Arachnia

This is *not* "Arachnophobia". The monsters look like something out of a fifties drive-in movie flick, and tend to be more amusing than scary. Although the girls are pretty enough, this feature could give one-check "B" movies a bad name.

I like giant monster movies, hence I like giant spiders. So I guess I just had to see this one sooner or later. "Arachnia" is basically a total cheese-fest, bad to the bone. The nice touch was that it is sort of an homage to 50's & 60's giant monster/insect movies. So don't expect one original aspect here, story- or otherwise. The acting in general was, as to be expected, too bad for words. The effects aren't good either, actually, but they still are a lot of fun. Because the film-makers mostly used stop-motion (in the year 2003!, mind you) to bring the spiders to live. Needless to say, it's not on par with Ray Harryhausen's work. All-in-all: Kind of fun in a very bad way.

Well I just finished watching the movie and I regret wasting every second...There's 80 bad minutes of my life that I'm not getting back... The flick is unbelievably "not good". The actors suck, the not-so-special effects suck - at times they are worse than the movies shot at the 50s - the dialogue is tacky...The only scene that caught my attention was Alexxus' naked scene. I just CAN'T believe somebody actually WROTE a script and the whole movie was not improvised! I also can't believe that there is a director out there who was so happy with his work that he allowed this piece of...#### to be produced..DO NOT BY ANY MEANS RENT THIS MOVIE!! IT'S BOTH A WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY!

In a way, you have to respect Arachnia. It's clearly meant as a tribute to the big bug movies of the fifties, and while the special effects look terrible; at least the film doesn't feature CGI. However, on the other hand; you can't respect the film too much because it's a load of rubbish. The acting is terrible, the special effects (as mentioned) are impossible to take seriously, and once you've seen one giant spider being blown up; you've seen them all, so it gets boring rather quickly. The plot follows a bunch of people who are unlucky enough to be in a plane crash after a meteor shower. They go to the only house in the area; which just happens to be a house where a man has a huge spider he used to use as a circus attraction. Coincidently around the same time, the meteor shower has caused more giant spiders to rise from underground. All the characters in this film are poor caricatures; none of them have anything even resembling a third dimension and they will soon begin to thoroughly bore you. You've got to feel for director Brett Piper as he clearly didn't have much to work with for this film; but that doesn't make Arachnia worth a damn, and overall there are better giant bug films than this, and therefore Arachnia doesn't get the seal of approval from me.

Director Bret Piper's ARACHNIA opens with college professor Munkford (David Bunce) and his students crash-landing in an airplane, and winding up in an old farmhouse.

As the evening progresses, it becomes evident that: #1- Munkford is a creepy pervert! #2- Two of his students, named Trina and Kelly are beautiful, but whiney and brain-deprived! #3- Two other students, named Chandra and Sean are the only members of the group, aside from Munkford, possessing the ability to count past twelve! After the friendly farmer shows them a cow-sized arachnid carcass, humongous horror crawls forth on segmented legs!

This is where Piper's stop-motion and practical creature effects shine, far better than in some of his other films. Make no mistake, this is one big ball of cheeeze-corn from start to finish. However, it is highly entertaining nonetheless. Be sure to stick around for the VERY low-rent military response to the giant bug monsters!

Have no fear, there's nothing serious going on here!...