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Arachnophobia [1990] An old-fashioned monster movie, opening amid the misty splendours of a Lost World-style expedition and then coming home to a Spielbergian small town, Arachnophobia one-ups such small beer predecessors as Earth vs the Spider and Kingdom of the Spiders to come across as the definitive arachnidsploitation horror picture. Like Jaws and Gremlins, this takes the care to establish that there are already cracks in its idyllic small town setting, well before the monsters turn up to transform it into a cobwebby hell, usefully indicting complacency and provincialism as way-clearers for the larger threat of the spider invasion. Moving away from a crime-and-grime-ridden city, the Jennings family - perfectly played on a not-too-cute note by Jeff Daniels and Harley Jane Kozak with the kids not allowed to take over the movie - find a pretty-pretty community of pompous and small-minded dolts. Almost uniquely, the film reverses the traditional Welcome Stranger-Dr Kildare cliché by having the old-style folksy family doctor turn out to be a dangerous and incompetent fool, while Ross, who depends on the scientific method and declares that 'medicine isn't a popularity contest', is ultimately vindicated. Frank Marshall, previously a producer with Amblin Entertainment, makes a professional directorial debut, juggling the scares with the suspense and the humour very well. The spiders themselves are given a careful build-up to establish their monstrousness even for viewers who don't share the hero's fear of spiders, and then prove very formiddable menaces, descending silently on threads from lampstands or showerheads, and creepily crawling towards unwitting victims. As usual with genuinely scary scare movies, some care has been taken
with the characterisations of the victims, so the film can afford to
begin slowly before it fully gets the horror going, establishing some
quite interesting business with Ross's professional problems in Canaima.
In a large supporting cast, Julian Sands - whose sneering superciliousness
is always better served by unsympathetic roles - is effectively disposable
as the pony-tailed glamour scientist whose fault the crisis all is,
and John Goodman scores in a fine comic cameo as a strutting exterminator
who adds a light leavening of humour to the mainly serious business,
squelching one persistent troublemaker under his boot and then telling
an admiring dog 'you got it, I'm bad'. Essentially a 'fun' horror movie
rather than a special effects show, this is content to give brief glimpses
of the shrivelled and cobwebbed corpses and to get its shrieks through
sustained suspense. The finale, in which Ross is trapped in his wine-cellar
with the huge male spider, and has to use the instruments to hand -
a nailgun and a bottle of vintage wine especially - to overcome the
monster, is as well-staged and effective a man-against-monster battle
as any in the cinema, and the film has the wit not to end with a coda
showing a new spider creeping into frame to set up for a sequel, instead
taking the Jennings family back to the city just in time for an earthquake. First Published In: Sight & Sound [issue unknown] Visit Kim's Official Website at www.johnnyalucard.com
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