Okay, so the reason why I call this a remembering instead of a review is that to me the older movies (this was made in 1990) are either automatically good and worth watching or bad and forgotten. There just aren't that many crappy movies from 20+ years ago that you will stumble on and watch. Sure, maybe you've heard how great BLUES BROTHERS and you watch it and might think it sucks...but the movie was good enough to get a loyal band of followers who will remember it and love it to this day. As opposed to a movie like 1941 which isn't necessarily horrible but it wasn't good enough that people remember and love it. An oldie you might hate, but it's proven itself by the fact that at least some people love it.
ARACHNOPHOBIA was directed by Frank Marshall (better known as a producer for movies like RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and co-founder of Amblin Entertainment with Steven Spielberg) and stars John Goodman and Jeff Daniels.
The story: a city doctor and his family move out to the country which is a better place to raise their children, except a deadly South American spider has come into the area and its deadly offspring are killing people throughout the town. Now the doctor and an exterminator has to find the nest and kill the queen before the spiders population grows and kills everyone in town.
Was it good?
Yeah. It's good, but not great. It's not JAWS or GREMLINS. It's kind of silly (John Goodman's protrayal of the exterminator is very much like Bill Murray in CADDYSHACK) which is fun and it's kind of serious which is good too. The problem is that is just never is enough of either -- for a monster movie (even if they are little monsters) the scenes with the spiders just aren't scary enough. And the humor is okay but it isn't enough either in quantity or laugh-size. Still, it's a solid movie and for fans of creepy crawlies it's worth watching.
As a writer there were some interesting things I noticed. The movie starts with people in South America one of who gets killed and on whose body the spider travels back to the states. Then we jump to the town where the new doctor (played by Jeff Daniels) movies in. At first everything is nice, but then the old doctor decides not to retire so he can't take over his practice so...well, he's screwed. It's nice and interesting and it gives him a life apart from spiders, but it does take some time. I wonder if the movie were being made today if they wouldn't rush the story past that and just get to the spiders. Here, we're almost midway through the movie beore the protagonist realizes people are dying, then the next quarter he spends trying to convince people that it is because of spiders and then it's only the last quarter of the film that it really is man-vs-spiders. The other main character, the exterminator, also isn't introduced until midway through the movie. For me it worked, but I have a feeling all that would have to get movied up -- probably at the expense of the characters. That's a shame, because comparing this movie to most of the modern stuff and this movie easily beats them.
*** RECOMMEND (if you loke creepy crawlies) ***
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