Cocaine Crabs From Outer Space
I subscribe to Richard Roeper's mentality towards criticism that you shouldn't compare movies that aren't aiming at the same audience; the newest Pixar movie shouldn't be compared against The Godfather, or Star Wars against Halloween. That is why I have a line in my bio on here about not all 5* ratings being of equal value. To me a movie that achieves that is because of unparalleled excellence within their genre. Movies like Vertigo, Back To The Future, Die Hard, and Phantasm all have gotten the full boat from me, so they are peers within a category, but they are not peers with one another, if that makes sense. All this is a way of laying some groundwork for how I view and review a movie; just about any movie has the potential to get *****, if it is the best the genre it lives in could hope for.
Note the inclusion of the words "just about". There is one category of movie that stands apart from the others: low-budget (and no-budget) movies. Movies that, by their very nature, cannot do what a motion picture by a major studio can do. One can't judge something like Birdemic or Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter against The Princess Bride or The Empire Strikes Back. It's a YMCA pick-up team versus the Jordan-era Bulls. So a movie like Cocaine Crabs From Outer Space comes with a built-in ceiling. It can be fun, sure, but it has to do so in a way that other movies don't. It has limitations that have to be worked around, or even embraced.
While CCFOS does work within its confines and embraces them, it doesn't do much of anything else. A good example would be The Velocipastor, a truly ridiculous concept and movie that never stops finding ways to embrace its stupidity, and throw new ideas at you. It is, front to back, steering into the skid with everything it has. It never stops or settles.
CCFOS' biggest fault is that: it has this premise and that's where it stays. Interstellar crabs that get wound up on cocaine and rampage through Salem, Oregon, looking for more blow. That's it. That's the joke. There are funny moments sprinkled throughout -- one of the co-leads deciding that, rather than simply stomp on the crabs, it would be much easier to tear the muffler off a van and beat them with it -- but once the premise gets rolling, that's really all this movie has. Just variations on a theme. There's only so many ways one can portray crabs geeked out on cocaine killing people, and a cop dressed like Tom Wolfe crossed with a southern lawyer partnering with a pet store clerk, before the joke has run its course. And when that happens, and you see there is a substantial amount of run time left, you groan. You realize the ceiling for this movie and the floor are inches apart.
There were moments sprinkled throughout that were amusing, as I mentioned. The last joke is so anti-climactic that it circles around and becomes funny. But there's just not enough. I know this was done on a shoestring budget -- I've seen the amount $5000 -- so there's only so much they could've done, but it still feels like this wasn't carried far enough. This should've been wall to wall crazy, a non-stop barrage of weirdness. It felt like creators started with the title and stopped there.
Note the inclusion of the words "just about". There is one category of movie that stands apart from the others: low-budget (and no-budget) movies. Movies that, by their very nature, cannot do what a motion picture by a major studio can do. One can't judge something like Birdemic or Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter against The Princess Bride or The Empire Strikes Back. It's a YMCA pick-up team versus the Jordan-era Bulls. So a movie like Cocaine Crabs From Outer Space comes with a built-in ceiling. It can be fun, sure, but it has to do so in a way that other movies don't. It has limitations that have to be worked around, or even embraced.
While CCFOS does work within its confines and embraces them, it doesn't do much of anything else. A good example would be The Velocipastor, a truly ridiculous concept and movie that never stops finding ways to embrace its stupidity, and throw new ideas at you. It is, front to back, steering into the skid with everything it has. It never stops or settles.
CCFOS' biggest fault is that: it has this premise and that's where it stays. Interstellar crabs that get wound up on cocaine and rampage through Salem, Oregon, looking for more blow. That's it. That's the joke. There are funny moments sprinkled throughout -- one of the co-leads deciding that, rather than simply stomp on the crabs, it would be much easier to tear the muffler off a van and beat them with it -- but once the premise gets rolling, that's really all this movie has. Just variations on a theme. There's only so many ways one can portray crabs geeked out on cocaine killing people, and a cop dressed like Tom Wolfe crossed with a southern lawyer partnering with a pet store clerk, before the joke has run its course. And when that happens, and you see there is a substantial amount of run time left, you groan. You realize the ceiling for this movie and the floor are inches apart.
There were moments sprinkled throughout that were amusing, as I mentioned. The last joke is so anti-climactic that it circles around and becomes funny. But there's just not enough. I know this was done on a shoestring budget -- I've seen the amount $5000 -- so there's only so much they could've done, but it still feels like this wasn't carried far enough. This should've been wall to wall crazy, a non-stop barrage of weirdness. It felt like creators started with the title and stopped there.
Mini Review: I subscribe to Richard Roeper's mentality towards criticism that you shouldn't compare movies that aren't aiming at the same audience; the newest Pixar movie shouldn't be compared against The Godfather, or Star Wars against Halloween. That is why I have a line in my bio on here about not all 5* ratings being of equal value. To me a movie that achieves that is because of unparalleled excellence within their genre. Movies like Vertigo, Back To The...