Film
HORROR EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS (12) 99min .0.
Although it never quite lives up to its brilliant, tongue-in-cheek trailer (‘Do you hate spiders?
Well, they don’t like you either!’), this throwback to
the tacky radiation/mutation sci-fi movies of the
19505 does evoke fond memories of bargain base- ment B-pictures such as Them! and Tarantula. The
modern twist is that an old fashioned giant-spi- ders plot has been souped-up with state-of-the-
art computer-generated effects. Or to use Godzilla
producer Dean Devlin’s analogy, he and New
Zealand writer-director Ellory Elkayem wanted to ‘drop a Porsche engine into a Volkswagen’. This is
all very well, but the myriad CGI effects end up over-revving the film’s plot engine and shaking apart its ancient, rusting chassis. There’s harm- less, hairy-legged fun to be had here, but com-
pared to the similar but infinitely superior Tremors,
this customised Beetle soon runs out of gas. You now you’re in trouble when a barrel of radioactive waste drops into a river near the ex- mining town of Superior, Arizona, close to the well-stocked exotic spider farm run by a weirdo
loner whose Sixth Sense-loving parrot constantly
squawks, ‘I see dead people’. Fortunately, the
obligatory speccy, smart kid Mike (Scott Terra) is on hand to alert the complacent adult authorities to the dangers posed by the fast-mutating arach-
nids. Not only that, but Mike’s knowledge of the
spiders’ individual modes of attack and breeding habits prove invaluable when combating the eight-
legged enemies. Creepy Scream star David Arquette is badly
miscast as the recently returned Chris, son of the
late owner of the recently closed local mine, but Kari Wuhrer makes an impression as sexy local
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OF LOST DREAMS
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12 THE LIST -'
Evokes fond memories of bargain basement B-pictures
sheriff and single mother Sam, who just happens to be Chris’s old flame. Meanwhile, Harlan Griffith
(Doug E Doug from the Jamaican bobsleigh come- dy Cool Runnings) annoys the piss out of towns-
folk and audience alike as the crazy, alien- and
government conspiracy-obsessed radio DJ whose
cry wolf-style warnings go unheeded. True to tra-
dition, there’s a slow-burn build-up, a protracted
siege in the local mall (modern equivalent of the
505 town hall), some unpleasantly squidgy deaths
and a lot of selfless heroics. Expanded from a 13-minute black and white short called Larger than Life, director Elkayem’s
HEAVEN (15) 97min 0...
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movie is a likeable but ramshackle jalopy of a thing. Avoiding self-referential campiness in favour of affectionate homage, it’s happy doing the minimum necessary. Yet it still manages to extract some suspenseful fun out of a series of all-too-familiar scenarios. But as Arachnophobia also proved, films about spiders have one inherent problem: arachnophobes will avoid them with the same alacrity as they do the eight-legged invaders who lurk in their bath tub, while those who aren’t scared of real spiders won’t be frightened by their
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