Criaturas asesinas

The biggest problem with this movie is its simplistic dialogue. One example is when the made scientist gloats "Spiders are carnivores. Did you know that?" It makes one wonder if the writers added that for the 3-year-olds who may be watching. It also lacks creativity and fails to create any suspense or scares. The actors also fail to generate any sense of urgency. Lines such as, "This is creepy" are spoken in the same tone you might use to say "We need milk." If the characters on screen are not afraid of their situation, why should the audience be scared? The spiders themselves never seem very real. There is no sense of scale or consistency. (One spider chasing the heroine seems to change size constantly--almost as if the animator couldn't get it quite right) They have a trumpeting roar that sounds suspiciously like an elephant and which detracts from any realism they may have had. (When was the last time you heard a spider say anything?) If you can see it for free, give it a try. But don't waste your money on this film.

I had read about this film in Fangoria, so I was really looking forward to seeing it and my local video store had it for rent, so I figured why not check it out. I was severely disappointed. Judging from the trailer the film had a lot going for it and I knew going into it that it was a low budget film, so I was willing to cut it some slack and even then it has real problems; the major one being the film was too ambitious for its budget and having had a better budget probably could have better than Eight Legged Freaks.

Im not going to be as rough as some reviewers are on this film, but I wouldnt recommend it. Its major fault was the SFX, which considering the title are the cornerstone of a movie like this and considering the low budget, it did some some good effects, but for every good SFX shot, there was 2 bad ones. The film had a great atmosphere in the claustrophic confines of a ship and spiders running loose but never managed to create any tension or a feeling of claustrophobia. Also why they made computer generated shots of stuff like a wrecked ship or even the cargo ship itself is beyond me, because thats some of the stuff that really looked fake esp. when they had long lingering shots. The interiors sets were believable probably because they actually filmed it on an old ship. I was really expecting some good gore in this film and it even failed on that level, the spider attacks were just consisted of their fangs impaling their victims. The major fault of the film though, which many had pointed out, was the script and even for a film like this you expect something other than ,"Spiders are Carninvores, you know that?". No kidding you mean flies and insects are vegetable matter? Are people stupid enough to believe that a cut on the neck of the lead actor that required stitches would need as much medical attention as it got in the movie? The acting was passable but still left something to be desired.

The bottom line is that this film isnt really worth your time or money and its a shame, because with a better script and more money it could have been at least entertaining sci-fi splatter film.

Most of the people who've seen and slated Spiders 2 have obviously never seen Spiders 1, as the sequel is practically Citizen Kane in comparison. Most of the actors do a passable job (including Richard Moll - an actor I actually recognised, the last thing you expect from a film like this), and the director even throws in some halfhearted camera tricks - brilliantly stupid shots include the heroine diving through a bit of flimsy webbing in slo-mo as if it were a plate glass window.

However, any and all attempts to build up suspense totally disintegrate when the SFX are brought into play (some of the CG shots near the end are laugh-out-loud hilarious), and, unforgivably, it also suffers from Boring Spider Deaths. It also has absolutely no connection to the original, though I'm not sure whether that's a good or bad thing.

Still impossible to recommend as a good film, then, but it's definitely a cut above the original (if not quite as funny).

The first "Spiders" is one of my guiltiest guilty pleasures in the horror genre, simply because that movie is just too stupid NOT to enjoy! It had grotesque special effects, featured every single cliché of the freshly revived creature-feature sub genre and it never took itself too seriously, which resulted in a fairly entertaining & campy flick. Part two regretfully is the complete opposite of all that. It tries to be scary and original, which is a pretty bad approach if you're dealing with mutated spiders that look as gigantic as a house! Despite the remotely promising opening sequences (featuring an authentic pirate attack!) and a lot of gory killings near the end, "Spiders 2" is also a very boring film and that's really unforgivable for a post-2000 horror production. The sail boat of a young couple sinks during a storm but they're rescued by a huge cargo ship. The exclusively male crew members are insufferably friendly even though it's more than obvious that they're naughty villains, especially the annoying captain of the ship and the stereotypical mad doctor with the white beard. It takes another tedious half hour before it's confirmed that the cargo ship actually is a floating research lab where the sinister scientist feeds human bodies to over-sized tarantulas. The ramshackle old cargo ship forms an interesting location, but crap-director Sam Firstenberg nearly isn't talented enough to make full use of it. The CGI-effects are atrocious, as are the acting performances and it's really pathetic to see how everyone involved in this Nu-Image production takes this thing so damn seriously.

OK, there are some mad scientists entering a ship and forcing the crew and some more good scientists to experiment with spiders until they become large, blown-up rubber monsters running amok and diminishing the crew one by one until the final showdown.

What could have been a horror classic in 1931 and a trash pearl in 1961 is just a joke in 2001. You wonder how producers can do such a movie in this decade... I really like all kind of trash movies like this, but the story is to thin, the acting just wooden, with only non-screaming heroine Stephanie Niznik showing some acting abilities and sex appeal, and a really dull direction.

The worst of this movie with the great title "Spiders 2" (where have been the first spiders?) is the lack of special effect. While it's rather easy to produce great special effect with today's computer technology, you can see very special effects that where found somewhere beyond the sea probably... a stupidly looking rubber spider that has already been fighting against your Action Man figures back in the seventies, enlarged and dubbed over some ocean pictures... nonsense explosions, unrealistic and really stupid stunts, and smaller or bigger plastic spiders being dragged and pushed all around the burning ship.

You wonder if the actors and crew were on dope all the time, or if they had great fun and a big laugh doing this picture... this could be a logical explanation for this baddie that otherwise has no real reason to exist, except if you're looking for another cheap movie for a retro trash film night with your friends a some cans of lager beer, next to, let's say, Van Damme's "The Order" and "Maura's Sexual Fantasies"... in fact, all these three movies were running on German TV last weekend. Have fun!