Webs

A group of characters are transported to a parallel dimension in which spiders rule the earth. They try to build a portal to get back to their world. Sound familiar yet? Honestly, this has the look and feel of Sliders and about the same budget. The only difference is the characters in Sliders were more interesting. I am not saying that this is horrible but it isn't good either. If you like Sliders then watch this clone on SciFi channel when nothing else is on.

For a movie titled "Webs", I had initially expected more spiders and much more webbing, so imagine my surprise when there was surprisingly little on both accounts. Apparently Chicago in an alternate dimension is overrun by strange mutated humans that have been exposed to spider venom; a venom that turns people into spider-soldiers. And more impressively is that this venom causes the people's hands to turn into claws and their teeth to become crooked, protruding and just ridiculous to look at.

"Webs" is a low budget movie, yes, but there is something mildly entertaining about the setting of the movie, despite the lack of spiders and a proper horror element. There was a single spider in the movie, the queen, which was actually nicely enough made, although not with the best of CGI effects. But still, it worked out well enough.

However, the movie is weighed down by a rather unemotional and unenthusiastic actor with a bad talent and even worse hair. Why they opted to cast Richard Grieco for the lead role in this movie is definitely beyond my comprehension. However, I strongly believe that the movie would have been much, much better with someone else in the role; someone who at least had enthusiasm for the job and role he is hired to portray.

Aside from Richard Grieco, then people in the movie generally did good enough jobs with their given roles, despite their characters being very one-dimensional and not really having proper characteristics and personalities as to the extend where we as the audience actually get into the movie and form some sort of bond or attachment to certain characters. All throughout "Webs", you never really got to know any of the characters on any profound level, which made the movie have a very superficial feel to it.

For a horror movie, then "Webs" was rather devoid of scares and a general horror movie. It had a decent enough story, but it just failed to deliver in the horror genre. And as for low budget movies go, then there are far better choices out there to pick amongst for an evening of movie watching.

The movie was predictable to the core, as most of the movies in this particular genre is. But the movie was fast paced and had some moments here and there. But in overall, then "Webs" is rather below average for a horror movie of this particular type.

'Webs' was another TV movie in a string of them made by the Sci-Fi network. It stars the hunky Richard Grieco as Dean, one of a quartet of Chicago electricians who were sent to an abandoned building to check out an unusual power source. What they find is a portal to another dimension. And in this dimension, the Earth of the future is decrepit and over run by the spider-people minions of a queen spider working towards total dominance.

This one is routine and uninspired, with unremarkable characters for the most part. They're not really fleshed out to where people can actually care about them, but editor / director David Wu keeps the pedal to the metal, delivering passable action at a consistent pace. This is also taken more seriously than a lot of cheese epics of this kind; there are not as many utterly laughable elements. The special effects aren't great but they're not all that terrible, either. It's still better CGI than this viewer has seen in other things.

The performances are very straight faced from all concerned. Grieco is decent enough and he even gets to shed a single tear in remembrance of his comrades. Kate Greenhouse is okay as a tough survivor of this other Earth. Canadian character actor Colin Fox is able to bring some gravitas to his role, and to the proceedings. The rest of the cast is nondescript, but not incompetent. David Nerman, as Crane, has an actual character arc where he comes off as argumentative and suspicious of Grieco for a while, but turns into a hero of sorts.

'Webs' is not great storytelling or TV movie making, but it's certainly not trying to be. Movies like them do have their place in the great scheme of things, and this viewer, for one, would sometimes rather watch junk like this than overproduced Hollywood feature film product.

Five out of 10.

...and it's not something I'm proud of.

During my early high school years, I used to rent movies every Friday at my local video store, mostly horror films. One of those days, I asked the clerk for some recommendation since I couldn't find anything interesting enough, so he suggested ''Webs''. He described it as ''Alien with spiders instead of xenomorphs'' and since the DVD art looked sort of creepy, I believed him.

Oh boy, I had absolutely no idea of what I was about to see...

It took me less than 10 minutes to realize the truth; I had been fooled. I'd like to write a good review but I'll just sum this movie up with a single word; CRINGE.

It seemed like they didn't even tried hard, they just took ideas from lots of sci-fi/monster movies and executed them in the worst way possible; just compare the ending to the one of ''Deep Rising''. The acting was the kind of acting you expect to see in these kind of movies, forgettable and bland. The same goes for the dialogue.

And yes, it was the last movie I ever rented. It's not something I'm proud to say, but I don't regret it either, not in the least. It made me laugh a lot, so it gets a few points because of it.

A Sci-Fi Network original. Not the best. Not far from being the worst. An electrician(Richard Grieco) stumbles onto a "key" that can open a gateway to a parallel Earth that has been taken over by mutant spiders. The mutations have been controlled by a super-sized alien Queen for the past thirty years. She has already eaten up the population of this parallel world that resembles Chicago minus inhabitants. Guess what? Now she must find another world to feed on. The electrician leads a four man team that reluctantly finds themselves with the task of saving the world. The finale confrontation is probably the best part of the whole movie. The cast also features: Richard Yearwood, Colin Fox, Kate Greenhouse, Jason Jones and David Newman. One would have thought that the Sci-Fi Network could have spent more money on special effects.