Eight Legged Freaks
From AwardAnnals
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| Director(s) | Ellory Elkayem |
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| Distributor | Warner Home Video |
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| In the grand tradition of atomic-age monster movies, Eight Legged Freaks delivers everything you’d want from a giant-spider thriller. The plot’s hardly original, but familiarity is half the fun, beginning when toxic waste results in a stampede of gigantic, ravenous arachnids in the depressed mining town of Liberty, Arizona. David Arquette is Liberty’s prodigal son, returning to save the town from greedy developers, and to reunite with the lovely local sheriff (Kari Wuhrer), whom he never stopped loving. Before long they’re saving the town from a teeming… | |
Honors
Reviews
Amazon.com
In the grand tradition of atomic-age monster movies, Eight Legged Freaks delivers everything you’d want from a giant-spider thriller. The plot’s hardly original, but familiarity is half the fun, beginning when toxic waste results in a stampede of gigantic, ravenous arachnids in the depressed mining town of Liberty, Arizona. David Arquette is Liberty’s prodigal son, returning to save the town from greedy developers, and to reunite with the lovely local sheriff (Kari Wuhrer), whom he never stopped loving. Before long they’re saving the town from a teeming horde of jumbo-size “jumpers,” “orb-weavers,” tarantulas, and other eight-legged beasties, brought to life by digital effects that are consistently fantastic. Though not quite as witty as the similarly exciting Tremors, this “arach-attack” offers a deft balance of creepy shocks, sight gags, and tongue-in-cheek satire. Cleverly expanding his New Zealand short “Larger Than Life,” first-time director Ellory Elkayem gives genre fans and arachnophobes a giddy nightmare they won’t soon forget. —Jeff Shannon
Barnes and Noble
A campy throwback to the “giant bug” movies of the ‘50s, Eight Legged Freaks employs top-flight special effects and tongue-in-cheek humor to bring this sci-fi subgenre up to date. And while director (and co-writer) Ellory Elkayem employs the self-referential dialogue and corny sight gags modern moviegoers have come to expect, he doesn’t permit the buffoonery to take center stage. Eight Legged Freaks actually provides more scares and thrills than the drive-in-era “classics” it satirizes. The story unfolds in the sleepy desert town of Prosperity, Arizona, which is menaced by giant arachnids that have mutated through exposure to toxic waste. The local sheriff (Kari Wuhrer) and her teenage daughter (Scarlett Johansson) work to prevent a complete takeover by the bloodthirsty spiders, getting valuable help from Prosperity’s prodigal son (David Arquette), who’s just returned to his embattled hometown. Producer Dean Devlin, whose previous blockbusters include Independence Day, brings to this film considerable technical expertise, love for old-fashioned sci-fi flicks, and affection for the genre. The script follows a tried-and-true path but occasionally takes unexpected, hilarious detours. Elkayem walks the tightrope between humor and horror with perfect balance, and his actors go through their paces without condescending to the material, trusting the neophyte director to inject laughs where they’ll be most effective. He succeeds admirably, making this medium-budget monster movie a rollicking romp you’ll enjoy over and over again. The DVD edition sports a feature-length commentary by Elkayem, Devlin, Arquette, and supporting player Rick Overton; it also includes eight spider scenes deleted from the final cut, Elkayem’s award-winning short film “Larger Than Life,” and a featurette titled “Creepy Crawly Giants.” Ed Hulse
