Camel Spiders

A captain and sergeant (Brian Krause and Melissa Brasselle) bringing home the body of their comrade from Afghanistan unwittingly unleash several camel spiders in the Southwest desert that terrorize the people. C. Thomas Howell plays the sheriff, but is unrecognizable.

I'm an unabashed fan of Grade B creature features, but "Camel Spiders" (2011) is Exhibit A on how not to write a script. The movie starts with an action-packed sequence in Afghanistan (shot at Vasquez Rocks, just north of Los Angeles in the high country), but the filmmakers make the mistake of showing the oversized camel spiders right out of the gate, which destroys any sense of suspense. This isn't helped by the cartoonish spider CGI.

How did these creatures get so huge? In real life the largest species grows to about 5-6 inches, including legs (although a rare few might grow larger). They're nonvenomous, although their bite can be painful. Basically, they're relatively harmless to humans. So how did they get so malevolent and fatal? The flick never explains.

The story then switches to the American Southwest wherein the captain & sergeant are curiously delivering the corpse via an Army truck (from the Korean War era). If you blinked you would've thought they were still in Afghanistan. Needless to say, the creators should've made it clearer that they were now in the USA.

From there the story becomes somewhat entertaining for a Grade B monster flick with a dash of black humor. The desolate Lone Pine area locations are magnificent (located in south-central California, about an hour drive from the Nevada border, which I point out because the film looks like it was shot in Nevada). Meanwhile the cast gives their best effort, but the characters are underdeveloped and so you don't know them or much care about them.

Speaking of locations, the characters plainly say the events are taking place in Arizona, but the license plates all read 'California,' including the sheriff's car. Glaring mistakes like this don't make for good movies.

There are a couple good-looking females (e.g. Jessica Cameron as Ashley), but they don't make "Camel Spiders" worth seeing.

The film runs 1 hour, 19 minutes.

GRADE: D+/C-

Well, what can I say. Every now and then I love to watch a silly and bad B-horror flick. And really, for the lovers of bad, cheap cinema, there is plenty to still enjoy in this movie!

And there is a big difference between a just plain bad movie and a movie that is being just so bad and silly that it actually becomes fun to watch. I feel that this for most part is being the case with "Camel Spiders" as well. No matter how bad and silly this movie gets at times, it still remains a pretty fun experience to watch.

Of course the story is totally stupid and doesn't make much sense but basically all of these sort of movies feature the same type of story anyway. It simply delivers exactly what you could and would expect from it, nothing more, nothing less. So really, if you are into these type of movies, by all means watch it and chances are you end up enjoying it, for what it is.

The characters are stupid but at least they aren't annoying (well, expect for the little girl perhaps but children always annoy me in these sort of movies), which really is a positive thing to say, for these sort of movies. Not that you ever feel involved with any of them. None of them are fleshed out and basically you already know how most of them are going to end up. At least if you are somewhat familiar already with these sort of movies.

No, this movie really doesn't hold any surprises and it progresses in an extremely formulaic way. But hey, that's how Roger Corman works and this certainly has its charm to it as well and make sure that these sort of movies are always still better to watch than those coming from other cheap working studios.

The special effects are some of the worst you are likely to see in a modern horror flick. It's also one of those movies that prefers to use CGI gore over practical effects. This is definitely something disappointing and it lets the movie look all the more fake and cheap.

Only watchable to those who can enjoy and appreciate a big, fat, cheap, silly, fake looking Corman flick.

3/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Why, why why why do you people keep making these movies? Who is stupid enough to fund these movies? The Syfi or however they spell the name now is well known to have the worst of the worst movies. But this, this movie takes the whole cake. Every single one of the actors in this movie are just, it just leaves me completely speechless about how bad they are. I normally don't write scathing reviews but I was compelled to write this after watching just 15 minutes of this below Z grade movie.

The concept that SF channel movies use are neither scary or intelligent or even entertaining. Camel spiders are the most venomous spiders in the world and that it will kill you almost instantly? Really? I mean really? Just how stupid was the person who came up with this story? Do you not know how to use the internet? Can you even read? Did your mom always tell you that you were special? That is all I'm gonna say on that matter.

The acting. Oh god the acting... I can say with 110% confidence and actuality that this is the worst acting I have ever seen in my entire life here on this planet. Oh, and the dialog. Who came up with the dialog??? Embarrassing... I will point out that the one young blonde chick is the worst actress I have ever seen. I take that back, I just cannot in good faith even call her an actress. Girl, you need to re-think your career and make some DRASTIC changes. I would suggest pornography as you are hot but then again that requires at least SOME acting.

I am a very nice person and rarely bash people in real life and in the internet. But watching just 15mins of this thing made me so freaking angry and filled me with hate that I just had to write this. I want to warn others that this movie will seriously anger you.

Based on actual creatures that for years have tormented our armed forces in the Middle East, these creatures have now invaded the southwestern deserts of the United States. The Camel Spiders now freely hunt for prey, unafraid of any predator -- including man.

This film should have some redeeming value -- directed by B-legend Jim Wynorski, produced by legend Roger Corman, and starring my good friends Brian Krause ("Sleepwalkers") and Jon Mack... how can this go wrong? I do not know, but it did.

My biggest complaint about this film is that nothing in it is convincing. On top of the bad CGI spiders (which is to be expected from any Corman production these days), there is just no reason to believe the Middle East shots were in the Middle East. The Army uniforms do not look right, and it is not clear why they are wearing camouflage when not in combat.

The story is thin... giant camel spiders attack. When you shoot them, they die. There is no subtext, there is no intellectual theme here. Just a creature feature gone horribly awry.

"Camel Spiders" was so bad it was actually worth watching just for the laughs. This movie has everything you could possibly want from a cheesy horror movie - bad CGI effects, laughable plot, incoherent story, unlimited ammunition, screaming spiders, bad acting, and much, much more.

The story in "Camel Spiders" is about soldiers in the desert somewhere in the Middle East, fighting someone, when a group of big spiders show up. A soldier is killed, and when shipped home, two fairly small spiders sneak into the box containing the corpse of the soldier. Then back in the US, the box is opened because of an accident, and spiders emerge to wreak havoc on the local residents.

Fairly average storyline that borrows heavily from "Arachnophobia" and "Eight Legged Freaks".

There were two spiders in the box, but suddenly there are hundreds of them in the area in the US, ranging from the size of a man's fist to a coffee table. How did they get to be that numerous and that big so fast? That incoherency in the story was just hilarious. Moving on though, while shooting at the marauding spiders, the people had endless amounts of ammo and never reloaded their weapons. And to make matters worse, most of the time people were not even shooting downward where the spiders were, but they were shooting in hip or chest level, that was just hilarious. And the camel spiders were constantly screaming. Yeah, sure, why not?

"Camel Spiders" was one of the worse spider movies that I have seen, right up there with the likes of "In the Spider's Web" and "Spiders 2". However, the movie is so stupid and cheesy that it is actually worth sitting through it, just to see what bad thing is waiting around the next corner. Just make sure you are sitting in an upright position while watching the movie, I was on a couch and I dozed off once or twice.