Eight Legged Freaks (2002) Review

WEEK 3: CREEPY CRAWLY CRITTERS

Eight Legged Freaks (2002) Review

In the past fifteen years, there have been a number of B-movies to feature spiders, both big and small. The idea of a killer spider is nothing new—Lavalantula and Big Ass Spider! being the latest releases to feature them—but back in 2002, spiders were all my friends and I were talking about. The first live-action Spider-Man was released, and later that summer, Eight Legged Freaks, a completely different kind of arachnid action film, came out, though not to the same fanfare as Spider-Man, of course. Upon revisiting Eight Legged Freaks, I was happy to find it’s as much fun today as it was thirteen years ago.

Like Godzilla himself, the spiders in this film are the spawn of a radioactive incident. A barrel of toxic waste falls out of a truck and into a pond just outside the town of Prosperity (a name which is soon apparent in its irony). The owner of a nearby spider farm brings back crickets that have increased in size from the toxicity and feeds them to his 200 spiders, which become bigger, hungrier, and more dangerous as a result. He shows them to a young kid who’s fascinated by spiders and visits the farm regularly. They have a relationship that reminded me of Marty and Doc from Back to the Future, but it doesn’t last long, because the spiders kill the farm owner and head for the small town, where they begin to cause mayhem. The boy’s mother, who’s the local sheriff, must work with Chris, played by David Arquette, to save the town’s residents and destroy the evil arachnids. It seems Chris came back to town from a five year absence at the wrong time.

As the title hints, Eight Legged Freaks is not a dead-serious creature feature, nor is it a somewhat comedic thriller like Arachnophobia. It’s more in the vein of Tremors (though not that good) and is entertaining from beginning to end. The acting talent and star power is a bit above average for a movie about killer spiders. David Arquette, most famous for starring in the Scream franchise, is great as a slightly bumbling but good-spirited guy who’s in love with the sheriff, but can’t find the right moment to express his feelings to her, which becomes a running joke throughout the movie. A young Scarlett Johansson plays the sheriff’s daughter/young boy’s sister, and her character is going through a “bad girl” phase; hanging out with a group of dudes who ride dirt bikes through the desert all day. There’s a scene with her and a stun gun that’s hilarious and memorable—I won’t spoil it, but it was the one part everyone talked about when this movie came out, and we had many good laughs about it. The sheriff is hot and badass (as all sheriffs in these sorts of movies should be) and there’s a radio host who thinks everything is a conspiracy, and he adds even more comedy relief. 

Not only does the movie have a sense of humour, it has a prevalent self-awareness, which only makes it funnier. The kid discovers the spiders have escaped and become huge, and is dismayed because “They never believe the kid.” The giant ant movie Them! is playing on TV at one point, which the boy’s mom says is the reason he’s come up with such a crazy story. There are some fun gags throughout; one early example is when a spider attacks a cat and they have a tussle within the walls of a house. The cat gets slammed around, its face leaving imprints on the drywall, as it yowls and fights back against the spider. It’s hilarious and almost cartoony, but that brings me to one of the movie’s slight downfalls. While it maintains a mostly consistent comedy-horror tone, there are a few moments where it goes a little too over-the-top and becomes like a cartoon, though these moments are few and far between.

One of the reasons I was allowed to see this movie at a young age was because it lacked the R-rating many killer animal films usually have, but while you may think a PG-13 rating would hurt this movie, it still manages to pack in lots of action and carnage. There’s not much in the way of human blood and guts, but tons of spiders get blown up and squished and flattened and impaled and shot, and all the spiders are full of green slime, so there’s tons of spider guts all over the place. The special effects are pretty good for 2002—it’s mostly cgi spiders, but the movie isn’t aiming for absolute realism, so the few close-ups where it’s really obvious cgi are acceptable. The spiders get a proper amount of screen time: not too little, but used sparingly in the first act, and then they come out in full force for the final act.

As much innocent fun as this movie provides, it does still take itself seriously to a certain degree. This isn’t a Lavalantula-level of ridiculous. There are still some tense scenes, but it’s mostly trying to be funny, and does so successfully. The characters spout humorous dialogue and act accordingly, but the kid character is a little annoying and boring. His scientific comments about the spiders are fun, but that’s about the extent of what he does. The final act of the movie doesn’t fall apart, but it sort of plateaus when everyone takes refuge in the mall (a la Dawn of the Dead) and basically just blows all the spiders away for the next twenty minutes until the final battle. It’s still a lot of fun action, but gets repetitive after a point, and the final battle is a little predictable and unoriginal. Having said all that, it doesn’t make the movie as a whole any less engaging.

In this viewer’s humble opinion, Eight Legged Freaks is the best giant killer spider film out there. It has just the right balance of action and fun, and the production value is higher than usual for a killer animal film, which may help it appeal to viewers not as well versed in the sub-genre, while still satisfying genre fans.