Arachnoquake

Much like a 10 car pile up on the highway - I felt compelled to watch this movie to the very end... I feel terrible for all the people who actually watched the whole movie. When I arrived home and it was on and then I saw Edward Furlong so I thought I'd give it a chance. I have absolutely no problem with low budget productions - I get that sometimes the funding for someone's dream or vision just isn't available. The acting, storyline and the 'CGI' was so bad that I actually took the time to register on IMDb to leave a review. What pleases me about watching this movie is that I'm now registered on IMDb and can leave reviews for movies truly worth my time. The end.

So, OK I've watched about a dozen of these Sy Fy, Asylum, low rent films in recent weeks because (well I hate myself) and it wasn't until I came to this one that I realised what is wrong with most of these films.

OK yes the effects are bad and the acting can be hit and miss, some of that comes down to the script. But what the main crime seems to be is that they're boring.

A film about giant fire breathing water walking flesh eating spiders who emerge from a crack in the earth caused by an earthquake shouldn't really be dull. It should at least be energetic enough that plot and reality don't matter.

What happens though is, as these films are made for TV they are made and written in 9-13 sections. They are disjointed because each section has to have something to keep the audience coming back, so an attack or bit of flesh every 10 minutes or so.

As a result the films are badly paced and the characters don't develop naturally, meaning you get massive contrast in attitude and pace because they're filling time until the next Ad break.

Id go a step further and suggest that the films aren't even written in one go, the 4 or 5 big scenes (the opening, first attack, heroes attack, finale etc) are written first in a way that 'works' and the rest is filled in, so you end up with often long dull exposition scenes explaining why the action that they need to happen next is about to happen.

You end up with lots of scenes of people driving saying "hey it must be because A,B and C so there fore we must now go and do X, Y and Z).. and then that happens.

There's nothing wrong with building your film to fit the broadcast format, in fact its sometimes better to factor in Advert when editing a TV movie like so many TV dramas do, but the problem is that filling in between the breaks has to be worth it, not just a semi cliff hanger.

Now I know I haven't mentioned the film specifically in this review very much and the reason is, it's THAT forgettable. I watched so many of these recently that they blend into one... I think the kid from Terminator was in this or maybe Malcom McDowell as he'll do anything... but other than that it was forgettable.... oh and throw in a hot blond in denim shorts Boring, forgettable and ignorable... they should start calling these films Slow Budget Movies

This is definitely the best SyFy movie I have seen. It has all the usual things these movies have, a useless military, a female scientist, a hot girl and the hunky star. Unfortunately, about half of the movie has no reason to exist. They run their boat onto the ground and abandon ship, implying that the boat wouldn't move. After running from spiders for an hour they go back to the boat and leave. Still not bad for this type of movie.

This is a horrible movie but it can be horribly fun if you watch it with friends, and you just make jokes and laugh about how stupid the movie is, which I'm pretty sure is exactly what the intention of the film's producers was.

Basically this movie is about a huge earthquake which somehow opens up a sinkhole in the earth but it also simultaneously somehow awakens a colony of ancient and incredibly dangerous, deadly poisonous and aggressive spiders.

That really sums it up. The story doesn't really have any surprises and all the shocks and scares you will see coming a mile away. But there are a lot of fun moments and so bad they're funny death scenes. Pretty much every possible way you could picture spiders killing someone is covered in this movie.

Stupid, mindless fun.

Arachnoquake is good for a SyFy movie but that's not saying much. The acting is atrocious by all and Edward Furlong was probably the worst, the storyline is nonexistent, and the spiders look like they were designed and created by a 6 year old.

It receives 3 stars because a couple of lines and moments gave me a good laugh (I don't know if it was intended or not) and the sister was super sexy so she gave me something to look at when the other actors were spewing out one garbage line after another.

After saying all that, Arachnoquake is still one of the better SyFy movies I've seen recently which is saying something for how awful these movies can be.