Grabbers

Grabbers directed by Jon Wright and written by Kevin Lehane. It stars Richard Coyle, Ruth Bradley, Russell Tovey and Lalor Roddy. Music is by Christian Henson and cinematography by Trevor Forrest.

On a remote Irish island something creature like is stirring, new Garda partners Ciaran O'Shea and Lisa Nolan are about to become the island's only hope for survival…

Great great fun, a play on Tremors, itself a play/homage to the creature features of the 1950s, Grabbers has all the fun schlocky staples in place, but crucially it also has its own identity. The islanders are a bunch of eccentric types and the two Garda protagonists are polar opposites but not cliché ridden, their chemistry strong as they play off of each other for joyous rewards. The creature effects are impressive for a modestly budgeted production such as this, and the narrative contains strength through ingenuity of plot developments and a knowing sense of playing up stereotypes. Lovely photography as well! Score! 8/10

Must get drunk to fight a monster. Sounds like fun right? Grabbers is a comedy/sci-fi film with its smart goofy concept with silly humors at its finest and creatures that are really well designed. However, the film could have been much more better if there's more into the story as it doesn't seem to extend its goofy concept to reach its full potential quite yet and the plot just falls short. There are some GORES but don't expect any memorable or over the top bloody kills which is also quite disappointing as the film could have been much more fun if it's bloodier than this. Some jumpy SCARE scenes but beside that, the creatures look quite terrifying, sometimes quite cute with amazing visual effects that you might not expect it to be this good at first. Overall, this is a nice little FUN sci-fi/comedy film that's consistently funny with its goofy concept and impressive creature effects, but still leaves much more room for improvement.

>>B-<<

Garda Lisa Nolan (Ruth Bradley) arrives at Erin Island in remote Ireland for a two week tour after battling the fast times of Dublin. Drunken Garda Ciarán O'Shea (Richard Coyle) is not happy at having the eager newcomer. It's a quiet place where nothing ever happens. Whales starts getting beached. People are getting grabbed. They find the multi-tentacled grabbers and their possible alcohol weakness. The problem is that everybody has to get stinking drunk.

Richard Coyle is a charismatic lead. Ruth Bradley is a pretty foil to him. She's also a fun drunk. The duo probably needs a funny fat sidekick. The start is a little slow. It's more fun when the grabbers show up. It needs a bit more drunk humor. The monster is relatively good. This is a good creature feature with some comedy.

There's nothing like some good old-fashioned monster movie mayhem! That's also what director Jon Wright must have thought when he read the script for this totally unpretentious but enormously amusing and respectably made mixture between comedy and horror. "Grabbers" isn't just reminiscent to the 1990 crowd-pleaser "Tremors"; it's actually the best monster flick since! "Tremors" was, and still is, so popular because of its fast-paced action sequences, terrific special effects and the swell dialogs & marvelous chemistry between the lead actors. "Grabbers" exactly features all these trumps as well, more or less in the same portions even, and yet it never once feels like a lame imitation or an uninspired knock-off. The uniqueness of "Grabbers" lies within the fact that it's a largely Irish production. The screenplay shamelessly exploits all the typical clichés and stereotypes that are irreversibly linked to the Irish people and their culture, but the self-parody works amazingly efficient. When a fiery meteor crash-lands into the sea, the live extraterrestrial content washes ashore and promptly feasts on a colony of grey whales. Somewhat later, when the town's missing person cases alarmingly increase, the drunkard deputy and the geeky new female "garda" discover the mother alien's hideout on the beach. Together with a local scientist, they also discover the fierce creatures survive on blood and are therefore allergic to high doses of alcohol in the blood. So what's a bunch of poor, defenseless and thirsty Irish folks to do…? The easy and light-headed ambiance of "Grabbers" sucks you in from the very beginning and there are many more ingenious elements to make this an enjoyable viewing experience. Richard Coyle (from the BBC hit-series "Coupling") and the 15 years younger native Irish actress Ruth Bradley play extremely well together and even the completely implausible slowly unfolding romance doesn't annoy too much. There's also a large variety of awesome supportive characters, like a mumbling fisherman and a couple of crazed tavern owners. The monster's design and special effects are very adequate. Okay, it's computer engineered, but not exaggerated. The mother alien actually looks somewhat like the mythical Kraken, with a truckload of tentacles and hundreds of razor sharp teeth at the center. Many of the situations are laugh-out-loud funny, but the important ones are also tense and exhilarating. Great entertainment, highly recommended.

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.

One might bristle at the stereotype of the drunken Irishman (and woman), but when it's the Irish telling the stories on themselves, it's another matter altogether. This is a very funny movie, and even the bloodsucking creatures grabbing people and devouring them isn't gross, it's just kinda yucky. There were a few times when I jumped at an unexpected occurrence, which is always good in a monster movie, but there were a lot of times when I was laughing a lot too. Not to mention cheering from time to time....The leads are all terrific; I only know Tovey's work (from the excellent UK television series, "Being Human"), but I would make a point of looking out for more of Richard Coyle and Ruth Bradley, both of whom I liked a lot. My one quibble is that sometimes it was hard to understand what a character was saying, especially once they were all drunk as lords and slurring their words all over the place, but that's quite minor really, as the gist of the dialogue always came through. Definitely worth seeing, especially with a FantAsia crowd in Montreal!