Mega Aranha

A monster film plenty of impressive scenes , frenetic action and humor . A giant alien spider escapes from a military lab and rampage the city of Los Angeles . When a massive military (commanded by Major Braxton : Ray Wise and Lt. Karly Brant : Clare Kramer) strike fails , it is up to a team of scientists and one clever exterminator to kill the creature before the city is destroyed . Meanwhile , the bloodthirsty spider meet up local citizens and spontaneously catch them and begins to consume people . Later on , the gigantic spider over a skyscraper surrounded by planes shooting similarly to ¨King King¨ movie . The gigantesque spider rapidly multiplies and the protagonists confronting with them , being L. A. town devastated by the attacks . When Downtown Los Angeles , including City Hall , under attack , an eclectic bunch led by bug/pest exterminator Alex Mathis(starring "Heroes" alumni Greg Grunberg) along with a security agent called Jose Ramos (Lombardo Boyar) and Army Lieutenant (Clare Kramer) take on the evil spiders .

This monster/comedy film with medium budget packs thrills , some good action and funny moments . It's a hybrid of monster movies from the 50s such as 'Tarantula' and modern American production plenty of C.G.I. The thrilling screenplay is a bit yawn-inspiring but nifty special effects will keep you from dozing off , with nice creatures designers, created by means of Animatronics and computer visual effects . This is a suspenseful and amusing Sci-Fi/thriller/comedy especially at the amazing ending tableau when Greg Grunberg , Lombardo and Clare Kramer have to tackle the gigantic spider in the final . The picture was professionally directed by Mike Mendez (¨The killers¨, ¨The Conven," "Masters of Horror" ¨, ¨The Gravedancers¨) 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 . This Mike Mendez's newest film "Big Ass Spider!" for Epic Pictures premiered at the 2013 SXSW Film Festival and had a limited theatrical worldwide . 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 this Spider sub-genre are the followings : ¨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 , ¨Arachnophobia(1990)¨ by Frank Marshall with John Goodman , ¨Arachnid¨ (2000) by Jack Sholder with Chris Potter , Jose Sancho , Neus Asensi and ¨Eight Legged Freaks¨ (2002) by Ellory Elkayem with Scarlett Johansson , Kari Wuhrer , and David Arquette .

Big Ass Spider/Mega Spider could have gone either way. It could have been cheap, terribly written and acted and amateurish or it could have been entertaining and likable with a sense that it knows what it wants to be and who it's aimed at. Thankfully while it does have a fair share of flaws Big Ass Spider/Mega Spider belongs in the latter category. The locations are splendidly colourful and atmospheric and the movie is well shot and reasonably edited as well as efficiently and confidently directed. The spider however is a little inconsistent, never terrible but never exceptional at the same time, at points it's menacing and well-designed and at other points it's rather goofy-looking and over-proportioned for an intentionally huge spider. It does at least have a personality and is well used. The music has the right amount of groove and eeriness without feeling out of place and the movie is better than expected in terms of writing. A lot of the supporting cast have very little to do but the writing for Alex and Jose is brilliant, from the hilarious snappy banter to the endearing tongue-in-cheek humour, if there was a choice who fared a little better than the other it would be Jose. The story admittedly does next to nothing new with the concept it has and it is very stretched out in places but it avoids being too campy and it takes an earnest approach without taking it too seriously, considering the concept that is difficult to pull off and the movie makes a decent crack at it. It's never scary but there are some inventive and suspenseful attacks that stops Big Ass Spider/Mega Spider from being too much of one tone, and as acknowledged early on in the review the movie does know who its audience is and what tone it's trying to take, never trying to take on too many ideas or be too simplistic. The characters are a mixed bag, Alex and Jose carry the movie wonderfully and are likable but a lot of the rest of the characters are one-dimensional and annoying. Likewise with the cast, with the best being the likable if goofy Greg Grunberg and the often hysterical Lombardo Boyer. Lin Shaye is amusing if occasionally wooden and Ray Wise is also good. Clare Kramer is laughably bad however with her change from cold to damsel far too sudden while the rest of the cast do nothing with their already thinly-sketched characters and that's including the underused Patrick Bauchau. The ending takes ridiculous to a whole new level as well. In conclusion, not great but still a lot of fun. Oh and the intro is wonderful. 6/10 Bethany Cox

For a B-flick this was actually rather well done; I would even go so far as to say that this is more a lovingly made spoof of B-movies than an actual B-movie (although the budget is clearly B). A cameo appearance by Lloyd Kaufman (legendary Troma producer) seems to further indicate that this an homage to trashy horror and monster films.

Given the budget on this, the effects - especially the spider - are pretty decent. Don't expect the kind of CGI quality of films like "Starship Troopers" or "Mimic" and you'll have a fun 82 minutes.

I guess the version I just saw must be the R-rated one: there definitely are at least a few gory moments in this film, so the PG-13 rating here on IMDb could be misleading.

This film is a lot of fun and has some witty dialog and was obviously made by someone who loves this genre - apart from that, the two lead characters are very likable and have great chemistry.

It might deserve less, but I'll give it a 6

Favorite Films: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls054200841/

Lesser-known Masterpieces: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls070242495/

Fun B-Flicks/Low Budget Films: http://www.imdb.com/list/YV1Lxq7WLkU/

I saw this film at the Imagine film festival 2013 in Amsterdam. The plot is straightforward and simple: An alien spider that was planted in a human body, escapes from the hospital where the human was treated. The military takes over the hospital but fails miserably to contain the menace, in spite of showcasing an assortment of weapons and heavily decorated brass. A professional exterminator (Alex) and his volunteer helper (Jose) take over where the military falls short, and simultaneously take care of many hilarious moments that turn this film into an entertaining production, and let us overlook several of its faults.

The spider in question quadruples in size every four hours. In the beginning of the story, the spider was a bit scary while it had a believable size. At first, it traversed the facility tubes of the hospital and could turn up anywhere in the building. Later on, it used the sewer system of the city while moving to a suitable location to plant eggs. But when it started growing exponentially, it became more of a predator (like a lion or a tiger), thereby loosing most of its scariness inherent to crawling insects. Still fierceful, of course, but not in a way fitting in the Horror genre.

The exterminator duo, professional Alex with volunteer Jose, takes care of the humorous aspects, while the rest of the cast is one-dimensional entourage. Some of the military, the general and lieutenant Kelly, show more than one dimension in sparse better moments. The general is unexpectedly flexible in allowing help from outside the army, at moments when he considers himself powerless, in spite of all the guns and gadgets under his command. Lieutenant Kelly sticks to her role as someone who has everything under control (famous quote: "it's my job"). We see that events in this unusual case evidently outgrow her training and eventually overpower her, after which she gets an important role as the maiden in distress, with Alex as the obvious knight to rescue her by whatever unorthodox means.

All in all, we talk about family entertainment here. The label SciFi (IMDb) is not very appropriate, in my opinion. Instead, the Imagine festival website did it better with "Horror – Comedy". The exterminator duo (Alex and Jose) turn this movie into something interesting. Without them there is not much left to admire; not even the animated spider leaves an impression on us. With its 80 minutes running time, this movie is not too long for its minimal contents and yet succeeds in keeping our attention.

"Big Ass Spider!" has everything a monster movie needs, and the title of the movie basically speaks for itself. If you love gargantuan monster movies, then "Big Ass Spider!" is definitely worth your time.

The story is about a strange, outer worldly crossbred spider that escapes the clutches of the military and finds a nesting ground in a hospital, where it quickly grows larger and more aggressive. As it escapes the hospital, the spider turns the city into its hunting ground.

Storywise, then "Big Ass Spider!" is fairly much like many others of its genre, and that is one of the things that actually makes this movie well worth watching, oddly enough. And also the good amount of comedy and self-irony that the movie is spiced with really helps it along nice.

Most of the time, the CGI effects of the spider, regardless of its size, was actually quite good. And for a monster movie, then good CGI (or creature effects) is a must. And the CGI team behind "Big Ass Spider!" really pulled it off quite nicely.

If you have seen movies such as "Spiders" or "Eight Legged Freaks", then you know exactly what you are in for here.

It should also be noted that there is a good handful of acting talents on the cast list in "Big Ass Spider!". And as a special treat for us who are fanatic about the monster movies of the B-genre, then there is a great appearance by Lloyd Kaufman.

"Big Ass Spider!" is a fun 80 minutes worth of excitement, fun, action and creepy crawlers. Eight legs, uhm, thumbs up from me, and "Big Ass Spider!" gets a solid 7 out of 10 rating.