Review of Arachnophobia (1990) by D M — 05 Oct 2018

On a bug searching venture deep in the dank, dark jungles of Venezuela, a photographer is bitten by a spider. and dies almost immediately. Upon returning the body for burial to a small town the good ol' US of A, the spider hitches a ride in the casket.

Soon after arriving in his new country the spider finds a suitable mate and creates an army of half-breeds which start killing the townsfolk. The new town doctor is not immediately believed when he diagnoses the deaths as a result of spider bites and there is much push-back as they see him as a big city guy with an Ivy League education who looks to complicate simple matters.

I imagine this could be somewhat frightening for those with an animosity towards spiders, but I saw zero scares despite this being widely touted as a "horror" film. As a comedy it often hit its mark, the acting was solid, and there were no obvious plot-holes (excepting that they showed a husband as frightened by spiders while his wife is fascinated by them - by my calculations a pairing such as this could occur no more than 4 percent of the time).