Arachnid

Plot synopsis:
A plane crashes on an island, and the pilot comes across a giant spider, which kills both him and an alien. One year later, Mercer (Alex Reid), the sister of the pilot, accompanies Valentine (Chris Potter) to the same island to locate her brother. On the way to a native village to examine several natives who are dying of spider bites, ticks burrow into Reyes (Luis Lorenzo Crespo). Upon reaching the village, they discover that the village has moved on. Reyes begins to cough up the ticks and Bear (Rocqueford Allen) decides to shoot him to end his suffering.
That night, Mercer wanders off and is attacked by a mutated spider, but is saved by a native, who ends up getting bitten and dying the next morning. The group moves on, and are attacked by a giant spider, which kills Henry (an "arachnologist") and Samuel (the group's doctor). A smaller spider attacks Bear, and another native is killed. Valentine, Mercer and Susana (Neus Asensi), Samuel's assistant, hole up in a military bunker. While Mercer keeps watching, the spiders attack and force the survivors into a closet. Susana panics when she sees the spider is gone and is killed when she tries to escape. Mercer and Valentine escape through a bomb tunnel into the forest, where Valentine slips into unconsciousness from a bite he sustained.
In the morning, Valentine awakes to discover that Bear and "Toe Boy" (Robert Vicencio) are the only surviving natives. The four head into the cave, where they find the spider in a cocoon. Mercer attempts to cut the cocoon down so Bear can shoot it, but it wakes up before she can cut it down and Bear is killed. The spider sets chase after Mercer and she ends up wrapped in its silk, which she uses to pull the spider from the ceiling and it falls onto a stalagmite, killing it. As Mercer, Valentine and Toe Boy leave, another spider watches them from an overhead cliff.
In the near future an older Valentine is seen returning to the island with Mercer to eradicate the arachnid species.

Tags: violence

Review:
A plane driven by a pilot(Alex Reid) and transporting ex-marines(Chris Potter, Luis Lorenzo), a scientist(Ravil Isyanov) and doctors(Jose Sancho, Neus Asensi) crashes on a tropical island that contains a lethal carnivorous alien spider.
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..
(If you can't figure out two of the survivors at the end turn in your monster movie-watching card now.) And despite a lot of fodder (always a good sign) to many deaths seem off screen or at least over a little quickly.
The movie also could have used some gratuitous nudity (If young thing Alex Reid wasn't willing at least allow Spanish star Neus Asensi to release those puppies like she has done in the past.) Those quibbles aside I couldn't help but cheer when the puppeteers took the Volkswagen sized spider out for the spin in the second half of the movie.
Arachnid is a pretty good movie which follows the similar sci-fi mutated monster style of film in the tradition of Critters, Anaconda, etc.
We have a group of humans who are trying to survive against a species of alien spider, which is done up by better than average special effects.
The group of humans are interesting, consisting of a female pilot, a spider researcher, two medical people, some soldiers, and some island natives.
Forget the spiders, watch the film for her!I recommend this film not only for Alex Reid but because the special effects are decent, and it always fun to see who will survive against the monster..
So it's not surprising that big bug creature features are amongst my favourite horror movies; they can unsettle me without even trying.Arachnid, produced by Brian Yuzna and directed by Jack Sholder (who helmed the fun flick The Hidden and the abysmal Nightmare on Elm Street 2) is a 'by-the-numbers' effort which, despite being extremely predictable, entertains with its impressive (and often yucky) effects by Steve Johnson.When a UFO explodes over some South Pacific islands, a deadly creature is let loose which causes havoc amongst the natives.
A team of scientists are sent to investigate and are soon fighting for their lives against a mutant monster that is part alien and part spider.Chock full of clichés, Sholder's low budget bug-fest isn't going to win any awards for originality and doesn't make a lot of sense, but with its attractive spunky heroine Mercer (Alex Reid), busty doctor (Neus Asensi) and its (sometimes, quite literally) eye-popping gore, I found it to be a reasonably entertaining monster movie..
In my mind, the words "Giant spider" = "Bad movie" But Arachnid actually proved me wrong.
Oh, it was by no means good...but it was a fun movie to watch anyways.Alex Reid was really the only good point as far as acting goes.
The spider and centipedes (I'm still wondering why there were giant centipedes in this movie...) looked pretty decent.
So when I saw a sneak preview of ARACHNID at the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors convention a year ago (and being that I'm also someone who likes to give a lot of low-budget direct-to-video movies a chance), I knew I'd have to check it out.The setup is simple enough in the best 50s monster movie tradition: a team of scientists and ex-military types travel to a remote island to find the source of a mysterious new virus, and in the process come face to face with a giant web-spinning terror.
Once the spider is finally revealed to the characters' amazement and horror, the suspense is upped a little bit, leading to a frenzy climax in which the pilot and two more men you thought for sure had died (having gone off to establish communication to call for help) show up to fight back.
Alex Reid, who plays the pilot, isn't particularly convincing as a tough girl (perhaps it was the director's fault), but at least she looks nice and, like Potter, does what she can with the material.
This movie features bad special effects in some areas, and pretty good ones in others.
Even though this beginning may make the movie look like another CGI horror movie, don't be fooled, all of the mutated/alien/ spiders are made from props and animatronics.
Overall I would recommend this movie to anyone who is a fan of creature features, as well as gore hounds, (there are many good uses of gore in this film)..
Pilot (Alex Reid) has taken the job to search for her missing brother, whose naval jet was last reported in the vicinity of the island, while mercenary (Chris Potter) and his crew (Bear and Lightfoot) tries to remain professional in spite of the chaos.Quirky spider specialist (Isyanov) causes endless grief, as he disappears at every given opportunity, searching for specimens with which to experiment; his final experiment finds him cocooned in a tightly woven spider-web.
Essentially, many people, consisting of several redshirts and five characters who actually matter, onboard an aircraft that could comfortably hold the five main characters and thus seems very cramped, manage to crash on an island while searching for a new spider species from which they intend to produce antivenom.And given the redshirts' presence, its certainly not surprising once group members start being killed.
Actually after the first victim is attacked and "sick", the other characters repeatedly get distracted so perhaps they knew that character was a redshirt and didn't care about his fate.Actually with most characters being redshirts the characters aren't very interesting although there are a few different spider critters.The movie keeps itself fresh, just about enough to be watchable, but it still isn't something I'd recommend.
The plot is typical but at least it has more sense and less holes than Fantastic Factory´s first movie and the acting was also a bit better, so people didn´t laugh at the theater(In "Faust" as I said they were frequently doing so).For "Arachnid" I think that the producers had a clearer idea of what they wanted to do, a typical B movie similar to those B fantastic movies that Filmax has been distributing in video during all its existence something like "Spiders" or "Crocodile" with sometimes bad special effects and where the job by Sholder is far from being so inspired as in "Hidden" or "A nightmare on Elm Street 2" but nevertheless the film has some good points and Sholder gets one memorable scene about the killing of a guy by a group of mutant ticks which is the best of the movie and which is, no doubt, the best goric scene that I have seen lately..
Usually, good directors filming the horror or semi-horror/sci-fi films choose a phobia from wide range of existing phobias and play on it...That works greatly on the people who actually have such phobia or are close to it, and it also works good for people who don't have, but get to understand after film, why other people have such phobia...Situation is completely different with Arachnid!If you take this movie and make someone who struggles from arachnophobia to watch it couple of times, I am sure he will be cured.Giant spider monster is so dumb, so funny, so stupidly made...
that everyone will understand for good, that there's nothing we can afraid of, even if spiders will really become that big.Recommended for psychologists, use the film, cure the people!.
So imagine the surprise when a movie like Arachnid comes around that makes it all seem easy again.We start out with a stealth fighter crashing into a UFO.
A giant spider apparently kills the alien, then comes after the pilot.Flash forward, and we're in a hospital where victims of some strange disease are being treated.
"Arachnid" may not be a great film and in fact it starts off pretty rocky but it gets better as it progresses and what it does right makes it worth a viewing.
The creatures are not spiders at all though, the whole incident has been caused by an alien ship crashing onto the island.
There's no real mystery about what is happening on the island, you know right from the beginning that it's alien spiders.
There's a minor sub plot where the crew's pilot Mercer (Alex Reid) is looking for her brother, which we know is the pilot that first encounters the arachnid creatures but it's more of a tossup between "is he dead or mutated into a horrible spider monster" than anything.
It almost looks like your eye is too slow to capture the movements and all you see are random snippets (kind of like watching people move to a strobe light) and the movements of the main spider just doesn't look as good as it would have if these movements had been done using modern special effects.Another positive are the characters in the movie.
Well this movie does that but instead of the second group just getting killed off, they actually re-join the survivors of the spider attacks towards the end of the film.
It feels like the film needed to go through one more proof read to tighten up some of the loose ends and move this from a "better than expected" movie to a "hidden gem".
Then the expedition to the island where there are giant mutations galore including Spiders and the cast get whitteld down one by one as is the case with glossy B movies involving somethings not human.
Boom mikes visible all over the place, full of plotholes (pilot goes on the mission also instead of repairing the plane, why didn't they destroy the eggs in the hive etc etc, cheap movie with lousy effects, total budget about can't be more than $1000 or was it Euro ?, don't waste your time like i did and leave it in the videostore, rent Alien again for half the price and twice the fun.!
Inexistent sound, inconsistent plot, no ending, no dialogue, horrible acting, this "thing" looks like it has been made by some students wanting to make a bad joke to their movie director teacher and like they worked hard on fixing it.When you see a microphone going from above an actor to above another one, to start with, you know it is going to be a dreadful movie.
The special effects were effective, which is the only thing good about this movie.Overall, If you want a unoriginal formulaic plot, giant spiders and good effects, this movie if for you..
Complete with surreal dream sequences, unknown character motives, aliens, demons, dinosaurs, protagonist arcs that come 360 and then go 180, and several other things to make it as different as possible, Arachnid is truly a bizarre experience; imagine Mosquito or Spiders directed by a French art-house director.The movie involves a group of people in search for a police ranger's lost brother, who went missing in a dogfight with an alien spacecraft.
There's also a seen in the movie where the spiders literally eliminate 80% of the cast, and that's something only a very ballsy writer and director would follow through with.Arachnid is low budget and feels low budget.
Let's face it: we have Eight legged freaks, Arachnophobia and even Ice Spiders, so we've seen good fun, good movies and cheesy fun also, but this one is beyond bad and terrible.
Arachnid is one bad executed movie, with some OK actors, good settings, bad dialogue and horrible effects.
I decided to give it another go because I do like spider movies, and "Arachnid" is actually good enough entertainment, considering it is from 2001.The story is straight forward, if not quite simplistic, actually.
So even for a 2001 movie, "Arachnid" has creatures that look quite nice.
Most of them seemed to be devoid of any emotion or empathy, as people were dying left and right, and no one seemed to really be shaken or disturbed by that fact.Sure, there are better spider movies available, but "Arachnid" wasn't bad, and it is well worth a watch if you have nothing better to do..
*Spoilers*Movie about a giant alien arachnid that is killing the natives and the people that arrive on the island.
A familiar tale is given a familiar re-telling, a middle of the road monster movie which starts off pretty well before degenerating into the typical action-orientated scenario, where precise plotting goes out of the window, character traits are forgotten and everyone runs around in the jungle trying to avoid getting chewed on by the hungry bad guys.
I was disappointed for the most part, but the film is not without the odd moment of interest here and there.After the opening titles – the longest I've seen, and accounting for about a dozen different production companies – things are looking pretty good in the movie.
We get plane wrecks, an invisible UFO and even a weird-looking alien creature making a guest appearance before the plot begins for real.
Anyone who's seen Yuzna's previous TICKS will know what to expect – this guy truly loves bodily intrusion and destruction.Once the spider makes an appearance, the film takes a downward turn and loses what little intelligence it possessed in the first half (attention to detail, personalities, realism, etc.).
ARACHNID is worth watching for the first half of the film and the truly nasty tick death scene, but needs switching off when the spider makes an appearance and it just becomes a tame embarrassment..
"Arachnid" isn't that bad of a creature feature.**SPOILERS**Lauren Mercer, (Alex Reid) a pilot, agrees to lead an expedition by Dr. Samuel Leon, (Jose Sancho) his assistant Susana, (Nues Asensi) spider specialist Henry Capri, (Ravil Issyanov) and guide Lev Valentine, (Chris Potter) into a small Pacific Island to determine the cause of a deadly epidemic.
When the suspicions are proved true, they try to get off the island alive.The Good News: Sure, it's predictable, derivative, and has some pretty cheesy effects, but fans of these movies have come to expect that sort of thing to one degree or another.
The spider isn't that bad looking, it's got a couple of good moments, and the film won't exactly rot your brain.
The second alien then kills the pilot and the plot is set up.Fast forward 10 months and a group is going to the island to investigate a mysterious illness that appears to be related to some type of bite.The rest is fairly routine but the acting is better than average for the two main stars.
On the way, they pass through a nearly-empty native village, picking up a helpful sole survivor from there, and must survive attacks from a variety of big bug mutations (not just the insects of the title) that are quickly evolving into the "ultimate predator." There's also a caterpillar-like creepy crawler, something that shoots green acidic gunk that melts off flesh and some bloated ticks that crawl under one guy's skin and then out his neck in the stand-out gore scene.The location work, production values, photography and acting are all above par and the special effects, which employ animatronics, model work and a little CGI, are very good.
In between, various members of the party come to sticky ends involving body infesting giant ticks, cocoons and the title character.This formulaic dross is only enlivened in small parts by one or two special effects moments, the giant spider being the highlight - although even this is let down by the sight of it 'running'.
On the whole, I give it two-and-a-half stars as the next best giant spider-movie I've seen since last summer's "Eight-Legged Freaks." *Of course, the all-time greatest one is undeniably "Tarantula!" (with Leo G.
The team soon learn that a giant flesh eating alien mutated Spider is loose in the jungle & is trying to breed, the team must must stop it before the Spider or it's offspring reach the mainland & infect the entire Earth...This Spanish production was directed by Jack Sholder & is a fairly lacklustre 'Creature Feature' that has little to recommend it, Arachnid is the sort of low budget tripe that turns up on the Sy Fy Channel all the time.
Almost everyone hates them & more importantly are scared of them so the usually humble Spider is a good subject for a typical giant insect 'Creature Feature' since people don't like them to begin with.
Here with Arachnid the script offers nothing particularly new, memorable or stimulating as a giant alien mutated Spider threatens to destroy mankind & the efforts of the clichéd cast of character's to stop it.
The forgettable script feels like a mix of Predator (1987) & Arachnophobia as a bunch of paper thin character's are bumped of by mutant alien Spiders in a dense South American jungle, unfortunately it sounds a lot better than it actually is.
The acting isn't anything to shout about, minor British celebrity Alex Reid is terrible.Arachnid is a pretty poor creature feature, how can a film about giant mutated alien Spiders be bad?
Spiders are alien spiders...If all this sounds messy to the point of damaging your immersion do not worry - The directors camera/microphone can be seen falling clearly into plain sightshortly after the crew lang anyway and it will continue to do so throughout the film.If the script and directing are this lousy what a bad movie really needs is some truly horrific cheesy acting to back it Sadly all it can offer is mere below average underacting throughout.
****SPOILER****A group of adventurers are hired to lead a medical expedition into a jungle.Things go terribly wrong when an alien creature begins breeding with local fauna, giving life to a giant alien spider-scorpion-thingy.
The acting is pretty good, particularly for this genre, but the critters are pretty bad, looking like closeups of small mechanical (or CGI) spiders made to look large.