S2E3: Night of the Crabs by Guy N. Smith
Picture the scene; it’s a cold night in Wales in the 1970s. You’re on the rocky shore with your sweetie taking in the night air, and you think, why not leave the clothes behind and go skinny dipping? Only when you do, your sweetie disappears beneath the waves, and something grabs hold of you, and you realize you’ve come down with a bad case of crabs.
Yes, this week we’re reviewing the 1976 pulp fiction horror novel Night of the Crabs by Guy N. Smith, in which a British seaside town is invaded by giant marauding crabs. After the young lover, a beachcombing simpleton has his legs and arms snipped off by a consortium of crabs (yes, that is the correct term). What is to be done? Who will stop these monstrous arthropods from the deep?
Enter Cliff Davenport. He’s a pipe-smoking local who just so happens to be a world leader in “sea botany”. Cliff Davenport knows the score, and you can be sure he’s an important man because throughout the book he is always referred to by his full name. As soon as he sees the crabs’ marks in the sand, he immediately knows what’s up. A love interest is introduced for Cliff Davenport, a girl fifteen years his junior named Pat Benson. Within one sentence of Pat Benson being introduced, we immediately get a description of her breasts (“small, firm”).
Considering this is a book about monstrous crustaceans ripping people limb from limb, this book is surprisingly horny. But the sex scenes are not always likely to inspire amorousness in readers. Take this section from the first time Cliff Davenport and Pat Benson hook up (moments after they met):
Her fingers were active, though. Cliff felt that thrilling sensation of his zip being pulled down, her fingers groping inside the open vent and then the coolness of the night air on his warm moistness. He gasped with pleasure. Pat Benson certainly knew what she was doing!
'I'm more than glad I let you come with me tonight,' he whispered as he zipped himself up again. 'I'm afraid, though, that we must still keep an eye open for those crabs!'
That’s not even the worst sex scene in the book; be grateful I’m sparing you the sections on masturbation and pubic hair.
The crabs – led by one called King Crab, “the most cunning enemy the world has ever met!” – attack the town, and all the efforts of the local military prove useless. The crabs are too big, too powerful, and too hungry for human flesh. It isn’t until Cliff Davenport thinks of using poison, that the crabs are chased back into the sea, disappearing until the sequel comes around. Did I mention there are literally ELEVEN books in the Crabs series?
The author – Guy N. Smith was actually the UK’s pipe smoking champion (and yes, I’m talking about actual pipes. He wrote such classics as Werewolf by Moonlight, The Slime Beast and The Sucking Pit. And before you make some joke that the “Sucking Pit” is some cheap trashy sex book, I’ll have you know that… Well, okay. It is a sex book about a sex-mad nymph who lures men into her pit, where they get sucked off down into hell. Believe it or not, Smith also wrote a lot of smut alongside pulp horror.
This book is part of the splatterpunk genre of creature features that remain some of the best selling horror novels of all time, such as James Herbert’s The Rats, or Shaun Hutson’s Slugs. For the most part, this book is not a piece of shit. It’s pulp horror, so sure, it is grotesque and gratuitous, but it isn’t pretending to be anything else. If you can get past the extremely dated depictions of women and sex, then the book is quite a fun read. Just be ready for a lot of very dumb locals who constantly decide to go swimming and are quickly turned into limbless torsos to feed the local decapods.
Review by /u/beaudashington
