I almost feel like this movie was made for me. It features copious amounts of drinking, really bad jokes, smash cuts, and a man who you don’t think is handsome until you’re exposed to him for long periods of time. It was everything I love all wrapped up into one.
I watched this movie via text message with my friend Di who lives 4 hours away, we do this a lot because we are sad nerds. We decided to drink during the movie, one drink for every drink a character took. this produced several poorly spelled texts and a review I had to proofread 4 times. I also had to rewatch the movie because I couldn’t remember what happened at the end of it. I’m not doing great.
The movie opens with a very attractive sailor who was unfortunately killed moments later by a mysterious tentacle coming out of the water. I could make a hentai joke here BUT I WONT. After I got over the fact this handsome dead man wouldn’t be the main character, we were introduced to the actual main characters: a straightshooting cop from the big city named Lisa and a drunk surly local cop from the Island named Ciaran(??) I SMELL A SITCOM!
They both hate each other but obviously we all knew they would fall in love as per the rules of every movie and tv show ever. I should also mention that only 15 minutes in, I already had 2 drinks under my belt. The cops go to investigate a bunch of dead whales that washed up on the beach, and are joined by a nerdy scientist who immediately started hitting on Lisa. In his defense, I only saw like 6 women in this entire movie and 4 of them were old women so I get it. Ciaran is like “not on my watch bud” and gets all mad. I should also add that these characters only met the day before so he really shouldn’t be getting this upset. I guess there’s something in the brackish waters of this island and it is both love and a sea monster!
Meanwhile a drunk fisherman (they make up roughly 80% of the cast) has caught one of these creatures in a lobster trap and decides to take it home and put it in his bathtub because why wouldn’t a guy? It obviously gets loose and tries to eat him but once it latches onto his face it instantly gets sick and DIES.
He takes the creature, which he named a Grabber, to the nerdy scientists lab which seems to be set in a community center gym and the scientist deduces that the reason it got so sick was that the fisherman was wasted and his blood alcohol level was so high it was poisonous to the creature. I’m so proud to be Irish.
Ciaran decides to get backup from the mainland but wouldn’t you know it? There’s a plot driving storm coming! The worst storm of all. Not only that, but the bad weather and wind is going to bring Big Poppa Grabber (working title for a possible sequel??) to the mainland. AND PROM IS TOMORROW. Everyone is stuck on the island, but Ciaran comes up with the bright idea to just get disgustingly wasted and invite all the locals to a pub lock in so the creatures won’t want to eat anyone. Seems legit.
The next roughly 20 minutes of the movie were just shot after shot of the locals drinking at the pub. Things started getting pretty hazy here for me as well, and it was a real “scene missing” situation when I tried to recall what happened for the rest of the movie since I was speedchucking beer into my face for a solid 10 minutes. Hence the rewatch.
Big Poppa Grabber showed up at the pub and kinda just loomed outside for awhile while everyone continued their quest to completely annihilate their livers. The nerdy scientist decided to stumble out and get some photos of the grabber, for science you see, and was promptly FLUNG INTO THE SKY by the Grabber. It was the greatest scene in the entire movie and I watched it twice. The best thing about this is that after he died everyone else was just kinda like “ehh” about it. RIP Nerdy Scientist, you were too beautiful for this world.
Meanwhile Lisa accidently lit the pub on fire because she’s a messy drunk and shit was going very poorly. She drunkenly comes up with the idea to hoist the grabber up with a truck and leave it dangling there until it dies from not being in the water. Everyone seems to think this is a great idea. I assume the part where she drunkenly slurred “AND THEN WE CAN GET MCDONALDS” was left on the cutting room floor.
For some reason she is the one charged with operating the motor vehicle and she somehow doesn’t drive it directly into the goddamn ocean. The plan kinda works in that they end up luring the monster away from the pub and decide to drive to an old gravel pit. The scene with the monster chasing them was amazing if only for showing how the thing gets around. It just rolls. It just rolls through the countryside like a giant fat baby. It was glorious.
So anyways, The dream team ends up bulldozing this fucking thing into a pit and blowing it up. The movie ends with them walking back to the inn while discussing how they exclusively want to shirtless hug with each other forever. THE END.
So what did I learn from this movie? I learned that I am a borderline alcoholic who had to watch a 120 minute long movie twice because I drank a 6 pack during it, but I guess if you really think about it I was just protecting myself from any potential Grabber attacks. Yay me!
reviewed by Rigby (@rigbot)