Arachnid

This movie features bad special effects in some areas, and pretty good ones in others. The idea had a lot more potential than the script delivered. Not an edge of your seat movie, and several things did not hold together; don't waste your money. On the other hand, if it comes on the late show or you have a free movie rental coupon, it's worth a look.

In my mind, the words "Giant spider" = "Bad movie" But Arachnid actually proved me wrong. Oh, it was by no means good...but it was a fun movie to watch anyways.

Alex Reid was really the only good point as far as acting goes. Everybody else in the movie was just kinda...there. Luckily though, nobody was horribly bad or annoying.

The spider and centipedes (I'm still wondering why there were giant centipedes in this movie...) looked pretty decent. Well, decent since I assume this movie had a fairly low budget. Except at the end, when the spider starts running really fast along the walls of a cave. That just looked horrible.

Im not gonna lie and tell you about the storyline. To be honest, I wasnt exactly paying attention that much. It appears that an alien spaceship crashes on a small island and it was carrying a giant spider...or maybe it mutated a spider and made it giant. Then a team goes on an expedition into the jungles to find it. Thats all I got.

An enjoyable film, but I wouldnt suggest buying it. In fact, renting it is kind of going overboard. Maybe wait for it on TV sometime. Thats what I did, and I was satisfied.

I was watching a cheesy horror flick (can't remember which one) at my grandparents house one day, and this movie happened to be showing right after it. I figured, 'What the hell? I'll give it a shot.' It didn't make my top ten list of cheesy horror flicks. I liked it. But I'm warning you right now, this one gets really gross. As in bugs crawling under your skin, literally, gross. Definitely not for the faint of heart. And leaves you with a not so happily ever after ending. If you like gore, you'll like this. If you're arachnaphobic, you'll hate it. For those of you who say all of these movies are alike, you'll be happy to know that this one is a little different. The title is more accurate than I thought. Though the story does concentrate mainly on the creature that the word 'arachnid' brings to mind, the spider, it is not limited to it. It includes other species of arachnids. And as an added bonus, there is a cute guy in it, who takes his shirt off for us. And for the guys, there is a girl in a bra. There is some comedy relief in small doses. I would recommend at least giving this movie a shot. There are worse movies out there that actually made it to the big screen.

I'm a fan of the 50s big monster movies like THEM! and their more-recent counterparts, films like ANACONDA and (especially) the TREMORS series. So when I saw a sneak preview of ARACHNID at the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors convention a year ago (and being that I'm also someone who likes to give a lot of low-budget direct-to-video movies a chance), I knew I'd have to check it out.

The setup is simple enough in the best 50s monster movie tradition: a team of scientists and ex-military types travel to a remote island to find the source of a mysterious new virus, and in the process come face to face with a giant web-spinning terror. The trailer suggested a Godzilla-sized spider. Instead, it's about eight feet tall and maybe ten feet long. Due to the thick accents of some of the foreign characters (several co-stars are from Spain, where some of the movie was shot), the dialogue is at times rather difficult to understand. There's the usual conflicts between characters, the character with a hidden agenda for tagging along, etc. If you're familiar with the old monster movies, you'll probably recognize these standards. The film takes its sweet time getting going, and the spider (after a brief half-obscured appearance near the beginning) doesn't fully appear until nearly an hour-and-five-minutes into the film. When you have a movie in which the star is the big title monster, that monster had better show up before the thirty/forty-minute mark. Otherwise, interest begins to wander, as it did with me. But I hung there, despite the boring moments in which characters walk off in the middle of the night after they've seen what happens to people who do the same, characters argue, characters complain, and the main military guy and pilot slowly bond. Once the spider is finally revealed to the characters' amazement and horror, the suspense is upped a little bit, leading to a frenzy climax in which the pilot and two more men you thought for sure had died (having gone off to establish communication to call for help) show up to fight back. And of course, there's the final shot that screams, "Sequel!"

Chris Potter (from TV's KUNG FU: THE LEGEND CONTINUES) makes an appealing hero, even if he's not given much to do other than stand around, shout orders, and fire an M16. Alex Reid, who plays the pilot, isn't particularly convincing as a tough girl (perhaps it was the director's fault), but at least she looks nice and, like Potter, does what she can with the material. I think she would have made a much better Lara Croft than Angelina Jolie. Reid literally looked like Croft in several scenes. The rest are unknowns in stock cardboard roles: the likeable, slightly-goofy spider expert, the scientist, his assistant, Potter's partners, and a handful of native helpers who all are there to serve one purpose: spider food. Surprisingly, the mechanical effects of the spider are pretty well done for such a film, though a few moments of CGI near the climax (and at the start of the film) are a little on the cheapo side. With a few more understandable actors, a quicker pace, and some tighter direction, ARACHNID might have been at least a mildly-enjoyable time waster perfect for a dull Saturday night. I admit that I have seen worse movies, but as it is, seeing it once was enough for me.

A plane driven by a pilot(Alex Reid) and transporting ex-marines(Chris Potter, Luis Lorenzo), a scientist(Ravil Isyanov) and doctors(Jose Sancho, Neus Asensi) crashes on a tropical island that contains a lethal carnivorous alien spider. The mission of the medics to find a formula to heal ills and the pilot to look for her brother disappeared when his jet was downed. They're accidentally lost and the eight-legged spider causes wreak havoc terrorizing and destroying the crew . Lethal alien spider meets up local natives and crew and spontaneously catch them and begins to consume people. The spider rapidly multiplies and the protagonists confronting with it .

This chiller with middling budget packs thrills, chills, some good action and few funny moments. It's a hybrid of monster movies from the 50s such as 'Tarantula' and modern American production such as 'Depredator'. The thrilling screenplay is a bit yawn-inspiring but nifty special effects will keep you from dozing off, its author is Steve Johnson, he's a nice creature effects designer, a perfect craftsman who made effects in 'Spiderman II' , 'Species II' , ' Blade II' , and ' War of worlds ' , among others. On the whole this is a suspenseful and tense thriller especially at the amazing ending tableau when Chris Potter and Alex Reid have to tackle the gigantic spider at the lair in the final. The tale is well produced by Brian Yuzna and Julio Fernandez, owners of Fantastic Factory productions, a successful terror movies company. The motion picture is professionally directed by Jack Sholder with rather too much camera movement and there are also lots of low-angle shots of people hanging around waiting to get bitten by the carnivorous spider. Although nothing which haven't been seen before, this is not the picture to watch if you are scared of spiders , however the movie is quite entertaining. Utterly arachnophobia people must flee this film.

Other movies about those bugs are the following : ¨Tarantula(1955)¨ by Jack Arnold with John Agar; ¨Tarantula: the deadly cargo(1977)¨ with Claude Akins; ¨Kingdom of spiders(77)¨ by John Budd Cardos with William Shatner and ¨Arachnophobia(1990)¨ by Frank Marshall with John Goodman.