Island Claws
Entry updated 4 April 2017. Tagged: Film.
Film (1980; vt Giant Claws). Produced by Ted Swanson. Directed by Hernan Cardenas. Written by Jack Cowden and Ricou Browning from a story by Hernan Cardenas and Colby Cardenas. Cast includes Dick Callinan, Steve Hanks, Robert Lansing, Jo McDonnell and Barry Nelson. 90 minutes, cut to 82 minutes. Colour.
Reporter Jan Raines (McDonnell) visit a small Island off the Florida coast to report on Dr McNeal (Nelson), who is working to improve crabs as a food source. Her father Frank (Callinan) owns the local nuclear power plant, which has accidentally released radioactive water into the sea around the island (the Three Mile Island nuclear accident was in March 1979). This causes the crab population to become aggressive and attack local communities. Most are normal crustaceans (often in stock footage), but one giant roaring Mutant crab perhaps twelve feet across appears late in the action. It is quickly dispatched by Poison gas, and the film concludes happily for most of the cast.
This minor Horror in SF production never generates much tension, and actual deaths are few. There is a rare screenwriting credit for Browning, who played the title role of The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) in the underwater sequences. [GSt]
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