Arac Attack, les monstres à huit pattes

It's a monster movie' s homage with gigantic spiders as protagonists . A truck transporting waste crashes and dropping an unfortunate chemical spill in a river . Some spiders are accidentally escaped and the eight-legged beasts increase their weight and wreak havoc , terrorizing and destroying the villagers . Residents of a rural mining town called Prosperity discover that a radioactive stuff has caused hundreds of little spiders to mutate to a giant size . It's then up to mining engineer Chris McCormack (David Arquette)and Sheriff Sam Parker (Kari Wuhrer) to mobilize a diverse group of townspeople , including the Sheriff's young son, Mike (Scott Terra ), her daughter, Ashley (Scarlett Johansson), and paranoid radio-speaker man named Harlan ( Doug E. Doug), into fight against the lethal eight-legged Aracs. Meanwhile the bloodthirsty spiders meet up local citizens and spontaneously catch them and begins to consume people. The spiders rapidly multiplies and the protagonists confronting with them . The eclectic bunch takes refuge at the Prosperity Mall and the little town is devastated by the spiders attack.

This monster/comedy film with quite 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 thriller especially at the amazing ending tableau when Lewis Arquette and Kari Wuhrer have to tackle the gigantic spider at the lair in the final. The flick is lavishly produced by Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin. Emmerich is a good director, writer and producer who founded along with Dean Devlin the company Centropolis Entertainment and expert on making movies for the masses and specialist on large-scale disaster movies ¨Day after tomorrow¨, ¨ 2012 ¨, spectacular stories ¨ Stargate ¨,¨ The patriot¨, ¨Universal soldier ¨ and giant monsters as Mammoth and Sabretooth in ¨10.000 B.c ¨ , aliens in ¨Independence day ¨ , ¨Godzilla¨ and spiders in ¨Eight legged freaks¨. The picture is well directed by Ellory Elkayem 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.

Unlike many modern-day movies that revolve around CGI and special effects, this one succeeds purely on the quality of the production and acting. There are some excellent effects indeed, but also some really dodgy ones. No matter when you have the likes of Arquette, Johansson, Wuhrer, Arlen Jones, and many more fine character actors on show. It must be very difficult to act with CGI, yet there are rarely, if ever, occasions when you see this cast looking even slightly lost.

It may be a parody, it may be silly, but it's apparent that a lot of care went into making this, and the cast look like they're having fun - which always creates a good impression. There is nothing remarkable here, or particularly scary, but it does what it's supposed to do - entertain the audience. One of those movies that seems to go by quickly, and during which you won't find your mind drifting off to another place. Not sure what to rent for the evening? This is definitely worth a look - unless spiders make you nervous!

If the movie "Arachnophobia" made you jump, gave you nightmares, or disturbed you enough that you are afraid to feel for a lightswitch in a dark,don't see "Eight Legged Freaks". This one has the feel of late 50's -early 60's horror/sci-fi movies without the phony looking monsters. These spiders looked REAL and their movements were orchestrated in such a way that you felt like you were really watching giant spiders on the screen. I can't say any of the human actors had really stand-out performances, because the spiders were the stars of this one. I will say that this movie and "Spider-Man" have the potential to interest young budding arachnophiles to take a serious look at the scientific side of spiders. Each of these movies gives the scientific names and characteristics of the different spiders involved(before the radiation takes effect),and does a super job of presenting their habits and idiosyncrasies. The only thing that might be questioned in either movie is the aggressiveness of the arachnids portrayed(perhaps this is the fault of the radiation as well). I give this movie "eight digits up" for sheer entertainment value.

This is one of those films that you can see over and over, and finding new things to enjoy. The story is simple, and similar to many other horror films, where insects/spiders for some reason become unnaturally big and prey on man. Great spiders, good acting, not that bad dialog, and a lot of humor.

Many films in this class take themselves totally serious (like the abysmal Alien vs Zombies), which this does not - a big plus in my book. That a Taser should be able to fire up an entire electrical grid (if small), is just about the only total slip-up - the rest is fairly good in both continuity and SFX. Some guy is waving an unloaded crossbow at the spiders, and still he can fire it, and nobody collects any fired bolts (the missiles a crossbow is bolts, not arrows), also quite questionable.

Well worth watching, and great fun!

This is a great flick, it's old fashion monster making magic at it's finest. The story, the characters, the effects are all great. It's the kind of fun movie they use to make in the fifties. That watch out for mutation monster movies. The kind that Roger Cormen and Burt I. Gordon use to make. But this movie took longer then the weekend to make. The creature effects were realistic and cool. The spiders had personality. The human cast does a great job, the radio guy and his alien talk got annoying. He totally believes in aliens but can't fathom mutations. A conspiracy nut like him should believe that radiation causes mutations, and if the Government covers aliens up they sure hell would cover mutants up. Anyway, one minor thing during the grand scheme of things. I give EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS...9 STARS