Here is all you need to know before rushing out to see Eight Legged Freaks. It takes place in a depressed small town in Arizona. The town has a spider farm with several different species of arachnids. A barrel of toxic sludge has just been accidentally released into the water supply. Mayhem follows.
I do recommend you rush out and see Eight Legged Freaks. I recommend that you see it opening night or this weekend or next when the crowds will be very big and very receptive to hooting, hollering, screaming, and squirming. It's one of those "audience participation movies" that you should see with the most amount of people--preferably the most amount of gullible teenage boys and girls--possible in order to get the maximum effect. If you wait a couple of weeks when it's just you, a friend, a few strangers who have snuck in from repeat Austin Powers screenings, and the theater Exit signs glowing in the darkness, it's not going to have the same impact.
Too silly to be called a true horror flick, Eight Legged Freakstries hard to be a throwback to those giant monster movies of the 1950s that the Mystery Science Theater 3000 guys used to shred week in and week out. It's actually closer to the disaster-infestation flicks of the '70s, like Swarm and Gargoyles. The movie is fun. Lots of fun, in fact. But it is almost too well made, and too smart. It never really reaches the level of kitschy, pop-culture zaniness that the poster and commercials promise. I wanted more people yelling silly things like: "Take that, you eight legged freaks!"
But, hey, who cares?
If you want a movie that features stupid people running from giant spiders, director Ellory Elkayem has heard your pleas and has delivered. The very perfectly cast David Arquette stars as Chris, a slow-witted drifter type who has drifted back into town after a long absence. Chris seeks to rekindle a romance with gorgeous (albeit fully clothed at all times) town sheriff, Sam (Kari Wuhrer of Remote Control and Sliders fame). Sam is a single mom with a pouty, rebellious teenage daughter (the always welcome Scarlett Johannson) and a brainy pre-teen who fashions himself a spider expert (Scott Terra).
The film takes a little while to get going. But by the half-hour point, giant leaping spiders are attacking teenage dirt-bikers in a really cool action sequence on the outskirts of town, and the audience is howling at the absurdity. Eventually, Main Street becomes Ground Zero for arac attacks, the phone lines are out, and Sam is forced to seize control of a local radio station to implore the townspeople to try and make it to the shopping mall where they can regroup.
After my recent preview screening, the movie that most audience members were comparing Eight Legged Freaks to was Tremors, that great '90s movie about burrowing, underground desert creatures stalking Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward. That film was just a little masterpiece of tone, punctuated by the brilliant masterstroke of casting Family Ties dad Michael Gross and country singer Reba McEntyre as crazed, white-trash gun nuts. In one memorable sequence, the happy fun couple fights back using practically every weapon in their arsenal.
Eight Legged Freaks has a similar sequence in which the dim-witted townsfolk (or what's left of them) raid the mall's stores for everything from tennis rackets to chainsaws in preparation of taking on the advancing spiders. It's one of the highlights, and the resulting battle is alternately hilarious and impressive from just a special effects/mechanical stunts perspective. Particularly funny are Doug E. Doug as the local conspiracy talk-show host , who fears that the spiders are the first wave of an alien invasion come to give us all anal probes; and Rick Overton as Deputy Dave, a character who makes Arquette's Deputy Dewey from the Scream films look like a law enforcement genius.
So, like I said, go check this movie out with the big crowds the next couple of weeks or else wait for the video/DVD when you can have your own Eight Legged Freaks party in the dark. It has enough jump-out frights and "Boo!" moments to have you vacuuming up popcorn well into the next morning.
And, of course, if you are deathly afraid of spiders ... avoid this one at all costs.
Eight Legged Freaks is rated PG-13 for action violence
and mild sexual references. Those who are animal lovers, be warned. The
mutated spiders go after the town's pet population first. Nothing graphic,
but a housecat, a dog, and a parrot are among
the prey.
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