Arachnophobia (1990)

User Rating:

6.2/10   

Director:

Frank Marshall

Writers (WGA):

Don Jakoby (story) &
Al Williams (story) ...

Release Date:

18 July 1990 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Sci-Fi | Thriller | Horror

Tagline:

Eight legs, two fangs and an attitude.

Plot:

South American killer spider hitches a lift to the US in a coffin and starts to breed and kill.

Plot Keywords:

Spider | Doctor | Venezuela | Small Town | Exterminator

Awards:

2 wins & 5 nominations

Cast

Jeff Daniels	...	Dr. Ross Jennings
Harley Jane Kozak	...	Molly Jennings
John Goodman	...	Delbert McClintock
Julian Sands	...	Doctor James Atherton
Stuart Pankin	...	Sheriff Lloyd Parsons
Brian McNamara	...	Chris Collins
Mark L. Taylor	...	Jerry Manley
Henry Jones	...	Doctor Sam Metcalf
Peter Jason	...	Henry Beechwood
James Handy	...	Milton Briggs
Roy Brocksmith	...	Irv Kendall
Kathy Kinney	...	Blaire Kendall
Mary Carver	...	Margaret Hollins
Garette Ratliff Henson	...	Tommy Jennings (as Garette Patrick Ratliff)
Marlene Katz	...	Shelley Jennings

Runtime:

103 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) | Dolby SR (35 mm prints)

Certification:

USA:PG-13 (certificate #30592) | Argentina:13 | Australia:PG | Chile:14 | Finland:K-16 | Germany:16 | Iceland:14 (original rating) | Iceland:16 (video rating) | Netherlands:12 | Norway:15 | Peru:14 | Singapore:PG | South Korea:12 | Sweden:15 | UK:PG

Filming Locations:

Angel Falls, Canaima National Park, Estado Bolívar, Venezuela

Company:

Amblin Entertainment

Trivia:

First release by Hollywood Pictures, the third film-making/distribution arm of the Walt Disney Company.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Becky is screaming after seeing the spider in the shower, you can see her underwear in the mirror reflection.

Quotes:

Sheriff Lloyd Parsons: [introducing Delbert to Doctor Atherton] Excuse me. Professor? This is our town exterminator.
Delbert McClintock: Delbert McClintock, infestation management. Always nice to meet a collegue.
Sheriff Lloyd Parsons: Now, he believes he came across one of the offending spiders a couple of hours ago.
Doctor James Atherton: Might you have brought it with you?
Delbert McClintock: Actually, he's probably still at the bottom of my shoe. You really can't tell what it is anymore.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Bad Boys of Saturday Night Live (1998) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Summer Wind

An arachnophobe's worst nightmare - Eight Legs, two fangs, and an attitude!

(One bite from one of these bad boys, and trust me, you won't be getting spider-like powers!!!)

Just to get this out of the way, I'm not scared of spiders (I'm not an "arachnophobe"), so I have to fake it here, somewhat. While I don't necessarily have a fear of spiders, I don't particularly like them, and I try to maintain a sense of compassion for these delicate and majestic creatures by not squashing them when I find them inside my house and instead collecting them up and releasing them back out to the wild.

But "Arachnophobia" carries the danger of just plain giving me the creeps and throwing me into pure, 100% arachnophobia. Every time I watch it or when I'm just flipping through the channels, I still have to check everywhere around me to make sure there are no eight-legged creepy-crawlers creepy-crawling around.

"Arachnophobia" is one of the most distressing horror films I've ever seen, and remember, I'm not even scared of spiders. It's also just plain of the most frightening horror movies I've ever seen. It succeeds by exploiting one of the most common fears that I'm sure most people have, and this can be quite distressing for anyone who actually does have a fear of spiders. Yet despite its frightening, creepy-crawly delights, only occasionally does this movie actually take itself seriously. Why? Because it's a horror-comedy, and an occasionally very funny one at that.

The film begins with an American expedition in a previously unexplored part of the Venezuelan jungle, where a new species of spider has just been discovered. It's a big, mean killing machine, and it kills one of the members on the team and hitches a ride back to the States in his coffin, to a picturesque Southern Calfornia community. After mating with a domestic spider, a deadly, unholy brood hatches from a large pulsating egg sac and begins terrorizing the town. An elderly widow keels over in her living room. The star quarterback drops dead on the field during football practice.

Dr. Ross Jennings (a believable and well-cast Jeff Daniels), his wife Molly (Harley Jane Kozak), and their kids move into the same house where the deadly Venezuelan spider and its domestic mate have also taken up residence in the barn. Ross's dream of a booming practice goes up in flames when the doctor he's supposed to replace decides not to retire. His other dream of a wine cellar is also destroyed due to the dry-rotting carpentry. And then those pesky spiders later move into the basement, which is just more bad news for Ross, who has a paralyzing fear of arachnids.

Jennings theorizes that the deaths are the work of a deadly new species of spider and of course he's right. But it's not going to be easy to convince the chief of police and the other townspeople of what's at stake. That's when a world-renowned expert on arachnids, Dr. Atherton (Julian Sands), is called into investigate. Atherton is also the same scientist who first encountered the lethal eight-legged creepy-crawler in Venezuela.

"Arachnophobia," for all its creepy-crawly delights, is still a very frightening movie experience. It's also very funny. Much of the humor is provided by John Goodman as the good-hearted local exterminator Delbert McClintlock, who's forced to bring out the big guns because the eco-friendly chemicals he's been using for years are no longer effective against this bigger and badder new breed of mutant, eight-legged freaks. Produced by Steven Spielberg, "Arachnophobia" director Frank Marshall put forth enormous craft in balancing the horror and humor elements of the story and not really jeopardizing any of his credibility. His ingenious use of live (non-lethal) spiders and animatronic ones is all of skillful and brilliant.

After watching this movie, whether you're scared of spiders or not, you'll be checking your bedsheets for weeks afterward.

8/10