The Irish creature feature Grabbers grabs some horror veterans for its cast, including Russell Tovey of gay TV show Looking and the original UK version of the series Being Human, and a guy who appeared in the Nazi zombie film Outpost: Black Sun.
The opening is great. A sort of shooting star meteor crashes in the water near a boat at night. It doesn’t end well for the couple of guys on the boat….
Grabbers is actually modest in its humor rather than being nonstop gags. In fact, much of it is a semi-serious slow burner. There are moments of horror involving the creatures, which are tentacles aliens (very good CGI tentacle aliens). There are also some fantastic shots of Ireland. A good portion of the movie involves a small group of people figuring out exactly what the creatures are…and discovering that the only way you are safe from them is if you are piss drunk!
OK. So that’s where the humor comes in. They basically get the town to jam into a pub to party, without telling them why they are getting them wasted. And then comes the attack of the Grabbers. There are little baby Grabbers. There’s a huge Grabber! There are plenty of one-liners.
And you can predict the last half hour. There’s a boss battle, a chase scene, a big explosion…and a final frame of a leftover egg….
Grabbers definitely gets more entertaining as it reaches the end and exploits the creatures.
