Review of Arachnophobia (1990) by Alexander D — 07 Oct 2011

Offbeat horror/comedy is neither "ha-ha" nor "shiver-shiver". It is simply a clever, delightful parody of how Hollywood scared its audiences--using spiders to make clear the true stupidity of those classic scenes.

If you don't quite understand what I am saying, allow me to give you an example: The famous shower scene from the 1960 horror/thriller PSYCHO is parodied somewhere in the latter half of the film. Instead of having an adult woman be stabbed to death, though, the scene shows a spider crawling down the body of a teenage girl, who freaks out in a ridiculous manner.

That's the kind of humor you'll find in almost every other scene: farcical, overblown, satirical, yet subtle takes on FRANKENSTEIN and the like. What is best about ARACHNOPHOBIA (the film, of course, not the phenomenon) is that it's simply impossible to find a film that slightly resembles it.

It's odd when we hear this one's a comedy, we're not laughing...but we're still somehow glued to the TV.