Movie Reviews (VII): "Eight Legged Freaks"

Itsy Bitsy Spiders—Not
Eight Legged Freaks
Directed by Ellory Elkayem
Screenplay by Jesse Alexander and Ellory Elkayem
Starring David Arquette, Kari Wuhrer, Scott Terra, Scarlett Johansson, Doug E. Doug, Leon Rippy, and Rick Overton
MPAA Rating: PG-13
90 minutes (approximately)
Three stars

Reviewed by David Lavery

From first frame to last, Eight Legged Freaks goes about its business efficiently, effectively, and with a wicked sense of humor. Ten minutes in, the whole story, set, as all self-respecting giant insect films should be, in a small town in the American southwest and narrated by a conspiracy-obsessed radio talk-jock (Doug) terrified of anal probes, is laid out: a barrel of toxic waste (replacing the nuclear radiation of 50s big bug film) falls off a truck, mutating crickets fed to a wide variety of arachnids at a spider zoo located conventionally nearby. And we have met all the key characters: the Fargo-inspired heroic female sheriff (B movie queen Wuhrer) and her goofy deputy (Overton); the prodigal son (Arquette) of the owner of the local gold mine, who has long loved the sheriff; the evil mayor and developer (Rippy) responsible for the toxic waste; the sheriff’s brainy son (Terra)—a stand in for the all-knowing scientist of the 50s version—and wild daughter (Johansson). The stun-gun which will play a pivotal role has been introduced. Anyone who has seen a television ad for Freaks—anyone not comatose for the last month, that is—knows exactly what to expect, and the movie, produced by the Devlin/Emmerich team that brought us Independence Day and Godzilla (a fact unaccountably touted in publicity) and directed by New Zealand import Elkayem, doesn’t disappoint.

With goofy deputy Dewey from the Scream films front and center, Freaks, not surprisingly, is self-consciously aware of its own genre and its history. At one point the sheriff’s son, the first to understand the threat posed by the now giant spiders to his small, impoverished Arizona town, is watching Them!, an ancestral classic 1954 sci-fi/horror film about giant ants. Because he has seen such films, and because he is in one, when he tries to warn others of the threat he knows in advance that “no one will believe the kid.” His mother is convinced that he is the victim of a “media-induced paranoid delusional nightmare.” More aware of the genre conventions than the sheriff, the audience knows she is wrong and has paid good money to watch just such a nightmare.

I have a friend who gives movies thumbs up or thumbs down based on their on-screen treatment of animals. Though the credits may insist “No animals were harmed or injured during the making of this motion picture,” she is likely to become incensed if they are badly treated in the film itself. Eight Legged Freaks will likely send her over the edge. Hundreds of mutant spiders die, of course, but so do parrots, dogs, cats, and ostriches. Not to mention scores of two legged creatures as well. Though Freaks does avoid killing several characters genre conventions usually mark for termination, it cruelly slaughters others for whom we have developed some affection. (Though the parental advisory warns only of “sci-fi violence,” the film is actually quite gruesome in spots.)

First-rate CGI effects (I especially liked a chase scene involving jumping spiders and dirt bikes); a frustrated giant-spider attacking a stuffed and mounted moose head; Arquette mumbling a polite “thank you” through a spider cocoon that enshrouds him to the sheriff who has saved him; a townsman wearing a hockey mask and doing his best Jason imitation ready to do battle in an all-hands-to-the-task final stand against the spiders at the mall (he is, of course, immediately killed); an elderly barber stalked in a sporting good store by a spider-propelled shopping tent to the accompaniment of a Muzak version of “Strangers in the Night”; throw-away lines about miner’s hats and the Florida presidential vote count. These and numerous other small touches demonstrate that the filmmakers were having quite a lot of B movie fun. Audiences are likely to as well.