ARACHNOPHOBIA
Arachnophobia starts the way I wish all movies began: in the jungle. My favourite genre of film would have be ‘adventurers entering the jungle in a movie made in the 90s’. Start with a couple of establishing shots of the real jungle, and then the rest of the movie is filmed on what are clearly soundstages packed full of houseplants. Arachnophobia is directed by Spielberg understudy Frank Marshall, who also directed one of my other favourite fake jungle movies of the 90s: Congo. Congo, in fact, might be the greatest fake jungle movie in existence.
Sadly, after a great opening sequence following a bunch of adventurers tracking down prehistoric spiders in the jungle, Arachnophobia moves the action to a small town in America. Which is fine, I suppose, but boy how much I would have loved to spend more time in that fake ass jungle.
Like a lot of movies made by Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment and directed by close associates of his, it is very Spielberg-lite. But that’s good! That’s a good thing. Arachnohobia is good! I mean, if you hate seeing spiders then it absolutely sucks. But if not this is good! This is a good movie! This is a good movie that I cannot ever imagine wanting to watch again. Jeff Daniels is great in it, John Goodman has a lot of fun, it is a very enjoyable watch except for the one key thing that: it sucks seeing spiders on screen.
Arachnophobia has such a low ceiling on how successful it can be. It’s the big problem with movies about spiders. Unlike Anaconda (which is also a top three finisher in my favourite fake jungle movies), where the idea of a movie featuring a giant snake doesn’t really prevent you from watching it. I think you could not like snakes and still watch a snake movie. But not liking spiders? And having to watch spiders on screen? I think it’s impossible.
But it is good! It’s proper good! It really is a damn shame there are so many spiders in this movie about spiders. I’m not afraid of spiders but seeing them running around up there on the screen just makes my skin crawl. Apparently pro-spider groups protested this movie saying that it tarnished the public’s views of spiders. Come on now, spiders do that plenty fine on their own.
Where would I fit into Arachnophobia? We had a ton of spiders at our place growing up. All sorts. Big ones. The gross angular ones that look like they were created by Dreamworks animation in 2004. Red backs. “Kids! Make sure you check your gumboots just in case one of the top ten deadliest spiders in the world is in there!” While I do not like siders, I’m not really afraid of them. Which made me the worst kid in class at school, always willing to step up to get rid of a huntsman in the room. Hand me a ruler and I’ll sort this out. I suspect a trait like that might cause me to run into some trouble in this movie.
IF I WERE IN 'ARACHNOPHOBIA' I WOULD: DIE BUT THE ENTIRE TIME I WAS DYING INSIST THAT I WASN'T, LIKE, AFRAID OF THE SPIDER, YOU KNOW, I JUST, LIKE, GOT STARTLED, ALRIGHT, NOT SCARED, IT'S DIFFERENT!
