EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS (Ellory Elkayem, 2002)

Reviewed: July 23, 2002

As "Itsy Bitsy Spider" played over Eight Legged Freaks' closing credits -- eulogizing the tepid dung heap I'd just endured -- my wave of depression (which set in about midway through the film when I realized with an 'oh fuck' thud, this movie's only going downhill from here) hit its peak.

Cut to me now, sitting here, reinvigorated by coffee and the beautiful strains of Wilco exiting my headphones. I'm feeling better. I think I can muster the strength to jot down a few words about my experience.

Important preface-y note: I have harbored a paralyzing fear of spiders for the duration of my life and Eight Legged Freaks--a film about spiders infesting a small Arizona town--achieved the near impossible: it didn't so much as give me the creeps once. Personally, I think that says everything right there. Nevertheless, I trudge onward...

Mindset upon entering Eight Legged Freaks: Well aware that Eight Legged Freaks was being billed as an homage to cheesy B-grade monster flicks and thus willing to forgive the film an almost innumerable number of flaws (including but not limited to: awful dialogue, awful acting, awful plotting, awful characterization, awful visual FX) as long as I simply had some low-rent fun.

The one thing I was absolutely NOT willing to forgive Eight Legged Freaks under any circumstances: Cowardice.

Alas, Eight Legged Freaks is tame and unimaginative and repetitive and for those three fatal flaws it deserves the quick box office death this past weekend's tallies all but doom it to. Pop culture shits out another turd and I, for one, will be rejoicing as this piece of crap is quickly reduced to a row of small digital discs in the back of a Blockbuster.

Now wait, okay, I'll shoulder some of the blame for not realizing this was a PG-13 flick before I attended. Because frankly if I had been aware of Eight Legged Freak's rating, it's very possible I would have never seen the god damn thing in the first place.

The spiders in this film look straight outta an arcade video game circa 1986, fine. I knew that was gonna be the case from the trailers and commercials. What I didn't know was that the spiders were gonna be ineffectual grasshoppers who can do nothing besides jump around randomly like a fucking stray ping-pong ball. What I also didn't realize was these gigantic (at least twice the size of an average human, not including legs), radioactive spiders are so motherfucking weak the following methods can be used to kill them:

1) A single bullet.
2) A bow and arrow.
3) A jump-kick.
4) A swat.

That's right, a swat! At one point towards the end of the flick a character flays their arms around, hitting a huge spider against a wall, killing it.

There's not a speck of blood spilt in this MPAA-friendly film and the spiders are so pathetic there's no sense of danger (they don't even kill some of their "victims", they merely cocoon-o-nize them to await an allegedly henceforth death). There's exactly one interesting death scene total and it's only mildly interesting at that. It's one of the first deaths--a dumb mine worker inhales a spider nest into his throat and thus spiders hatch out of his mouth. There's the highlight of the film, folks. Roll credits. Lights up. Save a fuckload of time. Go home.

I suppose it's redundant to note that, indeed, the dialogue's awful (you wouldn't believe how indigent the one-liners are and for the sake of your health I dare not repeat any of them here; also the film's few attempts at knowingly self-referencing its own genre a la Scream fall flatter than those novelty machines--which for the low, low cost of fifty cents--will spew out a crushed penny) and the plotting and the characterization are awful (there's this horrifically labored, totally unnecessary backstory involving David Arquette's character, his dead father, the corrupt mayor, gold, underground mines and Kari Wuhrer's character).

However: most of the acting is surprisingly adequate. Arquette is finally restrained and there's a nice little unbilled cameo from the always-a-pleasure-to-see Tom Noonan.

Plus there's the movie's sole, true, bright spot: 17-year old, deliciously deep-voiced Scarlett Johansson, who after turning in rock-my-world performances in Ghost World and The Man Who Wasn't There last year, cements her status as the new Leelee Sobieski (i.e. a fucking great young actress who can not only thrive on strong material but emerge unscathed from a raging sea of drivel). Johansson plays her role so straight (as you must in a film like Eight Legged Freaks) and with such conviction that I longed for her to appear in every scene.

A final lifeboat: John Ottman's (composer/editor of The Usual Suspects) all over the map score. During one particularly massive Spidey invasion Ottman's score sounds like a Christmas cue which would fit perfectly into a Home Alone 4 montage.

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