Spiders

Is it aliens? Is it space spiders? Is it government experimentation? Well this college student reporter is going to find out! Was this on Syfy? Was this rejected by Syfy? Were the producers strung up in a web and given 40 lashes? Do you really want to find out? No.

I think most people who have commented on this movie have watched it with the wrong attitude. Get real; What do you expect from a flick blatantly named "Spiders", apparently featuring some generic monstrous arachnid creatures wreaking havoc on people? Unless you're an easily amused teenager with poor judgment, you instinctively steer clear from these kinds of pictures when looking for chills and thrills. There are quality films that offer just that.

I thought I was about to watch a really bad movie, with unintentionally comedic elements and worthless cast, storyline and directing. I was wrong. This movie quickly reveals it's true nature for the perceptive. Taking for granted that the movie was "bad" on purpose, I could actually appreciate the cheesy dialog and all the self-irony that it displays. The characters make illogical decisions, use stupid reasoning and don't try to take themselves seriously. The way in which the plot unfolds and how the main characters figure it out is an obvious parody of the genre, and there are so many details which contribute to that feeling in the dialog and some of the scenes; a guy holding the spider's teeth like bull's horns, making DNA-enhanced mutant spiders from hell seem like a an ordinary casual case of lively struggle, quotes like "This is so creepy. Its like a bad sci-fi movie." and "I mean what the hell is this place?" -"I don't care what this place is, what the f-ck are *we* doing here?" etc. made me at least chuckle at times, because they often raise valid points regarding the absurd setting of the film, and do it with subtlety.

The CGI was decent at times, yet laughable in some parts (especially when the spider was running around walls etc). The spider looks gory enough in close shots. The physical webs are composed of thin rope and you can see the knots tying together the intersections, which to me was a funny detail (c'mon, they could have easily avoided that, would they had cared for realism).

The pacing is fine; There is enough action to keep the viewer at least semi-entertained, assuming they can appreciate other aspects of the film also (I'm not a big fan of "irrational abominable creature vs. bunch of dumb people" films).

All in all, this is definitely not a serious movie, so you should not watch it as one. If you are in a humourless mood looking for some horror, then this movie will probably only make you angry. As a compensation for all the bad ratings this movie has received on IMDb, I have to give it 8/10. I'd dare to say it is more self-aware and intelligent than most people realize.

You would think that statistically speaking, one day I will watch one of the 'Hollywood DVD' series and it turns out to be quite a good film. But after watching this one, I'm still waiting (although at a measly £1 for 4 films, I can't complain too much).

Of course you don't need a massive budget to make a good film. You don't even need a Pulitzer winning script, but Spiders suffers the exact same problems as all of these cheapy sci-fi films. The scened rate scripts barely carry the film along, until the special fx come into play, which are always so bad you either sit there laughing or turn off. Take Aliens for example - a brilliant tension filled film, which barely ever shows the actual aliens.

Story involves a nosy journalist from the college paper coming across a crashed space shuttle, complete with hideously deformed astronauts. They stow away in a truck and manage to get into some kind of secret military installation (seemingly populated by 3 scientists). Without giving too much of the the plot away the arachnids are soon let loose, first in the base then back in town.

I can't write a review without mentioning the ending however. Nasty government man flies in to college in his helicopter (with a rocket launcher on the back seat, obviously) and no one bats an eyelid. Big momma spider also grows from the size of a football to the size of a house in all of 30 seconds. So to sum up; poor scripts, poor effects, poor characters, poor film. But hey, at least it was cheap.

This movie is so fake. I mean, if this movie was produced in 1975, it would've been a great movie. But with the current (or back in 2000) computer-animated special effects, they could've done it better! Already in the beginning at the part where the space-shuttle exploded, I could clearly see it was fake. Not to mention the spider 'Mother in law' itself... almost hilarious to see. It moved on like it was guided by strings and looked like it was made of plastic. This can be clearly seen in the part where 'mother-in-law' crawls out of the astronaut's body and flees along the walls. The story itself isn't so thrilling either. A spider being injected by an alien DNA in space. God knows where that alien DNA came from. As far as I can tell, it wasn't told in the movie (maybe I fell asleep of boredom). No, next time it appears on television, I'll pass.

The film Spiders does not intend to be mentioned in the same breath as films like Jaws and the Alien series. It has its tongue planted firmly in its cheek and as a result is hoping for the chance to rub shoulders with gems such as Piranha and Lake Placid. Whilst viewing the film you may tut and groan at some of the scenes with tacky dialogue and acting, it is only near the end when you realise that the producers have attempted to have as much fun as possible, at the expense of all those X-files/Dark Skies/Millennium style conspiracy shows, with a bit of monster movie digs in for good measure.