Attack of the Crab Monsters



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"Once... they were men. Now they are land crabs.""

- Scientist, Attack of the Crab Monsters

A 1957 B movie from that font of B-movies, Roger Corman.

A group of scientists land on a remote pacific isle after it was irradiated, in search of a previous group who went missing studying the effects of the radiation from the Bikini Atol tests on the local ecosystem. Turns out they were eaten by Giant Mutant Land Crabs (!) who have absorbed their intelligences by eating their brains. The crabs then go about killing the humans one by one. Once the humans learn of their weakness, the crabs step up their plan to hunt them down, using dynamite to destroy the island bit by bit. Cornered and on the run, the crabs close in for the kill...

This work provides examples of:

 * Assimilation Plot: The Crabs do this whenever they eat someone. Absorbing them into their collective consciousness of each individual crab.
 * B Movie: The Trope Image!
 * Exactly What It Says On the Tin
 * The Fifties
 * Giant Enemy Crab: The crabs.
 * Heroic Sacrifice: Hank Chapman
 * I Am a Humanitarian: The crabs
 * I Love Nuclear Power: Source of the mutant land crabs.
 * Nuclear Nasty
 * Nigh Invulnerable: The crabs are immune to all physical attacks--which just pass through them as if they were globs of mercury. Elecriticy, however, kills them instantly.
 * Playing With Fire: The Crabs can produce "arcs of heat" which they use to detonate dynamite.
 * Touch of the Monster: The poster.
 * Voice Changeling: The crabs can mimic the voice of any person they hear by vibrating any nearby metal. This creates an echo to the voice that serves as a haunting tip off.