There’s nothing cooler than getting paid to write about movies.
At least, that’s what they tell me.
Now that the Internet lets folks like Mr. Vasquez and my
colleagues here at Cinema-Crazed practice our craft, we notice
that for each one of us, there are another two-dozen folks
practicing their crap. The end result is that very few of us
actually get paid. It’s kind of like we’re trapped… in the World
Wide Web.
Speaking of webs, the comedy-thriller Arachnophobia has been
calling to me the last few months, so I had to check it out
again, first time since it was in theaters in 1990. Now it
strikes me as strange to make a comedy based on people getting
killed by insanely venomous spiders, but I guess that’s just how
they did it back in the day.
Arachnophobia is an
Amblin Entertainment production, so you’d better
expect plenty of magical wonder along with your
hundreds of huge spiders crawling all over people.
We first find Julian Sands as an Entomologist who
also specializes in spiders, as he delicately goes
about finding rare and unknown specimens in the
jungle by haphazardly gassing them to death by the
dozens. Of course he unknowingly brings back to the
States a giant, mega-poisonous tarantula played
alternately by a real, huge bird-eating spider and a
hand puppet. His spider ends up in a small coastal
town where Jeff Daniels has just moved his family to
become (he hopes) the sole General Practitioner. |
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Ever-stoic,
ever-suffering Daniels gets lucky when the giant spider moves
into his house, enslaves billions of huge house-spiders (played
by gargantuan, icky Huntsman spiders) who then become enraged
and hyper poisonous, setting about killing everybody while
worshipping their new, basketball-sized master.
Drawing from a large cast of goofy caricatures and Daniels as
the dopey arachnophobe, we get a good old-fashioned creepy-fun
time. No-one believes the doc when he suspects eight-legged
malfeasance, not even super-comic-relief exterminator John
Goodman, a guy who comes complete with his own goofy ‘comedy
music’ and a real fetish for pretending he’s Bill Murray in
Caddyshack.
Despite Goodman’s egregious yucks-wringing and a gauzy glow full
of revisionist nostalgia, Arachnophobia eventually packs a
decent hairy punch, even causing yours truly to utter a
cautionary ‘ … dude …’ to the screen an hour in, when Daniels
goes for what he thinks is a creepy crawler on his wall. And,
his character has a genuine arc! When’s the last time you saw
that in the comedy horror genre? But for what it’s worth,
there’s something truly terrifying about Arachnophobia, and it’s
that these pint-sized freaks are much closer to the size of your
average house-spider, and thus that much more unnerving when
they start swarming the house or crawling out of your nose.
While Arachnophobia isn’t a patch on the lizard-brain excesses
of our next feature, Kingdom of the Spiders, it will still
undoubtedly have the most stalwart among you itching with
psychosomatic glee.
I’ve got this theory (probably a long-established scientific
one, who knows?) that we strongly imprint on most of the stuff
we see, do and hear before we reach the age of ten. It’s why
I’ll always love Helen Reddy, Carol King, Paul Simon, Star Wars
and Kingdom of the Spiders. I caught a bit of a television
advertisement for it when it came out in theaters in 1978 and
was floored. I was so excited I went sort of crazy, and my older
brother told me that they often ran advertisements during the
same time each day, so next day I was glued to the TV, waiting
in vain to see that clip of all the spiders hanging from the
light bulb. It was probably years later when I finally got to
see this masterpiece, (on TV) and now I watch it every few
years. Despite my lifelong familiarity, Kingdom never loses its
nasty, silly power. It’s the King of spider movies!
As I grew up, I found myself really wanting a pet tarantula:
domesticated and in a cage, the things are damn cool, but on a
primal level for me (and probably the vast majority of folks)
spiders are terrifying. Too hairy, too many legs, too fast
moving and too unpredictable – the sudden sight of a spider on
your arm provokes an instant reaction. This primal fear is the
engine that drives Kingdom straight down your fucking throat.
It’s kind of a stupid ‘70s movie in many ways, plying eco-fears
with the conceit that DDT has killed all the spiders’ food,
causing them to organize, become super-poisonous, and attack a
small New Mexico town by the thousands.
Plus, it stars William Shatner as the heroic/romantic lead.
Shatner is brilliant for what he is, a smarmy, larger-than-life
version of his larger-than-life self – it’s an overpowering aura
that dominates most of the movie. But then the spiders try to
eat him.
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As ‘Rack,’ the town
veterinarian, Shatner investigates mysterious
tarantula-caused cattle deaths. The hot Entomologist
comes in from downstate to identify the venom in the
cattle as that caused by spiders. ‘Rack’ does what
any concerned Vet would do, runs the lady off the
road and throws her in the passenger seat of her own
sports car, kidnapping her for a dinner date. It’s
that old Shatner charm, baby! Coy and patronizing,
‘Rack’ manages to hypnotize the girl into another
date, where they really hit it off, but he’s not the
only predatory pest, because dozens of tarantulas
are creeping through the grass to pounce on ‘Rack’s’
five-year-old niece who’s chaperoning the date. Time
to climb up on the couch, ladies!
Kingdom is cruel and
brilliant in its relentless exploitation of
arachnophobia, using (except in long shots) naught
but tons and tons of real creepy crawlers.
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No mention of even
the word ‘spider’ is made until 15 minutes in, nor is one even
seen until the 25-minute mark, but things begin uncomfortably
escalating after that. What about ‘that darn spider hill’ that
suddenly appears on the farmer’s back forty – positively
crawling with the things, or the way handfuls of the buggers
will appear in your car as you’re driving (or your plane when
you’re flying)?
The climactic final half-hour is cruel and unbearable (both for
viewers and spiders). This movie was clearly made without
animal-action monitoring, as tarantulas are routinely stomped,
sprayed with fire extinguishers, or run over by cars. Hard to
blame them, though, (the actors and the characters they play) as
the evil things plop heavily down from the chimney or clamber
all over their helpless bodies and faces. The action gets so
egregious it takes multiple viewings to even notice such tasty
bits like the lady who shoots off her own fingers trying to
escape the critters. But the little girl dancing in terror on
the bed as dozens of the fat, black creatures crawl up her
adorable dress? That’s unconscionable!
Some things I’ve learned from Kingdom of the Spiders: Tarantulas
don’t like fire-extinguishers, guns are a poor choice for
defense against spiders, and if your motel is covered with
spiders and something’s clogging the air conditioning ducts –
don’t get your face all up close to the grate to investigate!
People with serious spider-fear should stay the hell away from
Kingdom of the Spiders. Kingdom forces even this seasoned horror
veteran into involuntary physical revolt, jerking my legs up
onto the couch and twitching horribly. It’s the best kind of
wrong there is.
So, if it’s starting to warm up where you live, these two will
chill you down a bit, and possibly have you begging for a shower
to wash the bugs off. At any rate, after catching this double
bill on a TV near you, I dare you to go into the nearest
basement and stick your hand in a dark corner without looking.
You can’t do it, can you?
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