Creepy Crawly Number 1 - The Spider (that Hunts People)
Arachnophobia
* The creepy crawly up for show; In the South American jungle, a team of scientists climb down into a deep ravine. The thick, lush jungle is home to insects of every size and shape. In what seems like a routine spray and grab, the scientist pump poisonous gas into the trees, and capture the poor, defenseless butterflies that flutter to the ground. As they begin scooping up their collections, the team are caught off guard by a loud Ker-Plunk! The sound belongs to a spider the size of a man’s hand, which has landed in the capturing device. Putting them into specimen jars, the spiders are in fact not dead, and rather aggressive. Above the naïve humans, the daddy general spider watches on as his children are taken away from him. Not happy about this, he cleverly jumps into a backpack, and hitches a ride back to their base camp.
After biting
one of the stupid humans, who dies within seconds, the spider then hitches
another ride in his victim’s coffin. As the body returns to its hometown in
America, the big-ass spider emerges, and begins to wreak havoc on the small
country town.
* How they are portrayed in this film; although the actual spiders used in the filming of “Arachnophobia” were called New Zealand Tree Spiders (completely harmless by the way), they are portrayed as a new species in the film. Residing specifically in their little corner of the Venezuelan jungle, they make their new home in the town of Canima, Northern California. After the daddy general hooks up with a common household spider, it’s not long before the eggs hatch, and the soldiers head out in a web-like direction, stopping at every house, and biting whoever they find. Plotting, aggressive and lethal, these spiders will stop at nothing to kill every last living thing in existence. And they do so with real cunning and intelligence.
* The humans who try to squash them; our central character is Dr. Ross Jenkins, who has just moved his family from San Francisco to the small town. Setting up house on a farm, he is also (and very coincidentally) terrified of spiders, hence the title of the film. As the spiders head out on the town, and people drop dead from a single bite, he tries to figure out the cause of the deaths. As he catches on that some dangerous spiders might be to blame, he gets in touch with a team of scientists, who (also coincidentally) are the same scientists from the start of the film. Throw in a local bug exterminator (played hilariously by John Goodman), and you’ve got a rag tag team of would-be heroes, who try to stop the killer arachnids, without getting bit themselves.
* The grossest moment; not that the film is gory in a sense, but there are certainly many scenes that will make your skin crawl. The fact they used real spiders in this film for the most part is impressive, and when you finally see the General up-close, who compares to a baseball glove in size, you will be sitting on edge. But probably the most squirmish scene is when the Doc and his team arrive at the house of a couple who they suspect may be in the middle of the spider’s warpath. Upon getting there, they discover the couple dead on the couch, having just watched TV. Upon closer inspection of the deceased man, a little spider decides to crawl out of the man’s nose, scaring the hell out of the Doctor and the audience at the same time.
Arachnophobia is part thriller, part comedy,
and surprisingly has a lot of heart and spirit to it. It’s not a dumb movie, or
insulting, and given the subject matter of killer spiders, is smart in many
subtle ways. Out of the handful of spider movies out there today, Arachnophobia
ranks as the best of them.
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