Eight Legged Freaks
Directed by: Ellory Elkayem
Starring: David Arquette, Kari Wuhrer, Scott Terra, Scarlett Johannson, Leon Rippy
Rated: PG-13, for sci-fi violence, brief sexuality and language.
Parental Notes: There’s not much here to distress parents of older preteens and teenagers. Some sequences may be frightening to small children, but the violence is mostly cartoonish rather than truly frightening.
Summer is the time for escapist action movies, and “Eight Legged Freaks” fits the bill perfectly. Well, unless you’re a serious arachnophobe. Action-lovers and fans of cheesy horror films will be right at home.
The story is simple enough – hundreds of spiders are exposed to toxic waste and escape from their cages at an exotic spider farm. Grown to amazing sizes, they turn to the nearest source of prey – Prosperity, Arizona, a run-down mining town. When night falls and the spiders come out in force, it’s up to the sheriff to pull the townspeople together to survive the arachnid onslaught.
Shooting the film in 40 days in the desert with a mostly unknown cast, director Ellory Elkayem saved the budget for the special effects. As a result, the spiders are wonderfully done, detailed and simultaneously funny and freaky in true B-movie tradition. They provide as many laughs as gasps, reacting at times in very human ways to the attempts of their prey to escape.
Arrayed against the spiders are sheriff Sam Parker (Kari Wuhrer), her two children Mike (Scott Terra) and Ashley (Scarlett Johannson), and the prodigal heir to the tapped-out mine beneath the town, Chris McCormack (David Arquette). Young Mike is an expert on spiders, a friend to the owner of the exotic spider farm, and surprisingly not excessively cloying or aggravating in the tradition of child geniuses from the movies. Sam herself is a real gun-toting mama, as believable with a shotgun to her shoulder as with her arms around her children. Arquette is in fine form, playing yet another goofy guy who just wants to do the right thing.
“Eight Legged Freaks” mixes thrills and comedy with ease, paying homage to the classic monster movies while gently satirizing them. The blend of cheesiness and genuine excitement is reminiscent of Universal’s recent Mummy films, blended with the lunacy of “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” or “Buckaroo Banzai.” Irascible grumps and arachnophobic folks should stay away, but those just out for a fun couple of hours at the movies will love “Eight Legged Freaks.”