Eight Legged Freaks

December 10, 2004

Rated: PG-13 Runtime: 100 min Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Is it horror or is it comedy? Eight Legged Freaks isn’t the first movie to warrant that question as many horror movies have had funny moments, but it’s so far into the “funny moments” category that perhaps it really should be rated as a comedy. However, I’m sure someone watching it will be scared by the spiders, so we’re leaving it in the horror category.

Eight Legged Freaks

This movie answers the age old question of what happens when you mix toxic waste with an exotic spider zoo. The answer of course, is giant spiders! What you probably weren’t expecting is that these spiders have developed voices… kinda. Drag a giant spider behind a car and it says “ouch ouch ouch” as it bounces down the road. Oh, and they growl too.

It’s a quite silly, but it’s ok since this movie is all about being campy, and giant growling spiders is about as campy as it gets. The basic storyline is that a barrel of toxic waste accidentally gets into a stream near a small town and starts to mutate the crickets. Just down the stream is a shack outfitted to be an “exotic spider museum” which is run by a strange old man who of course feeds the crickets to the spiders, and thus we get big spiders.

Let us not forget the obligatory smart kid who figures out the spider situation first, but to whom no adult will listen to. At least in this case the movie acknowledges this cliché as it’s happening.

You might think I didn’t like this movie very much, but in fact I did… kinda. The physical effects were great, I liked the “real” spiders and spider parts, but the computer created spiders just didn’t quite work for me. For one thing, even if you have a spider phobia it’s hard to get scared of a giant computer generated spider as you never once believe it might be real, thus no fear. I not afraid of spiders though, so what do I know.

If you’re looking for a safe date movie, this is a good choice. Your date might get creeped out enough to give you a few hugs and you won’t be bored too much even if you end up watching the movie the whole time. If you’re not a big fan of horror/comedies you might want to just wait and rent this one.

Posted by John | Filed Under 2 Stars, David Arquette, Doug E. Doug, Horror, Kari Wuhrer, Matt Czuchry, PG-13, Scarlett Johansson, Theatrical