Eight Legged Freaks
AKA: Arac Attack
Released: 07/17/2002
Version: Film
Length: Approx. 99 min.
Rated: PG-13
Main Cast: David Arquette, Kari Wuhrer, Scott Terra, Scarlett Johansson, Leon Rippy, Jay Arlen Jones, Matt Holwick, Eileen Ryan.
Now this here's a strange movie. I thought it would be a horror-comedy type movie, and that's what it was. But it was a little different than what I expected.
SPOILER WARNING: As with most of my reviews, there is some plot "twists" and what-not revealed herein. Read at your own risk.
We begin with Harlan (Doug E. Doug), a nutty radio conspiracy nut who narrates the beginning of our tale. He broadcasts "news" and his ideas about government conspiracies and aliens. Next, we jump to a truck driver listening to the broadcast. He's got toxic waste in his truck and one of the barrels fall out and into a pond/swamp when he swerves to miss a rabbit in the road.
A week later we see a guy getting crickets from the pond. And then another week passes and a scene with a geeky kid riding his bike to a spider "shop" is shown. His name is Mike Parker (Scott Terra), the son of the local Sheriff. He's into spiders and his friend owns the shop. Inside are all manner of spiders. Of course, they are growing to abnormal sizes due to the crickets. One of the animals escapes and bites the owner after Mike has left and in his throes of death he crashes into all the other terrariums, freeing the spiders.
Mike is grounded for visiting the spider-guy and his mom, Sheriff Sam Parker (Kari Wuhrer), pulls over his sister, Ashley (Scarlett Johansson), the atypical teen rebel, when she sees her riding on a dangerous dirt bike with her beau.
Eventually, various animals start disappearing in town under mysterious circumstances. One of the first ones we get to see is when a cat goes into a wall. It is one of the weirdest things I've seen in a movie of this genre. you can't see the cat or the spider, but you can hear them fighting in the wall and every couple of feet that they travel in and up the wall, the slam each other into the plaster, leaving behind imprints of paws or heads. This is THE ONLY animal in the movie that puts up any kind of a decent fight for life.
Chris McCormack (David Arquette) is an owner of an abandoned gold mine in town. He's in love with the Sheriff and he's come back, after ten years, for her, presumably. Also, he suddenly believes his dead father, when he said that the motherload was in the mines...
Okay, you only need to know about one more major character and that's Wade (Leon Rippy), a guy with a lot of dumb money-making schemes for the town. The town is almost dead due to there being no reason for anyone to live there or work there anymore, now that the mine is dead.
The Good Stuff:
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The spiders rock! There's all kinds of them and it's neat to watch them catch their prey. The trap-door spiders have some really cool scenes, from yanking in ostriches to grabbing humans. And the jumping spiders have some neat scenes too, in which they jump some dirt bikers and a fuel truck. |
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Uhhh...the script has some funny stuff, but not enough. |
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I'm going to have to stick with the special effects. The plot was pretty shallow. |
The Bad Stuff:
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There's some bad language, but nothing like Tremors (which is easy to compare with this movie...see a later section) |
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The spider's eating/killing people is pretty nasty...although there is little gore, other then spider blood, which is green. |
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Some of the dead people are not made for pleasant memories. |
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Certain scenes are intense...even though they shouldn't be...and they won't be the next time you see the movie. |
Dumb Stuff:
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The spiders are made to sound and act kind of like the critters in Gremlins. They have stupid "voices" when they get hurt. The sound effects are incongruous for a movie of this type. They're almost cartoonish. |
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For some reason, the tarantula never does anything much. It walks around and opens doors that the smaller ones can't open and then it ALWAYS backs off to let the others in instead. WHY!??! |
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There is no BIG conflict with either the tarantula or the other giant spider. That would have been cool, but it doesn't happen. The best you get is watching the loser Chris ride a dirt bike with his Aunt Gladys (Eileen Ryan) as a giant spider chases them. It won't have you on the edge of your seat, unless you've lived a VERY sheltered life. |
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Dumb scene with the barber. A tent movies along behind him and every time he looks behind him it stops. This could have been pretty funny, and it was for a little while. Then the tent turns around and he just gets jumped by another spider. You expected more from that lead in. DUMB!!! |
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The stupid love stuff between the Sheriff and Chris. It's just thrown in there to be cliché and it's exceedingly obvious even to the actors. |
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The ending is ultra-lame. A small army of firemen and police arrive due to Deputy Pete, a funny guy for the show..., and Harlan. Who knows how they got past all the spiders. You see them running into a parking lot full of them, but they somehow get past them. Off-screen, of course. Anyway, this makes you think that more will happen, but instead the only thing that occurs is some stupid dialog and it's assumed that ALL the spiders followed the humans into the caves and were destroyed. Credits...and a lame version of "The Itsy, Bitsy spider." |
Tremors Vs. Eight Legged Freaks:
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Similarities:
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Differences:
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Anyway, I like this movie even with all the dumb stuff in it. It was fun and it had some intense stuff in it. However, if you want a scary spider movie, go get Arachnophobia. It's got a better set of actors and a plot. Of course, you can also go with this dumb thing if you just like monster movie flicks.
STORY: 
(eh? I didn't see any story!!!)
VIOLENCE:
(mmm...I vant to suck your blood...)
SEXUAL CONTENT:
(The chicks look good, but there's nothing really naughty about any of the
scenes.)
SFX:
LANGUAGE:
OVERALL SCORE:
