Island Claws is a genuinely bad film, not only by the standards of mainstream cinema, but also compared to other killer animal films. It has extremely lame monsters, bad acting, and fails to adequately explain how the monsters were created.
First and foremost, the film can't seem to decide whether the monster crabs were created by an accident at a nuclear power plant or by a scientist's hormonal experiments on crabs. The beginning of the film highlights an accident at the plant, but the rest of the film concentrates on the crab experiments. It's as if the filmmakers wanted to go with the time worn radiation theme, but decided against it at the last minute. Perhaps it was too tasteless after Three Mile Island.
The film also tries to interject social issues it is in no way equipped to deal with, such as Haitian refugees who get blamed for the crab killings. Seriously, no one wants to know what the makers of this film think about the Haitian refugee issue.
Worst of all is the film's inability to produce a suitably threatening monster. Seriously, for most of the film we are just confronted with large numbers of crabs. Average sized crabs. Seeing people running in terror from these crabs is not frightening, it's laughter inducing. The giant crab, which only appears in the last ten minutes, is incredibly fake looking. Its movements are so jerky they eliminate any real sense of fear.
Even if you like giant monster movies, don't waste your time with this one.
First and foremost, the film can't seem to decide whether the monster crabs were created by an accident at a nuclear power plant or by a scientist's hormonal experiments on crabs. The beginning of the film highlights an accident at the plant, but the rest of the film concentrates on the crab experiments. It's as if the filmmakers wanted to go with the time worn radiation theme, but decided against it at the last minute. Perhaps it was too tasteless after Three Mile Island.
The film also tries to interject social issues it is in no way equipped to deal with, such as Haitian refugees who get blamed for the crab killings. Seriously, no one wants to know what the makers of this film think about the Haitian refugee issue.
Worst of all is the film's inability to produce a suitably threatening monster. Seriously, for most of the film we are just confronted with large numbers of crabs. Average sized crabs. Seeing people running in terror from these crabs is not frightening, it's laughter inducing. The giant crab, which only appears in the last ten minutes, is incredibly fake looking. Its movements are so jerky they eliminate any real sense of fear.
Even if you like giant monster movies, don't waste your time with this one.