Gardia Ciaran O’Shea (Richard Coyne), an alcoholic, resents his new partner Garda Lisa Nolan (Ruth Bradley), a workaholic. They guard the remote Erin Island of Ireland. After finding mutilated whale corpses, the town begins to realize it is under attack by bloodthirsty tentacled aliens from a ball of green light that fell from the sky. They call the creatures Grabbers. When the town drunk Paddy (Lalor Roddy) is the first to survive an attack, the local marine ecologist Doctor Smith (Russell Tovey) believes that his high blood alcohol level is toxic to the Grabbers.
O-Shea contacts the mainland but a coming storm prevents anyone from helping. The rain will facilitate the movement of the amphibious main Grabber. Nolan and O’Shea organize a party at the pub with free drinks, thanks to the pub-owner, Brian Maher (David Pearse), and everyone in town shows up.
In a drunken stupor, Nolan reveals that she has feelings for O’Shea despite turning down his advances. Doctor Smith tries to get a picture of the beast, thinking that the alcohol will keep him safe, but he is killed. Nolan and O’Shea escape to the pub to try to protect the townspeople. Nolan drunkenly lets the cat out of the bag and everyone panics and moves to the second floor. The main floor is taken over by baby Grabbers. Nolan accidentally sets the pub on fire trying to sneak out, and she and O’Shea attract the attention of the adult.
They drive to a construction site, pursued by the Grabber, hoping to strand it on dry land. The monster attacks O’Shea and Nolan uses heavy equipment to pin it to the bottom of a pit. The monster grabs O’Shea, but before it can eat him, he dumps a bottle of “Irish moonshine” down its throat, which makes it sick. Nolan then lights it up with mining explosives, using a flare gun, finally killing the Grabber. They return to town a couple, but there are more eggs ready to hatch.
The film was directed by Jon Wright and written by Kevin Lehane. It is an Irish and U.K. co-production, with an all-Irish cast. They loved it at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012—also Edinburgh International, the Karlovy Vary Festival, the Taormina Festival, Fantasia, Sitges, Toronto After Dark, Strasbourg European Fantastic, London FrightFest, and at its Irish premiere at the 24th Galway Film Fleadh. Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic liked it too. Critics said it had a smart script—a scary but breezy and funny Monster Comedy. Russell Tovey is best known as the werewolf George Sands in the BBC series Being Human.
Walter Kevin Lahane, backpacking and bit by mosquitos, wondered if the mosquitos got drunk on blood alcohol. That’s how it started. He prepared the actors by getting them drunk and filming them. Naturally, it was filmed during the harshest Irish winter in a hundred years. The Grabbers reminded me of the Facehuggers, and there were several references to Aliens. The welcome sign for Erin Island is practically the same as the one for Amity Island in Jaws. This is one of the rarest of the rare—a horror comedy that is actually funny, and as a descendant of Nolans myself, I loved it.