Eight Legged Freaks

Directed by: Ellory Elkayem

Starring: David Arquette and Scarlett Johansson

Review by Eric Scot Lemons

I love a good B-horror film. One that rides the line of camp and comes out with something both exciting and fun. It is a difficult genre though, for every Tremors you get four Sharknados. You expect the CGI to be bad, which in Eight Legged Freaks, it is. But not too bad for a film out of 2002. You got David Arquette, a sort of random crown prince of cult-ish horror after the Scream flicks and having written and directed The Tripper, a sort of ode to 80s slasher flicks that has Ronald Reagan like figure as the slasher. But in this movie, like many, he sucks. His line delivery felt like it came after a long trailer weed nap.

That being said, I really dug this movie. It was corny, but pretty funny in parts. In many ways, it felt like one of my favorite films, Slither, albeit only in tone and not in plot or quality. It really is an amalgamation of many different cool horror flicks. It takes place partially in a mall like Dawn of the Dead, and partially in a mine like My Bloody Valentine. The way they picked off their prey by sneaking into their homes felt like Arachnophobia, but on a comically larger scale. My one major complaint in the film that just got too annoying was they gave the spiders voices that sounded half the time like a mogwai and half the time like a minion. I don’t need a high-pitched squirrel voice from a spider to know it hates being shot.

I would recommend this movie to anyone who wants to watch some fun bullshit in which they know what will happen and they don’t have to think about it, but it is cool to see spiders take out tanker trucks and pile into malls and get shot. It isn’t perfect or really great in any feasible way, but you’ll enjoy it, especially with the help of alcoholic beverages or inhaled cannabis smoke