Taking a loony trip to horror flicks of the past, the movie Queen Crab comes to home video. The campy little film uses similar techniques as 50’s monster movies like Attack of the 50ft Woman and The Blob. Although there has been success in the not too distant past with the genre, the cost of making any movie now days can be a huge deterrent and it shows here. If you are a connoisseur of old fashion horror or even the recent crop of low budget zombie movies, then you’ll find your crown in Queen Crab.
The simple storyline goes like this. A young girl Melissa finds a crab in a nearby pond and brings it into her father’s lab where he is inventing a biological formula to make things grow faster. He says to his daughter that since the world’s population continues to expand beyond the availability of food, that his experiment will grow food bigger and be able to feed the hordes. When the crab gets a nibble of the experimental growths on her father’s experimental tree it begins to grow. After an explosion in the lab leaving her an orphan she has to live with her Uncle the local Sheriff (Ken Van Sant).
When Melissa (Michelle Simone Miller) grows up and her now giant Queen Crab’s babies start killing the local cattle, the sheriff and his deputy Sonny (Rich Lounello) start doing pest control. Director Brett Piper who seems to have the freaky film genre to himself tears a page out of the 50’s horror comic books with Queen Crab. Using several forms of animation including stop motion for his killer crabs he amuses his audience without any payload of “real scare” result. It’s all about the ludicrous that attracts his audience and he does accomplish that with Queen Crab.
The dialogue delivery by the actors in the film creates a lot of chuckles. You would hope Piper intended it to be that way because if not the performances are below middle school level. But, in most cases it’s a liability of the low budget genre. Like most of the zombie films you see on TV and Video releases the director just lines up his actors followed by a number of extras and presto, a movie. Here it’s more like lining up a number of puppet or remote control crabs, some novice actors, stretch out a green screen and you “make a movie.”
One thing the film has most of are BONUS FEATURES.
Here is a list: “Commentary from director/writer Brett Piper and Producer Mark Polonia”, Bloopers, Behind the Scenes: Queen Crab Consequences, Behind the Scenes: Queen Crab Conversations, Behind the Scenes: Composing the Queen, “Triclops” Trailer, “Big Sleep” Trailer, and “Jurassic Prey” Trailer. They are all a hoot and don’t believe a word they are saying. Also, if you like the three trailers click on Trailers on the menu page and check out; “Raiders of the Lost Shark”, “The Amazing Bulk”, “The Mothman Curse”, “Swamphead”, “They Will Outlive Us All”, “Paranormal Halloween”, and “American Poltergeist”.
Queen Crab has not been rated by the MPAA but contains killer carb violence, very brief out of focus nudity, language, Campbell’s soup for blood and a lot gooey stuff. It’s not for kids.
FINAL ANALYSIS: If you like the obviously ludicrous this is your kind of film. (C)
Specifications and additional video information:
Cast: Michelle Simone Miller, Kathryn Metz, Rich Lounello
Director and writer: Brett Piper
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Genre: Horror, Comedy, Sci-Fi
Running Time: 1 hr. 30 min.
Video Release Date: September 29, 2015
Language: English
Reviewed Format: DVD
Audio: Unspecified
Video: 16×9 Aspect Ratio 1.78:1
Subtitles: None
Number of Discs: 1 Disc
Distributed by: Wild Eye Releasing
