Movies
‘Crabs!’ Review – Schlocky Creature Feature Embraces Low Brow Humor and Spirit With Pride [Panic Fest]
There’s no pretense with Crabs! It makes it abundantly clear upfront exactly what type of movie it is and the entertainment it aims to deliver. And it aims to be a low-brow horror-comedy that wears its influences on its sleeves, embracing a Troma-like spirit while saluting and lovingly spoofing beloved cult classics. Its precise type of manic energy and lo-fi style likely works best with a midnight crowd in need of a light-hearted, gory schlockfest.
Writer/Director Pierce Berolzheimer hits the ground running with a quick setup that whizzes through a visual explanation for horseshoe crabs running amok in a small coastal town on the cusp of celebrating prom night. Beyond power plant failures that render swarms of horseshoe crabs into monstrous carnivores, Crabs! refuses to dwell on logic, let alone give its audience a moment to digest information flung at warped speed.
At the center of the chaos is disabled teen Phillip (Dylan Riley Snyder), his best friend slash love interest Maddie (Allie Jennings), Phillip’s older brother Hunter (Bryce Durfee), and Maddie’s mom Annalise (Jessica Morris). Annalise doubles as the hot science teacher everyone covets. Oh, and then there’s Radu (Chase Padgett), a foreign exchange student with a personality and accent so all over the place that it’s impossible to pin down this wacky, puerile character. Radu exemplifies the entire feature’s kitchen-sink approach, hoping at least some jokes land amidst the gag onslaught.
While Snyder and Jennings play their characters with a sweet innocence that helps ground the antics somewhat, it’s not until Berolzheimer lets loose with his creatures that Crabs! finds its groove. The eponymous creatures evolve in scope, size, and bloodlust by using an alternating mix of rough, lo-fi VFX, puppets, and rubber-suited monsters. Once prom night hits, it’s party time for the ravenous horde. It presents many silly and gory moments, including a deadlier version of Gremlins’ iconic bar scene. The movie is at its best when the creatures get to wreak havoc.
At some point, Crabs! pauses for a moment to explain that, yes, it knows that horseshoe crabs aren’t technically crabs. It’s an almost fourth wall break type of joke that lets the viewer know that this isn’t a film that cares about rules, reasoning, or good taste. That’s apparent on every level, even down to throwaway lines of dialogue or visual references. Berolzheimer just tosses it all in a kaiju seafood blender.
Crabs! doesn’t make a lot of sense, and it doesn’t bother trying. Radu overstays his welcome quickly, too, with a random end credit theme song as an exception. But Crabs! leans into its low budget and uses that in its favor. It wants to provide a nonsensical time at the movies, never meant to be taken seriously. It has all the finesse of a sledgehammer, delivering nonstop blunt force humor that will either alienate viewers or reluctantly win them over. The cheeky, gremlin-like monsters and their equally fun next stages of evolution nudge it toward crowd-pleaser.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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