By Brent McKnight | 8 years ago

Remember The Faculty, where the heroes have to take crank (or at least a watered down equivalent) in order to defeat the aliens? In Joe Wright’s science fiction comedy Grabbers, which premiered this year at Sundance, the inhabitants of an Irish village must apply a similar tactic to repel an invasion of angry alien sea creatures. To avoid being eaten, they must taint their blood with alcohol.

A new trailer for Grabbers shows just how funny this concept can be.

Strange things are afoot in the small Irish fishing village of Erin Island. Fisherman go missing, whale carcasses wash up on the beach, and then the murders start. A pair of police officers—one a slacker drunk, the other an uptight new addition—must protect the villagers from the massive Cthulhu-looking alien monsters that want to ingest them. Their secret weapon in this intergalactic battle: booze, and lots of it. Elevating their blood alcohol level makes them poisonous to the creatures. So grab a shot and a beer, and belly up to the bar if you want to survive.

From all appearances Grabbers balances scares, monsters, and laughs in relatively equal parts. Comparisons to Tremors have been thrown around, and you certainly get that sort of feeling. The premise might be utterly ridiculous, but the story is played straight, which makes it that much funnier.

Grabbers invades Irish theaters in August, and IFC owns the domestic rights, so hopefully it will wash up on US shores soon.