John Goodman | Through the Shattered Lens

When I was a kid, my grandmother used to keep this clear shower curtain of a large black web, complete with a big red spider on it. It scared me so bad that I was actually more willing to brave the darkness of the basement bathroom than to have to deal with that monstrosity in the well-lit one. Between that, my brother’s EC comics and the original “The Fly” with Vincent Price, it’s how I developed Arachnophobia. It’s a fight or flight reflex that occurs when anything spider related appears. It seems fitting that as I’m writing this from a location that’s full of Black Widows, Arachnophobia is the topic for this review.

Arachnophobia marked the first directing attempt by Frank Marshall, long time producer of many of Steven Spielberg’s films. The film turned out to be a success when released, and manages to feature one the greatest Human vs. Tarantula battles ever filmed.

Although the film has some horror elements, it’s kind of hard to classify Arachnophobia as an actual horror film, despite the deaths that are in the film. There are some humorous moments (particularly from John Goodman), and the scares don’t come too often. For anyone who’s bothered by spiders, though, there are a number of jumpy moments that occur without being excessively gory. The story is a little misleading. It starts in Venezuela, South America, where a deadly tarantula manages to sneak its way on board a trip back to California. You’d think that from here, the Tarantula would end up finding another Tarantula, and thus pull a Kingdom of the Spiders with a whole town full of spiders. The writers, however, end up making a mistake in having a Tarantula mate with a common house spider, thus breeding dozens of other smaller spiders.

That’s like a Tiger trying to mate with a house cat. I’m not exactly sure if that’s even possible, but I’m getting off track. This actually ends up helping the story because now the town has to deal with all of these smaller spiders that are easy to hide around. I always considered that to be pretty effective.

Jeff Daniels character, Dr. Ross Jennings suffers from Arachnophobia in the worst way. Moving to the town of Canaima with his family, he trades the big city for a more relaxed, rural setting. Of course, it’s a happy ideal situation until various deaths start happening around town. Eventually, he and the authorities come to realize just how bad things really are. John Goodman’s character was an interesting touch as a funny exterminator, but really wasn’t used as much as he could have in this film. Then again, when he does tend to steal the scenes he’s in. Arachnophobia has a number of other supporting actors, but the film mainly belongs to Daniels, Goodman and the the spiders.

Chris Walas, who won an Oscar for his effects and make up work in The Fly helped to create some of the more mechanical spiders and close-ups when necessary. While you can tell where you’re dealing with real tarantulas and their synthetic counterparts, he did a great job in getting the fear factor out there, especially during the final standoff of the film. Without giving much away, the last 20 minutes of the movie are brilliant in that the final battle is much more than the simple “find it and squash it” scenario from Kingdom of the Spiders. It’s almost a violent chess match.

Arachnophobia is a treat. It may not be the best film about spiders in general, but if you do suffer from the condition or know someone who does, it definitely worth seeing, just to jump and squirm now and then. It’s much better than knowing there are real Black Widows to contend with.

I will admit that I’m not the biggest fan of Kevin Smith as a filmmaker though I don’t dislike or even loathe the man the way some film bloggers seem to. He’s definitely much more talented than Uwe Boll despite what some people may say. I just think that Kevin Smith had ended up listening too much to his own press about how he was the indie darling of the 90’s. He lived too much in his past glories and stagnated as a creative artist.

His last few films were either bombs financially and/or critically. Smith just tried too much to replicate what he had done in the past when he should’ve been trying to expand his horizons and attempt new things. To say that his Cop Out was awful would be an understatement. One of the worst films of recent memory, but for some reason actors still want to work with the guy.

It’s a good thing that good actors still want to work with him because his upcoming film, a horror film at that and a straight out one, in 2011 looks to be Smith reinventing himself beyond his “Jay and Silent Bob” era.

Red State looks like it’s just plain horror and the teaser trailer doesn’t seem to show any black humor or any humor at all that seem to be part and parcel of any Kevin Smith production. The teaser has a fundamentalist eerie vibe to it and with Michael Parks in what looks to be a Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church infamy has definitely peaked my interest.

If Neil Gaiman, who has already seen the finished product (or close to being finished), was shaken by the experience but in a good way then my optimism for this film may not result in another Kevin Smith disappointmen. One can only hope.