Island Claws

In what looks like a scene of a creature from the depths of the ocean trying to seduce a woman, we have the cover for Island Claws, another VHS classic steeped in genetic experiments gone awry leading to the growth of what the back blurb only describes as "a man eating creature, beyond all parameters of science and evolution". But, like, it's a crab. Like look at the front cover artwork. That's a crab, my dude. I don't usually just jump right in like this, but I'm sorry, I will not let a movie try and purposefully mislead me into thinking there's something grotesque and monstrous in it, when even the movie itself shows me on the front cover what its creature actually is. It's a giant fucking crab.

This is a truly basic cover design, so basic even that I'm not sure it warrants a discussion. There's not much of note outside of the fairly well done pencil sketching on the front. The single non contextual screenshot we're given on the back is nothing special, and the description sounds as bland as anything you'd have seen at 3am on the Scifi channel back in the mid 2000s. So why am I covering it? Easy. Giant crab. I mean, come on, that's pretty cool, man. I must admit, I've always been fascinated by horror movies where the horror is nothing more than a gigantic version of a pre-existing creature. Giant ants, giant spiders, now giant crabs. Always something that we've never treated that kindly finally coming back for some well earned revenge. I guess it's the American version of Godzilla but without the interesting ethical aspects of it. This is less "see what the horrors of man have wraught unto us" and more "wouldn't it be cool if, like, a giant worm ate people?"

Yes. Yes it would be cool if a giant worm ate people, Mr.Movie Executive. Here's a check and a private helicopter, make it happen. Clearly you are a visionary.

In all fairness, I've always been of the belief that you can reuse any trope or cliche plot as long as you make it your own, but the problem is that 99% of these rarely do. Instead they coast through the whole thing on the concept alone, never bothering to make it anything even slightly more original than the last eighteen times it was done before theirs. That's a real shame, because I'd love to see some variety, and I'm sure we'd get some excellent cinema out of it people just put in even the smallest modicum of effort whatsoever sometimes.

But hey, I'll take that rather artistic drawing over whatever the freshwater hell this is. This thing looks like somebody stopped caring halfway through and just copy/pasted. But to this boxes credit, it at least clarifies right off the bat that we're dealing with a giant crab, and not some mythical horrid beast from another dimension, unlike the first box which refused to do so even though the cover made it so blatantly obvious. Gotta give credit where credit is due. That being said this box might be one of the worst I've ever covered because it is just such a shitty, lazy force of design. The image on the front is not terrible for what it is, but the two that are underneath are not only unnecessary but completely useless without context, nor are they centered in any way and so instead you're left with a big black gap at the side. Not only that, but one of them is repeated on the back cover instead of using a totally different screencap. Talk about laziness. And the Halloween color mashup doesn't really work either. Black and orange go good together in many other instances, but this is not one of them.

And that isn't even going into some of the other design faults, such as putting your cast and only one member of your crew - the special effects man, who does seem to have a rather impressive resume - on the top of the back box, above the blurb, but also putting the runtime for the movie above that, which makes absolutely no sense design wise. In fact that whole back cover is just a jumbled mess. The rating is above the blurb, the distributor is above the blurb, and fuck me is this is what every single Empire Video box looks like, I may have to do an entire post on those because this is a visual nightmare. I feel like I have to retake my graphic design class I took in high school and I'm only looking at it, not having had a hand in its horrid birth. So when it gets right down to it, yeah, perhaps that first box wasn't so terrible after all. I suppose hindsight is 20/20.

But you know what's really unfair? The fact that the absolute best piece of artwork to come out for this thing is not only not in english, but also not a VHS box.

You look at this mother fucking thing and tell me that isn't awesome. You've got a font that works with the visual, and a visual that is better than any of the official releases, and this is just a Spanish movie poster! This is a fantastic visual though! You've got the island in question, but now you've got giant crab claws coming out the sides of it, like the island itself is the crab. Whoever made this is who they should've gotten to make everything else, because this person knew what they were doing.

It makes me irrationally angry that this isn't a VHS box, because it really should be. And sure, the subtitle might say "Giant Claws" instead of "Island Claws" but really I think that change is for the better, because it's more upfront and descriptive. That is what we're facing, giant claws. What the fuck is an island claw? That's right, you can't tell me, because nobody knows. But a giant claw? That's descriptive, that's specific, that conjures up a visual without needing a visual. An Island Claw just sounds like a shitty drink at a resort. I'd hang this poster on my wall, no question, this thing is a work of art. This should've been every box art for this release.

But it isn't, and we just have to live with that I suppose.And it's a shame that this movie likely is just as shitty as its box art, because I for one am happy to see some variety in the "giant animal threatening humanity" genre, because spiders are overdone, ants are overdone, but you know what isn't overdone? Crabs. Giant crabs. We could've used more of that. This could've been a visionary work of art ahead of its time that inspired countless millions that came after it. But no. Instead we just get another crappy bunch of boxes I get to make fun of, and what I'm assuming is a mediocre film at best with, what I'm willing to believe, are probably decent special effects. But giant crab films would've been cool. Look, there's not a whole lot of marine life that we can turn into a threat to mankind because a big problem with the concept is that they can't leave the fucking ocean. But crabs leave the ocean! We could've had a slew of giant maneating crab horror movies! They're like one of the only animals from the ocean that could've been remotely threatening in the genre of "giant animals threaten humanity". But y'all had to fuck it up. Thanks Island Claws. Now instead we're stuck with shit like Sharknado. That's how badly we want to have aquatic animal life threaten us, we're willing to come up with batshit insane concepts like Sharknado, because sharks can't leave the water, unless apparently in a tornado.

Maybe someday we'll get a decent giant crab movie, but I'm not holding my breath. Unless I'm under water, I guess.