Grabbers Review


Movie: Grabbers
By: Maniac E
Date: April 2, 2013

Finale Call At The Bar

Well nowadays we don't see as many creature features as I would want. But Grabbers is one coming straight from Ireland and with a un-improvable premise: its pack of blood-sucking aliens are fatally allergic to human blood that contains a significant percentage of alcohol. So drink up for this one.

Workaholic Garda officer Lisa Nolan (Ruth Bradley) takes a 2-week assignment on the small island of Erin while the town's sergeant is on vacation; she immediately runs across (and afoul of) fellow Garda Ciaran O'Shea (Richard Coyle), who both starts and ends his days with booze, a lot of it. Your typical drunken Irish cop, in fact. They are not destined to get along, but when bloodsucking aliens crash-land in the nearby ocean and start devouring the townspeople, Lisa and Ciaran have to work together to save the community. Teaming up with the English scientist, Dr. Adam Smith (Russell Tovey), and with Paddy Barrett (Lalor Roddy), one of the more sloshed senior citizens of the island, they make the stunning discovery that human blood, steeped in alcohol, is toxic to the bloodsucking creatures. A big storm is coming, and the Coast Guard can't come to the rescue; instead, it's up to our intrepid heroes to convince all the townsfolk that getting, and remaining, drunk for the whole night is a matter of life and death - literally.

Grabbers

However, the real stars of Grabbers are rightly the titular extraterrestrial creatures themselves. Without given too much of their bizarre biology away, their tentacle squid-like dexterity is matched only by their thirst for warm, untainted human blood. As with the gradual reveal of the gargantuan alien animals of Gareth Edwards' Monsters (2010), Wright's grabbers fling themselves in and out of frame in pursuit of their hapless human prey, effectively building anticipation for that first, full horrifying shot. Expect the usual monster film elements involving humans versus the monster aliens, with the former group being cornered and really needing to take desperate action.

Grabbers

Of course it is not perfect by any means but I liked what I saw and I have seen way worse than this with creature features. The witty script crackles with quotable dialogue ("T'is no feckin' lobster!") and there are several hilarious sight gags and one-liners, along with a number of knowing references to other creature features (Tremors, Slither, Gremlins, etc) and horror classics (e.g. Night of the Living Dead is playing on a TV at one point). Some people would compare it too much with Tremors but in the end it is a nice stand-alone feature which has more to offer than you first expect.

Grabbers

I must admit the movie has it charms and luckily it is going through the story fast pace. Which helps because some scenes are just a bit on the long side and taking the punch away from the moment. As far as gore it has a few scenes that could be called graphic but mostly it about the dialogue and action scenes, with this you get great CGI and explosions. Worth a watch for sure.


3/5




Movie

Grabbers

Title

Grabbers

Director

Jon Wright

Country

Ireland

Year

2012

Cast

Richard Coyle, Ruth Bradley, Russell Tovey