Spiders



Director: Tibor Takács



Starring: Christa Campbell, William Hope, Patrick Muldoon



Release Date: February 8 (Limited Theatrical Release & Premium VOD)



A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Rating: 3.5/10

Plot Summary:

After a Soviet space station crashes into a New York City subway tunnel, a species of poisonous spiders is discovered, and soon they mutate to gigantic proportions and wreak havoc on the city.

Continue on after the jump to read the review.

Now what horror fan wouldn’t love the idea of giant mutant spiders from space invading and disrupting our everyday lives. It is actually a pretty smart idea, and with a slightly higher budget and some decent actors could of potentially been a really fun ride. While it has it’s moments and isn’t completely horrible, I just couldn’t get into this film. I don’t feel a movie should be affected by it’s budget, but when the entire focus of a film surrounds giant spiders one can’t help but feel slightly disappointed with the overall product when you can’t even convince your mind to pretend that these spiders are real. This still could be swept under the rug in favor of the true B-movie experience which this film certainly seemed to be going for, but for some reason the actors in the film just don’t grab your attention for the most part. Often in B-films, the actors will give over the top performances of a nature that is intentionally goofy and can be appreciated, but the majority of the cast in ‘Spiders’ feel as if they are trying to put their all into their performances, but sadly could not pull off the task and what is left is a more humorous feel to the performances which I don’t think was intentional and therefore harms the experience of the film to some extent.

The action sequences can be fun at times but seem to revert to laughable at moments due to over the top moments. I honestly couldn’t determine whether these sequences were intended to be humorous or if they simply came off that way unintentionally. I would like to believe that it was intended and this was simply intended to be nothing more than a goofy B-movie, but the apparent intended seriousness of these situations often makes it hard to determine whether or not the final effect was intended to come across that way or regretfully just couldn’t hold up during filming to the intended effect. The story is interesting and more inventive than the majority of films we see hitting our local theaters each week. When you look at the film from the perspective of a B-movie that doesn’t take itself seriously in any form whatsoever it can be fun, yet it’s hard to truly engulf yourself in that mindset as your mind continues to throw questions at you throughout such as ‘was that meant to be hilarious’ and leaves you with an overall uncertainty of intention burdening you in the back of your mind. The one element of the story I found mildly annoying was the fact that they seemed to take two typical stereotypes and run with them as being heavily involved plot elements. Those two overused stereotypical elements would be: The government doesn’t care about the people it protects and has no problem seeing all of New York City destroyed by giant spiders as long as they get what they want, and secondly, who is to blame for creating this strain in the first place? You guessed it, it was the Russians. Apparently I’m the only person out there who would like to see some originality in where these things originate and who is controlling and allowing them to occur. Otherwise the storyline is quite inventive and with a large budget and a popcorn intent, this film probably could of been a pretty crazy ride.

My recommendation is to go into this film with the mindset that it’s not meant to be taken seriously in any way and is simply a goofy B-movie spoof about giant space spiders. If you can accomplish keeping your thoughts tuned to this mindset you just might enjoy this film. If you are looking for a scary or effective and well done Sci-Fi/Horror film you will unfortunately most likely find yourself quite disappointed overall.

‘Spiders’ will be released via Millennium Entertainment in a limited theatrical run and Premium VOD on February 8. A DVD & VOD release will follow on March 12, 2013.

Rating: 3.5/10