Johnos Reviews: Arachnophobia

Hello again Empire! Its October, so lets look at something to give you all the creepy crawlies. The fear of spiders is very common, and depending on where you live is very rational. **If you happen to have Arachnophobia, I strongly suggest you click out of this article before you have a panic attack.** Now that we have that out of the way, lets get started.

## The Plot

We open on a research mission in South America to study insects and arachnids. They discover a new species of tarantula that exhibits behavior very similar to that of an ant colony. Their venom is so powerful, that one bite can almost instantly kill anything. The first victim was a photographer from California. He is bitten by the king of the spiders and killed. The spider then hides inside his coffin and gets a free ride to the States. The spider then gets loose and hides in a barn. We then see our main characters pull into the driveway. There is Ross, an arachnophobic doctor from San Francisco, and his happy family. He goes to work but finds that he won't be replacing the old doctor yet, as he has changed his mind about retiring. So he gets one patient and she is super healthy, meaning he doesn't get much pay. Meanwhile in the barn, the king spider has mated with a common house spider, making an army of small spiders with the same venom and aggressiveness as the normal worker spiders. One of them bites Ross's only patient. The old doctor says it was a heart attack, and refuses to perform an autopsy because of his old-fashioned ethics. He says that it was Ross's misjudgment of her health that killed her. After that, Ross gets assigned to give the high school football team their physicals. During the subsequent football practice, a spider crawls inside a player's helmet and bites him. Ross's reputation is getting really bad. Then the old doctor is bitten, and then Ross takes charge. He orders an autopsy on all of the victims and calls in the doctor who found the spiders in South America. They then team up with a fanatical exterminator played by John Goodman, though it would have been better to have Bill Murray in the role. He still does a good job though. Anyway they all go to Ross's house to fight the spider menace. Spiders crawl out of everywhere inside the house and Ross is trapped in the basement with the king and queen as well as a massive egg sack about to hatch. He kills them both and burns the egg sack. everybody makes it(except the guy from South America) and they move back to San Francisco. The End.

## What I Thought

Not too bad. The movie was not a masterpiece, but I thought it was okay. The comedy aspect of the film was really entertaining, but the horror aspect was just spider close-ups to give you the creepy crawlies. The only way you would be scared of this movie is if you are an arachnophobe. However, the suspense is magnificent. Every time a spider was in the room with someone, I kept thinking "Who's gonna die, is it him? No, don't bite the kid!" I was always genuinely surprised every time someone died, and that is the proper way to build it up. There are tons of fake-outs though, and that made everything seem a little dragged-out and slow. The best part of the film is the characters though. They all have really interesting and most times funny character traits. Especially the exterminator. He was the best in the film, even though he didn't actually show up too much.

## Afterword

It was okay. 7/10. If you like all things creepy and crawly then I have good news: the next film I have queued up is Arachnid from 2001. Don't like that? Give me some suggestions for a good scary movie below. I have a little something cooking up for Halloween, so be ready for that. That's all for today though. Have a good one out there!