Arach-Attack! (Eight Legged Freaks (DVD))

Name: mmintfresh

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Product:	Eight Legged Freaks (DVD)
Date:	15/08/02 (70 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Funny, Entertaining, Spiders

Disadvantages: None

In a sleepy Arizona town there lives a man who collects and sells exotic spiders. A young boy, Mike (Scott) son of the town sheriff Sam, (Kari Wuhrer)goes to visit each week and notices that the spiders are growing larger. The owner explains that he has been feeding them special crickets that he found in a lake. However what neither of them know is that the lake has been contaminated with toxic waste. Meanwhile, Chris (David Arquette) comes back into town. His father owned the mines that run under the town and since his death Chris owns them. The mayor, Wade (Leon Rippy)however wants to sell the mines and relocate the town so they can dump toxic waste in the mines. Back at the spider farm one of the spiders has escaped and soon the whole place is buzzing with giant spiders who promptly devour the owner and head to the mines because they are nocturnal. The residents of the towns are mostly kooks who listen almost religiously to a radio station run by Harlan (Doug E. Doug) who is convinced that aliens are going to invade the earth.

Meanwhile Sam is having trouble being a single mother to rebellious Ashley (Scarlett Johansson) and spider loving Mike. Mike is banned from going to the spider farm but sneaks up one day to find the owner gone and the spiders have seem to have grown to gigantic proportions. Also in the town pets are going missing and also the occasional person. Then one night the spiders go crazy and ambush the town. Leaving the decreasing number of residents to hold up in the mall (in Dawn of the Dead style) and protect themselves.

Eight Legged Freaks is the perfect summer movie, it's funny and entertaining. It is basically a plot from a cheesy black and white B movie dragged into the 21st century. But the film itself knows it is cheesy and predictable and plays that angle up and adding humour to make it that extra bit funny. The humour itself is definitely present in many places, firstly the spiders themselves who make little squeaks
and growls and continually bash into walls and other obstacles but still manage to be convincingly scary threat. The residents also provide some humour, from the wife who leaves her husband because he let the cat get into the dry wall, to the hilarious Harlen who are convinced that the spiders are really Martians come to anal probe him. They are also some sight gags like the fight with the cat and the spider which is straight out of a cartoon or the residents in the mall with their make shift residents. There are also some good one liners like "It's a spider, man". These things kept me chuckling throughout.

What I also liked was despite the humour the film also manages to pack in some jumpy and tension filled moments that keep you on the edge of your seat. And again the spiders look creepy and are superhuman, they can hide, jump and even break through metal doors. The director Ellory Elkayem jumps from genre to genre and does this well because they know what the staple elements of each are. He allows the film to make fun of itself with being annoying.


The acting is good, not top notch Oscar stuff but perfect for this film. No one really takes the role seriously but are all believable. But the real stars are the spiders who steal the show and are almost human. The effects team did a great job with the spiders who look really life like but in a film. I also liked the variety of spiders. The orb spiders, who drink their victims, the trap door spiders who jump up and kill their prey, the jumpers and the tarantulas. I would definitely recommend this film because it entertains on many levels and doesn't disappoint and is just good clean fun.

Summary: