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#48 - Grabbers
Jon Wright, 2012
The inhabitants of a remote Irish island must defend themselves against a species of blood-sucking aliens.
A year before Edgar Wright made The World's End, a certain other director named Wright made his own sci-fi comedy involving alcohol and aliens. With Grabbers, the aliens in question are large, squid-like creatures that can only move in damp conditions and sustain themselves by drinking the blood of their prey. Fortunately, it turns out that these "grabbers" (as they are so named by the old drunkard who discovers them) do have one serious weakness - they are seriously allergic to alcohol. Unfortunately, it turns out that there's a storm coming and soon the grabbers will be able to come onto the island and start looking for food. It is at this point that the island's alcoholic chief constable (Richard Coyle) comes up with a foolproof plan - get everyone on the island drunk enough to ward off alien attacks and keep them contained within the island's solitary pub. Of course, when alcohol is involved in quantities as large as this, such a plan is never that simple...
While the concept at the heart of Grabbers is a sufficiently interesting one (albeit one mired in Irish stereotypes), the resulting film struggles to deliver for the most part. I can definitely respect the quality that's gone into the effects work on what is presumably a low budget, with a mix of practical and CGI effects working well enough to bring the grabbers to life. In addition, there's some pleasant use of natural lighting to really make the picturesque landscape pop out. Unfortunately, despite the film's apparently comical vibe, there are virtually no laughs to be had here. The characters are one-note in terms of both characteristics and development - the actors can only do so much in such a lean film. Not even the premise that requires them to get drunker and drunker is an automatic guarantee of any humour (even with Ruth Bradley's teetotaler mainland copper getting very into the action compared to everyone else). As a result, Grabbers may look fairly decent under the circumstances but it's generally a pretty underwhelming excuse for a horror-comedy and barely worth watching.
Jon Wright, 2012
The inhabitants of a remote Irish island must defend themselves against a species of blood-sucking aliens.
A year before Edgar Wright made The World's End, a certain other director named Wright made his own sci-fi comedy involving alcohol and aliens. With Grabbers, the aliens in question are large, squid-like creatures that can only move in damp conditions and sustain themselves by drinking the blood of their prey. Fortunately, it turns out that these "grabbers" (as they are so named by the old drunkard who discovers them) do have one serious weakness - they are seriously allergic to alcohol. Unfortunately, it turns out that there's a storm coming and soon the grabbers will be able to come onto the island and start looking for food. It is at this point that the island's alcoholic chief constable (Richard Coyle) comes up with a foolproof plan - get everyone on the island drunk enough to ward off alien attacks and keep them contained within the island's solitary pub. Of course, when alcohol is involved in quantities as large as this, such a plan is never that simple...
While the concept at the heart of Grabbers is a sufficiently interesting one (albeit one mired in Irish stereotypes), the resulting film struggles to deliver for the most part. I can definitely respect the quality that's gone into the effects work on what is presumably a low budget, with a mix of practical and CGI effects working well enough to bring the grabbers to life. In addition, there's some pleasant use of natural lighting to really make the picturesque landscape pop out. Unfortunately, despite the film's apparently comical vibe, there are virtually no laughs to be had here. The characters are one-note in terms of both characteristics and development - the actors can only do so much in such a lean film. Not even the premise that requires them to get drunker and drunker is an automatic guarantee of any humour (even with Ruth Bradley's teetotaler mainland copper getting very into the action compared to everyone else). As a result, Grabbers may look fairly decent under the circumstances but it's generally a pretty underwhelming excuse for a horror-comedy and barely worth watching.