Ice Spiders: Araignées de Glace

OK to start with--this could have been much worse. The acting was fairly lame--picture stereotypical surf dude dialogue-- and the story itself is one we've seen repeatedly. I think the coolest thing about it was Stephen Cannel. I kept thinking that it was just someone who looks like him. He had a bigger role than I had expected. I have to admit I liked the ending. If anyone has seen the end of the 2nd feature of Grindhouse---I didn't cheer as much but it was OK. :) Don't watch this expecting too much--if you are watching anything on the SciFi Original Saturday nights---surely you wouldn't be doing that anyway. It is an OK way to waste 2 hours if you have nothing better to do.

No, not the spiders, the characters' gene pools are the biggest threat here. This movie was crammed full of idiot characters I cared nothing about whatsoever. Had me rooting for the spiders all the way, hoping they would make sure these people never procreated. The film was boring, riddled with plot holes, inane dialogue, crap effects and just soooo many goofs I lost count half way through. Had to watch this in two parts as I just couldn't take it after an hour. I seldom if ever don't finish a film though, so cringed my way through the dismal last 20 and a bit minutes. I wish I hadn't bothered.

Yes, I know this was made for cable, it's meant to be a bit of fun and mindless, but did they really have to make it THAT bad? I love a good b-movie, but this was grade z garbage.

See Arachnophobia, Kingdom of the spiders or pretty much any other spider movie out there. And if you want to see good skiing, just watch anything else but this. Even Ski School and Ski Patrol had better actors and skiing.

And, if you don't mind my saying so, I've been around. I've seen the legendary "Plan 9 From Outer Space," as well as a whole host of network TV films ("Locusts," "Vampire Bats," "Category 6," "Category 7," "Fatal Contact," whatever the sequel to "10.5" was called) and I stand here before you today to say that cable proves that you don't have to be a venerable broadcast giant to really, really stink.

The plot of the movie is that some government scientists engineer giant spiders in order to harvest their silk for Department of Defense purposes. The only problem is that one of the scientists tampers with the experiment, the spiders get out, and it's up to a fleet of B-actors to stop them or flap on the ground in a spot where a giant spider will later be edited in killing them trying.

This movie enters a qualitative threshold that I did not know could exist. You see, once a film reaches a certain level of "awful," the people involved start to notice (as evidenced by the tongue-in-cheek extra-low budget Adult Swim shows "Saul of the Mole Men" and "Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job"). Somehow, the cast of Ice Spiders was unaware of the lousiness of the film they were making. The only kind of television I've ever seen in my life - which has probably been shortened substantially by the cumulative doses of TV movies I've had over the years - that could rival "Ice Spiders" for quality are commercials made by regional furniture dealerships. Speaking of commercials, kudos to Orkin for their advertising during the world premier of this "film." The computer effects appear to have been designed with software from the 1980s, the acting is beyond awful - and I mean that seriously; some of this comes off like the actors were cold-reading the script - and the overall premise defies description. Thank God I taped it, because somehow I just know that this film can only be enhanced by VHS static lines.

This is what somebody runs into the lobby of the dead ski resort and shouts. This is classic stuff. Unfortunately, one doubts that it's intentional. The skiers who ski down the hill and stop in a heap so that the skittery spiders can attack effortlessly are like something from Monty Python. The Olympic team huddled behind the machinery and watching from afar is supremely atrocious. I want to laugh but it's too stupid. It's like laughing at a physically impaired person falling out of his wheelchair. No, Sci-Fi channel is way too cynical to earn any more of my time. This is pure tripe. Have they a single idea in their heads, or must it all be this embarrassing crap...? (Alas, rhetorical question.)

This was one of the worst horror movies I've ever seen. No Olympic class skiers would ever ski at this resort. There wasn't hardly any snow left. The base of the slopes was just dirt. The blacktop in the parking lot was dry as a bone. The skiers were a joke. Any intermediate weekend skier could beat them. At first I thought the skiers were wearing a back-back, but I realized that was the "spider" special effect. This was not even funny either. "killer tomatoes" was ten times better. The DVD box had a couple of good reviews. I wonder what movie they saw. The good news was that it was only 86 minutes long. I was able to fast forward through it.