Decapoda Shock

An astronaut explores the red dirt surface of an alien planet, where a crab-like creature reaches out of the soil and snips through his space suit. The infection that results transforms him into a cosmic decapod crustacean/human hybrid, with the head and claws of a crayfish or lobster. When he returns to Earth and tries to reconnect with his family, he discovers that he's been the victim of a sinister conspiracy, and takes revenge on those responsible for his family's disappearance.

Actors

• Federico Martín • Hombre-Cangrejo Man ("Crab Man" or "Crayfish Man")
• Benito Sagredo [es] • Astronaut
• José Antonio Fuentes • Eric Gibraltar
• Alexey Chillon • Son
• Pilar García • Mother

Voice

• Jaroslaw Bielski [es] • Astronaut Voice

Decapoda Shock shares a number of themes with Javier Chillon's first film, Die Schneider Krankheit: monstrous creatures resulting from "spatial" mutations or genetic manipulation, primarily derived from the science fiction B movies of the 1950s, the "atomic age".^[5]

Less than a year after the release of Javier Chillon's very successful first short film, Die Schneider Krankheit (2008), a film that includes the "Hollywood look of the 50s" among its influences,^[6] Chillon was in Paris pitching a project called Outfinite, which would "pay tribute to sci-fi B movies and blaxploitation pics."^[7][8] The film that became Decapoda Shock was ultimately self-produced by Chillon and his friend Luis Fuentes, who was also the cinematographer on Die Schneider Krankheit; as before, they relied on themselves and on their "very talented friends" for support: "we didn't have much money to spend (the final budget was around 1500€) so we made everything ourselves or called our friends for help."^[9] The film was made for far less money than Die Schneider Krankheit, and was also less time-consuming; the director's love of the American B movie genre he imitates in these films happens also to be a way to get a film made on a limited budget.^[5]

Chillon wanted to "make something very different" from his previous film: "There were very different things that I wanted to try and, in a way, I wrote the script to accommodate all of them in a wacky story. I spent two years in the making of the film."^[9] The director allowed himself more spontaneity and improvisation this time around, shooting without a fleshed out script: there was a "concise idea" but the story elements were added gradually over time, "on the fly".^[5]

Decapoda Shock was filmed between July 2009 and March 2011 in Guadalajara, Spain and Madrid,^[5] using an HDV camera, the Canon XL-H1, "because a friend owned it and we could borrow it any time we needed it during these two years."^[9] Unlike the previous film, it was shot in colour, with orange the "main dominant" and also the main colour "for clothes, props, and so on", with a view to achieving "a kind of a comic book feeling."^[9] The reason the film took so long to shoot was the range of "locations and different actors and the tight budget"; as an example, the first scene with the astronaut was shot in the course of one year using three different locations and three different actors (two of them for the hands).^[9]

Decapoda Shock had its premiere at L'Étrange Festival [fr] in Paris^[1] on 9 September 2011.^[10] Its Spanish premiere was at the Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival in October.^[2] In October 2013, it was selected by Peter Kuplowsky at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival as a standout for the internet premiere of Fangoria Magazine's Screamers short film series.^[11] As of 2019, the film had been selected for more than 330 international film festivals.^[2]

Decapoda Shock and the director's first film, Die Schneider Krankheit, appear as bonus material on a Spanish-subtitled DVD of Daniel Cockburn's 2010 feature film, You Are Here.^[12]

The film is available in its entirety on Vimeo.