Arachnid [2001]

An spaceship crash-lands in the South Pacific, unleashing a strain of parasitic mutant spider which promptly slaughters the alien pilot and a downed American flier. Some months later, toxicology boffin José Sancho leads an expedition to an island where natives have died from unusual spider-bites, taking along mercenary wise-cracker Potter, ex-military pilot Alex Reid [who is searching for her brother, the dead flier from the prologue], some hard-bitten former Marines, a bosomy bacteriologist [Neus Asensi] and the nerdy author of Arachnid Fun Facts [Ravil Isyanov].

In 1950s style, the film consists of an hour of arguing in the jungle, with a Marine succumbing to a horrible tropical complaint as 'ticks' get under his skin and spawn Cronenbergian bugs which scuttle through his system and emerge in a vomitous birth scene, followed by half an hour of monster action as the survivors take on an old-fashioned giant spider [with some pretence to science, we are told it has an internal and an external skeleton to support its weight], forgetting the extra-terrestrial business.

The lower-case cast are okay with the cliché characterisations, though there is a bit too much military bonding and the sub-Hawksian bicker between the leads gets tiresome, and the effects are suitably horrid, though the film needs to get out of the jungle and into a cave in order to trap victims with the somewhat immobile but appendage-equipped monster so they can be skewered, web-squirted or devoured. Directed by Jack Sholder.
KIM NEWMAN

First published in this form here.

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