PAMELA DUNCAN & RICHARD GARLAND IN CORMAN'S 'ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS'

Year: 1957 Rating: **

It's a shame Roger Corman's remote island thriller ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS winds up so convoluted because leads Richard Garland and Pamela Duncan have an intriguing presence and story-line, investigating strange behavior of crabs on an island where two former colleagues vanished...

The problem is that Corman goes the THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD route by loading too many characters, including future GILLIGAN'S ISLAND professor Russell Johnson with Ed Nelson and more than half a dozen others: so when ghostly voices begin calling out from beyond, transforming nuclear-era science-fiction into a kind of slow-burn horror, there are way too many cooks to concentrate on how any single actor/actress can actually matter.

From ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS

From ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS

Richard Garland and Pamela Duncan in ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS

Russell Johnson and Pamela Duncan in ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS

Richard Garland and Pamela Duncan in ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS with Russell Johnson

Richard Garland and Pamela Duncan in ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS

Russell Johnson in ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS