Camel Spiders

"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.

So, I had mistakenly mixed a batch of Mio energy drink instead of just normal, I don't know, fruit punch or whatever. So, I was up all night. You know you've hit rock bottom when you're watching Syfy at 3:00 in the morning. But there I was, thinking to myself, "Self, I was in Iraq. I've seen lots of camel spiders. Let's give this movie a look." Oh my, where to begin? So many uniform deficiencies and tactical shortcomings, it drove this Army lifer crazy. There's a term called 'flagging' in which one Soldier points his weapon at another. I found myself saying, "Flag. Flag. Flag Flag. Flagflagflagflagflagflagfl.... Oh why am I bothering?" Staff Sergeant whatshernameasthoughitmatters' weapon has had the barrel removed in some shots, but not in others. Sometimes she sports mirrored sunglasses (Not authorized in uniform, by the way.) sometimes they're black aviators. In one shot, the crew didn't even care enough to position themselves so as not to appear in the reflection of her mirrored glasses.

Camel spiders aren't particularly aggressive. The mostly want to be left alone. The idea of them attacking is ludicrous.

The special effects were roughly on par with Tremors 3, that is, about what you could render with a processing power of a Zune.

The acting was elementary... in that it was about what you'd expect from elementary school students.

They didn't seem to bother constructing any sets, just used some abandoned buildings.

I sat through Birdemic. The un-rifftrax version of Birdemic. At least in that movie we got to see Whitney Moore in her underwear, a sight worth the cost of admission, let me tell you. We don't even get that in this movie.

The muzzle blasts were obviously added in post.

Well, enough of all this. This movie isn't even bad in a funny way in the manner of Birdemic. These people seemed to be actually aiming for high drama. Oh boy do they miss. This is a movie that you have on while you're doing something else... in another room.... wearing headphones.

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-

I am a person who juggles my many music commitments with some free time, which I use to watch movies and listen to music. Save a few tolerable ones, a lot of the SyFy movies are terrible. Camel Spiders is no exception, in fact it is one of SyFy's very worst.

As bad as Titanic II, Mega Piranha, 2010: Moby Dick, Battle of Los Angeles and Quantum Apocalypse are, and they are, awful even, Camel Spiders makes them award-worthy in comparison.

To begin criticising Camel Spiders would be difficult as there is so much wrong. Let's start with how the film is made, Camel Spiders is one of the cheapest looking of all the SyFy movies right down from the slapdash filming to the gimmicky way the gore and such is used.

Camel Spiders completely fails in the script and story too. The script contains some of the worst dialogue I've heard, it was all very forced and cliché-ridden. The story isn't engaging in the least, it was to me a silly premise anyway, but the story itself was bland and predictable with too much time wasted on some of the least interesting story ideas of the movie.

The characters I felt indifferent too, they are annoying and underdeveloped and the camel spiders of the title are not menacing at all and laughable in their design. The direction is sloppy, the soundtrack is forgettable, the sound effects sound distorted and are misplaced and the pace is inconsistent with both rushed and pedestrian moments. And need I mention how wooden across the board the acting was? Overall, a terrible movie and one of SyFy's bottom-of-the-barrel type movies. 0/10 Bethany Cox

Iv never seen anything so poorly made in my life the story line was just a simple rip off of 8 legged freak really appalling as for the special effects you could tell it was all fake even the way they were shooting there guns in the air was really realistic(NOT) and the deaths were even better the way people died was really amusing cant believe they have made a DVD of this i would never recommend this film to anyone, if you want to watch a spider movie watch 8 legged freaks its better than this 99p movie if you do descide to watch this don't say i didn't warn you.

*Try and spot they guy who dies in the bathroom* lmao