Arachnia (2003)

Don't Believe the Hype

Absolutely the worst movie.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

A meteor forces a small plane to make a crash landing. For the six passenger, their problems are just beginning. The survivors have landed in the middle of a giant spider invasion. Hold-up in an old, abandoned house, they'll have to use all their resources if they are to make it out alive.No beating around the bush here - Arachnia is bad. Everything about the movie scrapes the proverbial bottom of the barrel. The special effects are totally lame. The spider in Earth vs the Spider, made 45 years earlier, is more convincing. The acting is even worse. Most of these people have absolutely no business being in a film. Bevin McGraw as Trina is the worst. I'm not sure when I've seen a poorer performance. I've seen lines of dialogue in a 3rd grade play delivered more believably. Speaking of dialogue, these people say some of the most nonsensical things. They all sound like idiots. This is a complete mess of a movie.However, there are some things to enjoy. Granted, most of it is in that "so bad it's good" sort of way, but I found myself enjoying bits of the movie despite all the problems. The enjoyment was minimal, but I can see how a group of friends with enough alcohol might find some entertainment.

The title makes it sound like a cheesy B-movie and that's exactly what ARACHNIA is: a no-budget giant spider flick from the guy who brought us A NYMPHOID BARBARIAN IN DINOSAUR HELL. Thankfully this is a lot better film, better paced and more fun, although the budget is as equally low as in that film.The plot is predictable and routine from the outset: a bunch of B-movie types are in a plane crash (fun models) and then take refuge in a run-down farmhouse. The film manages to mix in various bits from lots of different genre movies and, admittedly, it is fun playing "spot the rip-off". We get the egg-hatching scene from ALIENS (complete with a queen spider – huh?), the chainsaw action from EVIL DEAD II and the besieged farmhouse scenario from NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, plus lots of other bits and pieces along the way.The director goes all out for sleaze, with a one-dimensional female character that strips off for a gratuitous bath scene, and a ridiculous lesbian interlude that just serves to provide titillation for the male viewer. Acting is pretty bad, with the best role going to David Bunce as a despicable college professor; he's suitably slimy and weedy in the part. The female characters are bimbos, the actresses poor, but not as bad as Rob Monkiewicz, who thinks he's Bruce Campbell! Instead he looks like Richard Bacon, the former Blue Peter presenter, and he simply doesn't cut it as the heroic lead.The script acknowledges that the film is a cheesy B-movie through and through, so there's plenty of humour along the way. Some of it works, a lot of it falls flat, but for what it's worth I enjoyed the movie. The giant spiders are animated through stop-motion as opposed to CGI, and, while the animator is no Harryhausen, the special effects are surprisingly decent! The stand-out is when two spiders have a tug-of-war with a human corpse, tearing all the limbs off in the process. Lots of people are critical of the jerky fakeness of stop-motion but I know I'll always enjoy seeing it on screen; if I had to choose between the spiders here and the ones in EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS I'd pick this movie every single time. Sadly the bloodshed in the film is minimal, which is surprising considering the level of nudity on display.In the end, ARACHNIA succeeds because it offers up what B-movie fans are looking for. There's a guy battling a giant spider on a roof, wielding a chainsaw; there are Molotov cocktails galore, lots of exploding spiders, and an end-reel appearance by the air force, who kick ass. My favourite scene, though, is the kicker where a cocooned guy's chest explodes and mini-spiders dart-out, a virtual re-run of a similar moment in ALIENS. You've just gotta love the fact that the film-makers had the audacity to shoot this scene!

"Arachnia" isn't that bad of a cheesy creature feature.**SPOILERS**Traveling to Arizona to examine a new fossil recently unearthed, pilot Sean Pachowski, (Rob Monkiewicz) with Professor Mugford, (David Bruce) and his assistants Chandra Weaver, (Irene Joseph) Trina, (Bevin McGraw) Kelly, (Alexxus Young) and Deke, (Dan Merriman) witness a meteor shower flying close-by, and a crashing one forces their plane down. Regrouping and attempting to find shelter, they come across an abandoned house in the middle of the desert. The owner of the house, Moses Cobb, (James Aspden) thinks them trespassers until they prove otherwise, and returning to his house, he shows them a gigantic spider that he claims was once alive. When giant spiders show up and attack the farm, they devise a plan to help survive against the ever-increasing number of spiders.The Good News: There is a lot of good here, most of it the campy nature of the film. Few films today are willing to pay homage to the creature features of the early 50s, opting instead to concentrate on the 70s films and leave the earlier ones alone . It's refreshing when one comes along to have the spirit of those films quite competently. From the easily explained and rendered plot to the blatant borrowing of other films to carry it's storyline, the exploitative elements of nudity and violence as well as the well-timed comic relief, this just screams giant camp-fest. The brief moments of greatness do come across as being quite nice. One of the best is the moment where a character runs from the crashed plane and nose dives at the point where the cliché would have the thing explode, only for nothing to happen. A quite inspired moment that left a well-deserved chuckle afterwards. The bathtub scene, and in general anything with the two women were nice to watch, even though one of them was a total cop-out. The ending is the real highlight, where the film shifts gears and becomes the all-out camp classic that it was destined to be but wasn't, with loads of action, a couple of witty moments, and some nice moments strung together. It's the real highlight of the film.The Bad News: As much as their was to like in the movie, there was also a couple of things hurting it. First off, the pacing is a big mess. The opening gets things off to a flying start, but then it seriously drags things out until the very end, only sporadically showing signs of life. That means the middle section will really test the most discriminating viewer's patience, even before they're rewarded with a grand conclusion. The spiders come into the movie much too late, and their low kill total does them no favors. Speaking about the spiders, they are so cheesily rendered and depicted that hardly anyone would be scared of these creatures. They are just beyond looking bad and instead are laughable. It's hard to believe what would be more realistic in this situation: cheap CGI or what was presented here. They were that bad. They invoke the tone they wanted quite admirably, but come nowhere close to being believable.The Final Verdict: While not the best giant spider flick, there's some others that aren't as good. Some pacing issues aside, this could've been a great little find. It has the potential, the ingredients, and the sense of fun, but it doesn't quite make it there. Only for those hardcore fans of the genre or those in desperate need of a new flick for their annual Friday Night MST party with friends.Rated R: Violence, Nudity and Language

*SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT*A bunch of people crash land in spider country. A meteor shower has awakened the beasts from the bowels of the Earth. They hook up with an old coot who tells them all about giant spiders. Soon claymation spiders attack as the heroes devise ways of killing the eight legged freaks."Arachnia" did the best it could. It stretched its $200 budget as far as humanly possible. They could only afford one girl getting naked. The brunette had to carry the workload for the other two women in the movie. She was a team player. That was nice. I give a lot of points for nudity and sleaze. It can save otherwise dismal movies for me.The spiders were as cheap and fake as you would expect. In fact, all of the effects were pretty bad. But this movie was fun. Sure, the acting wasn't stellar but everyone gave it their best shot. "Arachnia" was a B-movie and proud of it. The ending takes it over the top. I liked it.