Christmas morning, 1987, I was thrilled to get an ant farm. Thinking of the ants’ vast underground tunnels, their Prussian-like efficiency, and a perfectly socialist society thrilled me. I ran, got dirt, and waited for “Das Kapital” to unfold before my eyes. Unfortunately the ants were lethargic – something about being next to the heater. After the first week, they had only dug one freaking tunnel. I was board and disappointed.
Then I decided to make things interesting. I began bringing invaders to the farm. A fire ant, a cricket, a grub and various other insectia were sacrificed to the ant farm hoard. Nothing could withstand the might of the ant army. Then I decided to put in a few spiders. With all the sadistic glee a third grade boy could muster, I watched as the spiders begin their inexorable march down the tunnel. Within a few days, the spiders had won.
Fortunately, I have since morally evolved as an individual (Thursday nights aside), and no longer enjoy seeing spiders ripping things apart for three straight days. Unfortunately, the producers of “Eight Legged Freaks” have not. They cranked up the Hollywood machine, and this movie is the excrement that fell out. It is a summer flick in the deepest, most horrible manifestation of the word.
“Eight Legged Freaks” looks at a small mining town in the American southwest. When a rickety old truck accidentally drops a forty-gallon barrel of toxic waste in the lake, spiders from a ramshackle “exotic spider museum” begin to mutate. Within a few days, they balloon to the size of trucks. Then they begin to prey on local townsfolk and a few hapless dirt bikers. The rest of the movie is a battle between redneck yokels (led by David Arquette, “Scream”) and mutated spiders. The townsfolk retreat to a mall, since it is apparently the only building in the entire town made of concrete and steel. By the end of the gore-fest, one is simply left wishing that the movie had ended an hour ago.
To say this plot is formulaic is an understatement, yet it does not play with the formula in the same clever way as “Tremors” or “Scream.” Instead, its producers seem happy to rely on special effects and gore to carry the plot. The movie consistently fails to cash in on potentially funny ways that characters (both two- and eight-legged) could die. Instead they are simply extinguished in a split second.
After seeing five people gobbled up by giant spiders, there is simply nothing to keep the viewers’ attention. Does the smart kid and his sexy cop mother escape? Does said mother end up falling in love with the handsome and rich drifter? Do the spiders get killed in one decisive blow? Does the bad mayor get his comeuppance? Do the townsfolk get rich when they discover a vein of gold in the mine? To get the answers to these pressing questions you should see “Eight Legged Freaks.” As for me, I’ll just stay home and watch ants dig one freaking tunnel.
Grade: D
