{"id":22510,"date":"2014-10-29T04:50:08","date_gmt":"2014-10-29T08:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=22510"},"modified":"2016-09-27T04:52:42","modified_gmt":"2016-09-27T08:52:42","slug":"earth-vs-the-spider-2001","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2014\/10\/29\/earth-vs-the-spider-2001\/","title":{"rendered":"Earth vs. the Spider (2001)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"earthvsspider2001\"<\/a>Director Scott Ziehl\u2019s \u201cEarth vs. The Spider\u201d is an often overlooked and extremely obscure film, and for good reason. It’s a relative rip-off of David Cronenberg’s “The Fly,” and let\u2019s face it: There\u2019s no reason to call this movie \u201cEarth vs. The Spider\u201d at all. I fondly remember this being featured on Cinemax here in America in a Stan Winston horror movie showcase. His company rehashed American International Pictures films, but in name only. As is the case with \u201cEarth vs. The Spider,\u201d which isn\u2019t a masterpiece, but isn\u2019t bad for a hokey shamelessly derivative monster movie.<\/p>\n

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This 2001 retread isn\u2019t about a scientist, but instead focuses on a low level lab guard named Quentin who is obsessed with comic books and superheroes. He\u2019s a fairly forgettable young man who lives in an apartment complex, and has eyes for his lovely neighbor. He\u2019s obsessed with comics and superheroes, and is even a security guard for the sake of being identified as such. Quentin happens to work in a top secret lab that\u2019s performing genetic experiments. When it\u2019s broken in to by terrorists, Quentin takes the opportunity to view the crime as a serendipitous moment.<\/p>\n

He injects himself with a mysterious serum that is being used to figure out how to imbue humans with spider abilities. Quentin\u2019s dream has come true when he begins experiencing transformations that seem like he\u2019s becoming a friendly neighborhood web slinger of sorts. But things go awry when Quentin begins to adopt the more vicious and predatory habits of the spider, which includes hunting smaller animals and weaker prey, and garnering an unquenchable hunger for meat. Before long he takes on the hideous physical attributes of a man spider hybrid that are less than appealing and he begins murdering innocent victims. He soon finds himself in a battle between his baser urges, and his humanity that unfolds much in the vein of \u201cThe Fly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Again, I won\u2019t call this a masterpiece, and it doesn\u2019t even try to be original, but it\u2019s a fun guilty pleasure with neat direction from Scott Ziehl, and some very nifty special effects and make up. For the most part, Devin Gummersall\u2019s performance is solid, and considering what little screen time he has, John Cho chews every scene he\u2019s in, and plays a significant role in character Quentin\u2019s lingering sanity. The said, Dan Akroyd seems to be thrown in to the movie for name recognition only, playing a private eye who takes an interest in Quentin\u2019s crime spree. He feels oddly tacked on to the story, and contributes nothing but a misplaced noir aesthetic that really is ill fitted for what amounts to a gross out horror film. If you can forgive it for cribbing from Cronenberg\u2019s masterpiece, \u201cEarth vs. The Spider\u201d is a worthwhile genre entry that\u2019s less about science playing God and more about the dangers of losing the ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Director Scott Ziehl\u2019s \u201cEarth vs. The Spider\u201d is an often overlooked and extremely obscure film, and for good reason. It’s a relative rip-off of David Cronenberg’s “The Fly,” and let\u2019s face it: There\u2019s no reason to call this movie \u201cEarth vs. The Spider\u201d at all. I fondly remember this being featured on Cinemax here in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,12],"tags":[310,477,676,1357,835,874,906,966,1087,1130],"class_list":["post-22510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-halloween-horror-month","category-movie-reviews","tag-e","tag-horror","tag-monster","tag-mutant","tag-remake","tag-romance","tag-science-fiction","tag-spiders","tag-thriller","tag-tv-movie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22510"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22512,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22510\/revisions\/22512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}