The General (Canaima)

## The General

“*If these are the soldiers, I’d hate to see the General.*”
—Jerry Manley[src]
This **General** was a male Venezuelan spider born in the rainforests of an isolated tepui, the only specimen in his colony capable of reproduction. The spider was a dominant, fertile male of the species and displayed behavioral and intelligence attributes unseen by any other spider species discovered by science.

During an exploratory expedition into the tepui, the General lept from the jungle into the supplies of entomologist Dr. James Atherton. It killed photographer Jerry Manley and then proceeded into his casket for nourishment. When the coffin was transported into Manley's hometown of Canaima, the spider mated with a common domestic house spider specimen and produced a deadly strain of offspring. However, the General and his Queen were killed by Dr. Ross Jennings, in whose dwelling the spiders had constructed their nest.

## Biography

### Venezuela

The General was born to a colony of ancient spiders which had survived for untold millennia in a massive sinkhole within an unidentified tepui in the Amazon basin of Venezuela, South America. There, the spiders remained isolated from evolutionary pressure and enjoyed an unrivaled position as the local apex predator in their native habitat.

The General’s species was organized into a strict internal social hierarchy whereby high-caste spiders capable of reproduction produced infertile drones subject to their progenitors. The General was one such individual, a fertile and intelligent alpha male of the General caste. The General’s biological role within the hierarchy was to oversee the deployment of drones to dominate the ecosystem and outcompete all other predators. However, the species had theretofore been geographically constrained by the unscalable sinkhole in which they lived.

### Escape from the sinkhole

In 1990, a scientific expedition led by entomologist Dr. James Atherton descended the sinkhole and made first contact with the spider colony, though the team did not fully apprehend the danger posed by the species. In scientific order, a few specimens of the General’s species were killed by Atherton and his team for preservation and transportation to California, while others were captured live. Further, the team’s photographer, Jerry Manley, anxiously squashed another specimen after it attacked him.

The General, watching from afar, was enraged by the loss of several of his drones. As the research team prepared to make their ascent and leave the tepui, the General lept from a tree and concealed himself in the supplies. He thereby became presumably the first of his species to leave the harsh geography of the tepui.

Aboard the supplies, the General found himself at the expedition’s base camp near the Orinoco River. Manley, the photographer, retired to his tent for a nap, complaining of a fever. Meanwhile, the General exited the research supplies and crept into Manley’s tent and under his blanket. When Manley finally became aware of the massive spider’s presence, it was too late. The General sent his fangs into Manley’s legs, injecting his highly toxic venom, which sent the photographer into a brief seizure and ultimately to his death. The spider promptly fled the scene.

Manley’s body was discovered soon after by field assistant Miguel Higueras and Dr. Atherton, the latter of whom blamed Manley’s untimely demise on the fever he mentioned. The team loaded his corpse onto a wooden casket for immediate shipment to his hometown of Canaima, California, where his funeral would be held. Recognizing the opportunity, the General covertly boarded the casket, feeding on Manley’s corpse for sustenance.

### Arrival in Canaima

During his stowaway trip northward to the United States, the General survived by feeding on the blood of Manley's cadaver. By the time the casket finally arrived in Kendall Mortuary in Canaima, it was a shriveled, deathly shadow of its former appearance. Mortician Irv Kendall noted the ghastly difference and blamed it on South American preservation methods, suggesting a closed-casket funeral.

Meanwhile, the General slunk out of the casket, startling Kendall's pet dog and cat, who avoided the eight-legged visitor. Locating the pet door to the mortuary, the General escaped the building and made his way outside. He was greeted by a crow, which swooped down and nabbed the arachnid predator. The General was caught in the bird's talons for some time before it managed to sink its fangs into its captor. The bird dropped from the sky and released the General not far from a Victorian-style house. There the spider remained.

That evening, the General migrated into a nearby barn on the property. There he found a spider of a common local house variety, a specimen several times smaller than he. The two mated, conceiving a genetic anomaly—a species of hybridized spider, smaller than the General and his ilk but inheriting his dangerousness and tendency towards singular ecological dominance.

The General and his mate thereafter busied themselves weaving a grandiose nest in the barnhouse. There the General's half-bred offspring hatched, a new generation of drones ready for deployment. Also begotten of this bloodline was a Queen of his own stock, with whom the General planned to mate and produce true pure-bred offspring of the Venezuelan species.

### Invasion of Canaima

The General dispatched his hybrid drones in a weblike pattern from the barnhouse. For sustenance, the General and his drones feasted on native crickets, which were plentiful in the forested town. The soldier spiders duly claimed the lives of the humans residing in the town, including Canaima residents Margaret Hollins, local high-school football player, and country physician Dr. Sam Metcalf.

The spider which killed Metcalf was spotted scurrying away by his wife Evelyn Metcalf. Thereafter local authorities, including coroner Milton Briggs and newcomer Dr. Ross Jennings, exhumed the other victims' corpses and confirmed the cause of death. A dangerous spider infestation uncovered, Jennings contacted Dr. Atherton on the basis of his expertise in entomology and arachnology. However, the relationship between Atherton's novel species and the Canaima deaths had not yet been deduced. Atherton remained skeptical of a spider-caused epidemic and instead delegated investigation to assistant Chris Collins after vaguely recognizing the town's name.

### Infestation uncovered

In the meantime, the General and Queen mated to conceive pure-bred Venezuelan spiders, some of whom would eventually be reproductive to further propagate their population beyond Canaima. However, the barn became inhospitable to their egg sac, and the nest was relocated to the wine cellar of the nearby household, which maintained a temperature and
humidity for the nest.

When Dr. Atherton arrived, he dissected a specimen of the General's offspring and made several deductions. He inferred that the smaller soldiers originated from the cross-breeding of a male Venezuelan spider with a female domestic house spider. He also explained that the South American male had likely produced a Queen, with whom the male would mate and generate reproductive offspring of her own. Aware of the potential ecological disaster, the group set off to destroy the spiders and their nest.

At some point the General returned to his original nest in the barn. Atherton, having surmised that the barn was the centerpoint of the infestation, arrived and remarked on the scale and complexity of the web. He plucked a strand of websilk which the spider had spun to signal the presence of prey. The General, aware of Atherton's ruse, lept at him from an unseen angle and sank his fangs into the scientist's exposed neck. The arachnid and his offspring proceeded to wrap Atherton in silk; the General then covertly left the barn as exterminator Delbert McClintock arrived separately to investigate.

### Battle in the wine cellar and death

The General returned to the Jennings's wine cellar, where his and the Queen's central nest had been relocated. Meanwhile, his drones emerged in massive numbers to swarm the household, forcing the family to flee the home entirely. Jennings himself, however, was unable to make his way out of the house in time. The hostile spiders caused him to fall from a balcony and through the rotten wood of his house and into the cellar. Jennings quickly inferred that the secluded, damp wine cellar hosted the nest, based on statements made by Collins.

## Description

Like all Venezuelan spiders, the General was slightly more massive than a Goliath Bird Eater, with a considerable leg span. His abdomen consisted of a robust, semi-acorn shape with a base color of dark maroon. Accentuated over the dark maroon were dark yellow markings running in pattern from his spinnerets to his cephalothorax. His hardened carapace was a flat, deep turquoise color with subtle ridges bilaterally running parallel with each other. Unlike mygalomorphs, he had no visible foveal groove. He had six eyes arranged similarly to jumping spiders, black in color, and allowing him acute visual acuity.

His eight legs were colored with dark maroon matching the abdomen as well as dark yellow markings on the patella and tibia segments. The leg segment diameters were thicker than most Theraphosid tarantulas, probably needed to produce its strong jumping ability, adequately befitting its heavy bodyweight. All joints were colored with dark grey-brown hair, while the other portions of the legs were colored with dark maroons and black.

His pedipalps were quite prominent, with fully developed palpal bulbs, each with a prominent cymbium, suggesting that he attained full maturity. His chelicerae were robust and disproportionate to his body, suggesting a large venom capacity and an adaptation to hunting large prey. These were inward-swinging and colored black with inner green, yellow, and pink.

## Behind the scenes

**→** *Main article: Big Bob*
The "General" is the primary antagonist of the 1990 film *Arachnophobia*. Screenwriter Don Jakoby, who received a writing credit for the film, expressed his intent for the story to improve upon the B-movies of decades past. To avoid the "giant bug" cliché, he endowed the villainous General with an agenda and personality.

The General was played in part by a real female Goliath Bird Eater tarantula (and associated animatronic models) named "Big Bob." The tarantula's name was a reference to *Back to the Future* director Robert Zemeckis, who provided some advice to director Frank Marshall.

Big Bob was obtained from Reptile Rentals in Los Angeles. Animal trainer Jules Sylvester of Reptile Rentals was hired to work with the tarantula after he displayed an aggressive Malaysian earthtiger tarantula to Marshall and producer Richard Vane, which solicited intense reactions from the crew. To Sylvester, Big Bob was quite naturally an aggressive spider, with a hiss like "sizzling bacon"; he noted that the bite hurts no more than a bee sting, but it could penetrate fingers down to the bones. According to Daniels, Big Bob was fed a rat every weekend and treated as part of the cast—"it was almost like they brought him in and took his robe off." She was already quite old at the time of shooting and died within a few years from the film's release.

Already impressive in size, a bulkier strap-on abdomen was affixed to Big Bob's back, and she was painted with off-color markings. Filmmakers found that the use of Big Bob posed unique challenges; the tarantula often required extended periods of rest and would sometimes behave seemingly erratically. Director Frank Marshall said, "You can't yell at spiders. You can't fire them. All you can do is prey that they do what you want them to do." Daniels jokingly said in an interview with *Entertainment Weekly* that he and the spider "had no rapport" and that he "had a problem" working with it, given the apparent cautiousness of the spider wranglers. He also said, in a behind-the-scenes interview, "I don't care who you are, you get a nine-inch Amazon spider coming towards you, I mean, yeah, sure I'm scared. Fine, you know."

The finale—in which Daniels' character battles the General in his wine cellar—was the only scene which Marshall storyboarded. "In this type of movie," he said, "like *Jaws* or *The Birds* or even *King Kong*, you have to end with a big confrontation between the main character and their nemesis or phobia." He conceived of the nail gun as the method whereby the General would be ultimately killed. The finale was filmed last and with the remainder of the cast dismissed, and it took two weeks of 13-hour days to complete. Two of those days were spent merely on the sequence in which Jennings remains trapped under a wine rack throwing wine bottles at his arachnid aggressor. Big Bob was used in many of these shots; according to Marshall, "there probably wasn't a lot of acting going on in that scene." While filming the climactic battle, Sylvester stood by with leather gloves and assured Daniels that, while the spider was perfectly safe, he would quickly retrieve the tarantula were it to advance on him.

Articulated animatronic models, also called "Bobs," were used for other shots. Marshall had already worked with noted special effects artist Chris Walas on the film *Gremlins*, so the two already had an amicable working relationship. When the director commissioned Walas to create an animatronic Big Bob, he was at first a little hesitant to get involved, due to the inherent difficulty—although in an interview with *Empire* he recalled that his work on *Gremlins* was significantly tougher. Walas built at least three models of varying sizes—a "normal-sized" Bob with a ten-inch legspan, a a mid-sized spider with a two-foot legspan, and a "close-up Bob" with a six-foot legspan. Several different rigs were created for both Bob and his similarly-sized Queen, for different kinds of shots, including crawling, falling, or descending by web.

Said Walas: "We've come up with fascinating cable-controlled systems with compound movement and and sync elements built into them. We've also incorporated some tiny internal drive mechanisms that we switch on to make the spiders walk away." The greatest difficulty, according to Walas, was locating batteries small enough to fit inside the spider models. Jamie Hyneman, of *MythBusters* fame, worked on the animatronic models; he would later state in *Popular Mechanics* that *Arachnophobia* was one of the first movies he worked on and that he often relied on simple magnets for several of the effects.

A toy figure of Big Bob was produced, the packaging promising that the owner can hold eight legs, two fangs and attitude in the palm of his or her hand. Further figures capable of remote-control were planned, but these never entered production.

## Appearances

1. ARACHNOPHOBIA (first appearance)
2. ARACHNOPHOBIA novel
3. ARACHNOPHOBIA: Official Movie Adaptation

## Notes and references

1. ↑ This name is used in promotional material and refers to the real-life Goliath Bird Eater who portrayed the General. For more information, see Big Bob.
2. ↑ Based on figures for the Goliath Bird Eater who portrayed the General.
3. ↑ ARACHNOPHOBIA novel
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 Shapiro, Marc. *Arachnophobia Spins Its Web.*. *Fangoria*. No. 95. August 1990.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 de Samlyen, Nick. *Into the Spider-Verse.* Empire magazine. Dec. 2020.
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 Gregg Kilday, Charles Fleming, and Benjamin Svetkey. "*Arachnophobia.*" *Entertainment Weekly.* No. 24. July 27, 1990.
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 *Arachnophobia* (1990) at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Turan, Kenneth. Film; Don't Look Now, But the Spiders Are Coming! *The New York Times.* April 15, 1990.
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 *Thrills, Chills & Spiders: The Making of* Arachnophobia ( Available on YouTube)
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Awalt, Steven. Along Came a Director: Frank Marshall on the Making of 'Arachnophobia'. Amblin Entertainment. July 17, 2020.
11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Actor Found 'Arachnophobia' Co-Stars No Big Hairy Deal. *Orlando Sentinel*. July 20, 1990.
12. ↑ Mitchell, Sean. How They Got the Bugs Out: Insects: When they needed spiders for ‘Arachnophobia,’ a species from New Zealand answered the casting call. *Los Angeles Times.* July 18, 1990.
13. ↑ *Popular Mechanics*. Nov. 2006.