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.