Eight Legged Freaks
Mix together an unscrupulous small-town mayor dumping toxic waste into disused mine workings under the town and an exotic spider farm. Add an accident involving the aforesaid toxic waste entering the food supply used by the spider farm and you have an ideal recipe for an eight-legged disaster movie.....
Mix together an unscrupulous small-town mayor dumping toxic waste into disused mine workings under the town and an exotic spider farm. Add an accident involving the aforesaid toxic waste entering the food supply used by the spider farm and you have an ideal recipe for an eight-legged disaster movie.
Set in the not so prosperous ex-mining town of Prosperity, Arizona when an accident involving toxic waste contaminating the food supply of a roadside spider farm results in the arachnids growing to giant proportions and taking a dietary interest in the town's inhabitants. It's left to mining engineer Chris McCormack (David Arquette), newly returned home after a ten-year absence, Sheriff Sam Parker (Kari Wuhrer), her kids Mike (Scott Terra) and Ashley (Scarlett Johansson), Deputy Pete Willis (Rick Overton), and paranoid local radio DJ Harlan Griffith (Doug E. Doug) to battle the spiders and save the day.
Review
Inspired by a short film by director Ellory Elkayem created with the support of the New Zealand government, which was seen by the producers and used as a vehicle to realise their desire to revive the 1950s mutant bug monster movie genré
As an attempt to revive the genré, this is both a success and a failure. Elkayem retains the low-budget feel of these movies and, while it's obviously aimed at being a comic horror, it isn't really very scary at all unless you're arachnophobic. Adding the big-budget effects of very well done CGI and animatronic spiders certainly makes it all the more realistic and adds much to the entertainment value but I think the producers have missed the point that those B movies were not particularly good examples of movie entertainment and they certainly weren't intended to be funny. In a post WWII America that was seeing the rise of the Soviet war machine, these movies were mainly used to promote the feeling among the common American that the good old USA could triumph against any adversary from aliens from outer space to mutant bugs so they could easily handle the Russians. However, here I found myself rooting for the spiders and hooting with laughter when some unlucky townsperson was viciously assaulted by them and that's probably what saves it from obscurity and makes it worth watching.
The video transfer is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and can't be faulted, even when a lot of the film was shot in dark conditions. Colours and black levels are well handled and there's no obvious grain or compression artifact. I can't comment on the Italian or French soundtracks but the English Dolby Digital 5.1 track is pretty good. The dialogue is clear throughout but where it excels is when the spiders start getting into the action with ambient scuttlings all around you.
As for the cast, the characters are mostly forgettable and are mainly there as spider fodder. Their performances are competent but nothing great and David Arquette seemed a bit bored with it all. The only ones that stood out a bit above the rest were Kari Wuhrer and Scott Terra but I don't think I'd have minded even them getting munched by the spiders.
All the above negative stuff and the physics that basically says that spiders just can't get that large aside, this is a fun movie that is entertaining to watch with lots of high speed action and good spider effects so as long as you turn off your brain and don't expect anything more than that, you'll probably enjoy it.
Extras
Feature Commentary - with Co-writer/director Ellory Elkayem, producer Dean Devlin, David Arquette and Rick Overton, this is an entertaining and informative commentary that begins with Elkayem talking about his short film that inspired the movie. Everyone involved seems to have enjoyed making the movie and the conversations reflects this and it's certainly worth listening to.
Additional Scenes - 13 minutes of additional material over 11 scenes, shown as a continuous stream, which I suspect were left out for timing and story flow reasons but they do add a little extra information to flesh out the start of the movie and some of the minor characters. Video quality isn't great though and some compression and edge enhancement artifacts are obvious throughout.
Larger Than Life - The thirteen and a half minute short, shot in black and white by Ellory Elkayem, that inspired the film and was itself inspired by 1950s B movies such as Them, Tarantula and The Incredible Shrinking Man. It has a pretty simplistic storyline and was obviously shot on a low budget but it's mildly entertaining for all that.
Theatrical Trailer - A short, one minute trailer for the movie.
Cast & Crew - Just a couple of pages of credits.
DVD-ROM Material - Requires installation of the PC only Interactual Player to access some extra content. Usually more trouble than it's worth as it's invariably incompatible with some versions of Windows.
Overall
The DVD has a good quality sound and video package and a reasonable, if somewhat sparse set of extras that I think could have been expanded to include some making of/behind the scenes material and maybe even some information of the different species of spider featured.
However, as a comic horror in the style of a 50's monster B movies it will keep you entertained all the way through and is probably a must for monster horror fans but probably a rental for the rest of us.
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