. Oil. Just stop, okay?