But we weren't
drunk when we watched Grabbers, a
comedy monster film, with five similarly sober friends. And though we drank
while watching, we never actually got drunk — or at least not drunk enough to
enjoy this movie. Seldom were any of us more bored, and seldom have we laughed
less.
Grabbers, the basic plot of
which involves a remote Irish town that has to drink themselves into a drunken
stupor to survive the onslaught of the titular monsters from outer space, which happen to be alergic to alcohol, is
one dud of a movie: predictable from start to finish, almost never scary or in
any way tense, thin on laughs, and full of unfunny drunken people.
Which isn't to
say Grabbers doesn't have a few plus
points. For one, it features Bronagh Gallagher (Botched
[2007 / trailer] and Malice in
Wonderland [2009 / trailer])
in a secondary role with a Betty Page haircut; we would have liked the film even
less had she not been present, regardless of how minor her part.* Secondly, it
has some truly fine cinematography and the landscape is fabulous — but then, the
landscape of Ireland is fabulous, so
that must be seen more as a credit to the country and not to this movie. (Believe
us: if you've never driven through Ireland, do so; you might decide to move
there.) Ditto with the great accents: the Irish lilt is always a pleasure to
listen to, but again, this a credit to the land and not the movie. But other
than the above three aspects, there is little to recommend in this predictable,
almost trite, and definitely neither funny — OK, we did laugh when Dr. Adam
Smith (Russell Tovey of Blackwood [2014 / trailer])
went flying through the air, but that was over half-way into the movie already —
nor scary monster film.
* Her little exchange about renting the bridal
suite reminded me of an exchange I had many years ago in Cork, but in reverse, in a
sense. Having travelled through Ireland for 14 days with an Irishwoman friend —
as in, non-sexual friendship — we arrived in Cork late in the evening and managed
to find a bed & breakfast. When the lady of the house was showing us the
room, the first room after 10 days in which the beds were separate, a fact that
made both me and my friend happy, the proprietress suddenly chimed out with
that fabulous accent: "Should I push the two beds together in case you
want to commit a mortal sin?"
Were we in any way
forgiving, we might also mention that the editing and lighting are first-rate,
the CGI not shabby, the blocking and cinematography professional, and some of
the acting (up until they play "drunk") is mildly good — but who gives
a shit when the movie, as a whole, fails so miserably? It actually hurt now and
then to see the good points wasted in a movie that was so predictable, so
completely unoriginal. Hell, in the first scene that Garda Lisa Nolan (Ruth Bradley) has her coffee prepared by Garda Ciarán
O'Shea (Richard Coyle of Outpost: Black Sun [2012 / trailer]
and Franklyn
[2008]), you already know they're going to
end up a couple.
Why? Because the
screenplay is by the number and has all the creativity of the pitch that was
probably given: "Well, see, we take Tremors
(1990 / trailer)
and make the graboids into rolling octopuses called grabbers that drink blood,
and move the setting from ugly Buttfuck USA to beautiful Buttfuck Ireland
because the Irish like to drink and drunks are funny." Whoever green-lighted
this thing must have been drunk is all that we can say.
How and why Grabbers gets so many good reviews is
beyond us, and actually says less about the quality of the movie than the ease
with which the masses are satisfied. Major bomb. Not funny. Total waste of
time. Want a good, semi-contemporary monster movie? Go for Tremors
— or, with less monster but with a similarly pro-drug attitude (yes,
alcohol is a drug), the funny and suspensful teen horror flick, The
Faculty (1998 / trailer).
Or, if it's just suspense you want, Splinter (2008). But skip Grabbers. We sure wish we
had.
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