After the first team go missing without trace a second team of scientist visit a Pacific island, investigating the effects of nuclear radiation, but encounter giant, intelligent, speaking (yes, I did say speaking!) crabs! A Roger Corman cheapie this is so bad that it's actually rather good fun. The crabs are the stars here. Couple of gory moments, a headless corpse and a man with a severed hand. The sets and some of the actors look familiar, no doubt from other Corman flicks.

Here's another great title from Roger Corman, but it's a shame about the movie itself which has a lot of potential but doesn't really take that anywhere. The silly script and bizarre storyline seems to have been made up on the spot (knowing Corman's track record, maybe it was) and is a far cry from the acclaimed Poe adaptations he would be creating a few years later. Instead what we have is a campy, no-budget B-movie in which giant, poorly-designed crabs go around and kill a few people with their rubber claws. Oh, and they're indestructible and can communicate telepathically with people, okay? Still, it's not the worst film ever made and will pass the time moderately well for bad movie lovers, and the best thing is that it's admirably short.The strange storyline and ridiculous plot elements (the island on which our cast are stranded is shrinking all the while) make for one weird film which plays like a bad nightmare. To make matters even more bizarre, a scene halfway through the film which shows a man falling down a rope into a pit is actually tacked on to the beginning of the movie, so you start off in the thick of the action and wonder what the hell is going on! There is no explanation for this error and it just added to the experience for me.The cast will be an unfamiliar one to people who don't watch a lot of these type of films, although Mel Welles appears in a small supporting role as a scientist. Richard Garland is the boringly straight hero while Pamela Duncan makes for a voluptuous heroine who looks great in a swimsuit. The movie is surprisingly gory in places for the time in which it was made, with the standout being the discovery of a headless corpse. However, the crabs fail to be the least bit threatening - or even plausible - with one risible moment showing a crab apparently "snoring". That's a new one on me! It's a shame that the budget and technical proficiency behind this film was so low, as the spirit was indeed willing as you might say. This is a film which will only appeal to those devoted to Corman's career or crappy B-movies of the '50s in general.

A team of scientists travel to a remote island; part of their mission is to examine the effects of atomic fallout, the other part is to find out what happened to a previous expedition. As it happens, the island is destructing a bit at a time, and the title menace soon makes itself known. To make matters worse, their adversaries actually taunt them, in an interesting way.You could usually count on legendary maverick Roger Corman to try to make something out of nothing. Working in his typical fast and economical style, he manages the creation of some decent atmosphere. A large part of the appeal lies in the screenplay by frequent Corman collaborator Charles B. Griffith (who also plays a small role), which comes up with some entertaining story twists. Use of locations (including those oh so familiar Bronson Caves) is excellent, as is the engaging schlock movie score by the always reliable Ronald Stein. Corman gets off to a good start, coming up with another of his visually intriguing opening credits sequences. The special effects are as low tech as one could imagine. They're not exactly convincing, but that doesn't make them any less fun to watch.The script is a little talky, but there is good suspense. The action is rather rushed, especially in the abrupt finale. Corman gets fine performances out of his intrepid cast. Richard Garland, Pamela Duncan, Russell "The Professor" Johnson, Leslie Bradley, Mel Welles, and Richard H. Cutting play our imperiled scientists. Beach Dickerson and Ed Nelson, two other familiar faces from Corman movies of this period, also appear.Solid entertainment for devotees of the 1950s monster movie.Seven out of 10.

As a friend of mine pointed out, if someone gives Corman $60K to make a film, he'll manage to make it look like it had a budget of a million. Alas, if he gets a million to make a movie...it'll still look as if it had a budget of a million. Of course, this also means that Corman movies have a certain look and rough charm that lets the viewer identify anything he's done within a minute of starting to watch it, even if they start in the middle.AOTCM...well, it has its charms. As with all Corman films, there's a germ of an intriguing idea driving the screenplay, and there's mystery, intrigue,suspense,claustrophobia, and some hard working actors trying to sell the ludicrous dialog. They actually manage to get through some typically over-packed expository stuff in the beginning without bogging things down, and the screenplay cleverly lets us get to see the characters for a few minutes before introducing them by name. So "Attack" actually starts out pretty well.Alas, about 15-20 minutes in (I count it as the spot where the geologist decides to shimmy down into a newly created pit), the brains of the movie sort of leak out its nose and ears and things get turgid and pretty silly after that. Major plot holes start developing and are never plugged up, there's a couple of plot twists that don't really lead anywhere, at least two of the characters seem suicidally dumb, and the movie just stops dead at the end as if it were a Roadrunner cartoon.Still, I liked it for what it was and had a pretty good time. I was pleased to see Russell Johnson in the mix (his character actually has a wistful moment with the heroine which comes off pretty well), and the idea of telepathic crabs luring their victims to their doom with the voices of the crabs' previous victims has a certain zing to it.Strictly sci fi movie fodder, like most of Corman's output, but if you like his style, you'll like this.