Review of Grabbers (2012) by Ben D — 09 Dec 2012

Grabbers, a UK-Irish co-production, has a great comic premise: tentacle space aliens crash-land outside a small Irish community, and start eating the populace. Only these aliens are allergic to booze, and won't eat anybody who is intoxicated, and so to get through to morning, the residents need to get pissed, and stay pissed. All while fighting off the monsters.

The film, written by Kevin Lehane, and directed by Jon Wright, is well-shot with some superb Irish scenery. Bulking out the human cast is Richard Coyle, Ruth Bradley and Russell Tovey, but of course the real star of these types of film is the monster: and here they've got a corker.

British genre cinema isn't always that great: think Lesbian Vampire Killers (or rather don't - I'm sorry I reminded you of it). When we get it right, it goes down well - think Shaun of the Dead, Attack the Block. Grabbers, which reminded me of Tremors (and no monster movie is going to do well when compared to that), isn't half bad. Friday night, a few lagers, you'll laugh your head off. The cast give it their all, and Ruth Bradley and Richard Coyle have some great chemistry, especially towards the end. Its biggest problem was that it all felt a bit familiar - we've seen this a million times. Jon Wright brings nothing original to the table, and Lehane's script goes through the familiar beats of such cinema like he's ticking them off. This is not to say it's a bad film - it's not that at all, it's actually quite good - it's just that it doesn't do anything new.