Grabbers
(2012) 94 Min.
Rated: NR (Gore)
Country: Ireland | UK
Director: Jon Wright
Stars: Killian Coyle, Stuart Graham, Michael Hough, Ruth Bradley
Links: IMDB | Wikipedia
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Two police officers discover an invasion of tentacle creatures on a small remote Irish island.
Synopsis:
A small boat off the coast of Ireland sees a meteor fall into the ocean and initially believes it’s flare. They try to call for help but the crew is picked off one by one by an unseen menace.
Two Garda (Irish Police officers) meet up for the first time the next morning and begin work together. Garda Ciarán O’Shea (Coyle) is an alcoholic and Garda Lisa Nolan (Bradley) is a cheerful workaholic. Nolan is temporarily working in the remote Irish island.
The pair go off to investigate a large mass of dead pilot whales along the shore. Nolan meets the local marine ecologist, Dr. Smith. Later a lobster fisherman, Paddy, tells O’Shea that he’s caught a “sea monster” while the two drink at a pub.
That evening a monster terrorizes a man and his wife in their homes.
Back at the pub Paddy tells O’Shea that he thinks Nolan has a “spark” in her eyes for him. O’Shea, drunk, tries to ask Nolan down for drinks, but she is not impressed. O’Shea passes out.
Paddy goes to check on his sea monster, but it attacks him. Paddy is able to gain control and stomps on the beast, stunning it.
The next day he informs O’Shea and Nolan. Dr. Smith is already examining the beast in a lab. Paddy decides to name the creature a Grabber. Dr. Smith also tells them that the creature was a female and shows them an egg she had inside her body. The creatures live on blood and need water also to survive.
Nolan and O’Shea go over to the house of the couple who were killed in their home and find a head. They go back to Paddy’s house and discover that a large hole is in the wall of the home and the bathtub is broken. The two speculate that there is a male Grabber around and it seems that the creature can only travel during rainy weather.
The trio head down to the shore where a cave that is empty when the tide is low exists. The two Garda go into the cave and explore it. Paddy, meanwhile, finds a small nest of eggs buried in the sand. O’Shea and Nolan discover a huge Grabber in the cave and run for their lives. The trio manages to escape as the exit from the cave is too small for the Grabber.
They go to Smith’s lab and try to burn the female, but it sets off the fire sprinkler system. The water from the system brings the Grabber back to life and she attacks O’Shea on his face. After struggling with the creature she falls off and vomits up his blood. Smith, O’Shea and Nolan stomp on the female Grabber until she’s no longer moving. They realize that the monster doesn’t really like the blood of intoxicated people.
The group decides to shut themselves in and get intoxicated in order to protect themselves from the creatures.
They test their theory by getting Nolan drunk and taking blood samples. They feed the blood sample to the female Grabber and it kills her. Nolan also takes a breathalyzer test and registers a .2 on the Blood Alcohol Content scale.
O’Shea goes to the local church and tells the townsfolk that there will be a party at the local pub with free drinks. Everyone goes down to the pub to get plastered. O’Shea is the only one who promised to remain sober so that he can keep an eye on things. A downpour starts during that night and while Nolan and O’Shea are siting in a patrol car Nolan admits to fancying O’Shea though he feels that it’s not the right time for such things.
One of the bar patrons goes outside to take a piss and gets attacked by one of the baby Grabbers who have hatched and are now crawling around. O’Shea and Nolan attempt to rescue him and the giant male Grabber appears and eats the man, spitting out his head. The male Grabber destroys the patrol vehicle and O’Shea and Nolan head into the pub for protection.
Smith stumbles outside in a drunken state and attempts to take photos of the male Grabber. The Grabber knocks him away across the horizon to certain death.
O’Shea moves the group upstairs as the tiny baby Grabbers make their way into the pub. While there they hatch a plan to get a truck that grabs the male Grabber and hold it until the sun comes out and dries it out. Nolan goes down to the pub to retrieve the keys since she’s still drunk. The baby Grabbers don’t really attack her. As she gets the keys she notices the male Grabber entering through the back entrance of the pub.
It grabs her and drags her towards it. She manages to cut off the tentacle grabbing her and escape, but she starts a fire in the pub on accident. The male Grabber attacks the second story of the building. Nolan takes the truck and starts to drive as the male Grabber gets distracted by her and O’Shea.
They lure it to the nearby mine and O’Shea attempts to lure it close to some oil drums. The creature gets pinned under a large construction vehicle driven by Nolan. As the pair think they are safe, it grabs O’Shea by the waist. O’Shea drops in a bottle of Paddy’s homebrew moonshine into the mouth of the Grabber causing it to toss O’Shea back on the ground. Nolan shoots the nearby oil barrels with a flare gun and causes a large explosion which kills the Grabber.
The next morning Nolan and O’Shea walk back towards the pub and share a kiss. As the film ends it pans down to the shoreline and the eggs buried in the sand that Paddy had seen earlier.
Review:
Grabbers is a fun little creature feature that takes the alien invasion trope and has a bit of fun with it. The film is fun and does showcase a bit of comedic moments, but it’s not outright comedy of the same caliber of Shaun of the Dead. Small town alien invasions have been done before in films like Critters and Tremors.
The love story that develops during the film feels a bit forced and there is not enough chemistry or character development to really make anyone care.
The only really interesting aspect of this film is the setting and the premise that a monster won’t eat you if you’re drunk enough.
Though the film has it’s flaws it’s still fairly entertaining and worth at least one view. It never takes itself too seriously. This film knows what kind of a movie it is and for that it gets a lot of credit.