| EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS |
 2002 – USA
Director: Ellory Elkayem - Reviewed by Dan
The film delivers exactly as promised in the trailers and the posters—self-aware B-movie laughs and flawless special effects. The plot is thin as a web, predictable as a sunrise and flat-out ridiculous, but I went to see really big spiders attack—and indeed, people with weak hearts should avoid this film. Labrador-sized spiders jump out of dark holes with adrenaline squirting regularity and motor-home sized tarantulas lumber down Main Street. A plot synopsis (like it matters): Spiders exposed to toxic waste grow really big and overrun a small Arizona town. It’s up to David Arquette and the Tough-Yet-Gorgeous-Single-Mom Sheriff (Kari Wuhrer) to save everybody. Which they don’t, actually, but there are some nice explosions. Oh, and the mayor is kind of devious, there’s a mine that runs under the whole town and the local kids ride motorcycles a lot. In other words, it’s all about the spiders. They look great! They jump! They spew webs! They make cute little human-like noises! They sing! They dance! (“Hello my baby, hello my darlin’.” Well, not really. I jest.) Consequentially, although it is horrifying to see Volkswagen-sized spiders leap onto writhing extras, the film is farcically bloodless and probably appropriate for mature ten-year-olds. Early on, there’s a fine Arachnophobia-style skin-crawler of a scene before the nice slow build-up to insect Armageddon. In the simmering first thirty minutes, every plot point is foreshadowed with sledgehammer-like subtlety. This leaves the viewer’s brain unoccupied so they can jump, scream and squirm through the final two-thirds of the film. David Arquette does his squinting 12-year-old hero thing but doesn’t bust the cute-ometer for once. Kari Wuhrer is pretty and likeable and screams really well. Most of the characters are one-dimensional, but the spiders are rendered in a convincing 3-dimensional space, so who cares? The truth is, some of the comedy is pretty funny. Eight Legged Freaks succeeds in a way that The Mummy Returns did not—being self-aware while pretending like it isn’t. So as long as you know what you’re getting into (or are recovering from a lobotomy) Eight Legged Freaks is good, clean, jump-out-of-your-skin fun. |
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Sometimes it feels good to take a brain vacation. In this respect, Eight Legged Freaks is a luxury cruise.
