Plot: What’s it about?
Marci (Lana Parrilla) is a young reporter and along with a team of coworkers, is assigned to cover the landing of the space shuttle. But their trek through the desert includes more than that simple work, as the team plans to look into the existence of aliens. This might seem a little strange, but the reporters are convinced that an alien ship has crash landed nearby, so they want to investigate while they have access to the area. But when the shuttle landing goes off course, the group decides to sneak inside a base and look around, in an effort to uncover some information. The kids wander into the midst of an unusual experiment however, which involves some home elements and a dose of alien DNA. It seems someone has taken some mean old spider and juiced it with the alien DNA, which has caused some unique traits to surface. The spider has grown to massive proportions and each time it kills, it gets larger and larger. Can anyone end the madness of a giant spider on the loose?
As frequent readers know, I like these cheese laden animal attack movies, so I was ready for Spiders when it arrived. I’ve seen komodos, anacondas, pythons, frogs, and all sorts of other creatures, so I figured spiders could be a lot of fun also. As usual for these movies, Spiders offers little in terms of storyline, acting, or originality, but there’s some cool effects at times. So this isn’t a good movie by any means, but it is fun most of the time, especially when the humans start to be hunted. I was also pleased to see some humorous knocks on other horror/science-fiction flicks and television shows, which add some appeal as well. This is not a realistic or serious movie in any sense of those words, so just expect a mindless fun animal flick, with some decent special effects. I don’t think this one offers enough to warrant a purchase, but fans of movies like this should be well served by a rental.
The director of Spiders is Gary Jones, who seems to like working within the animal attacks genre. As is usually the case with these movies, the direction is nothing to shout about, but the basics seem enforced and that proves to be enough. I am not sure how well Jones would stand up outside of these cheese laden flicks, but he holds his own without the genre, which means he could have found his niche. Jones also helmed Mosquito and the sequel to Tobe Hooper’s animal attack piece Crocodile, Crocodile II: Death Roll. The cast here is a bunch of unknowns for the most part, but given the circumstances, I think they work well enough. Some of those involved include Lana Parrilla (Very Mean Men), Oliver Macready, Nick Swarts, Josh Green (Curse of the Puppet Master, Sweet Kill), and Mark Phelan (Stand and Deliver, The Blackout Effect).
Video: How does it look?
Spiders is presented in a 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. This is a razor sharp image here, with superb form on all counts, very slick and impressive. I saw minimal grain and source wear issues, which allows for the visuals to shine through and that’s just what happens. The colors seem bold and bright, but never too much so and flesh tones are natural at all times as well. I saw no problems in terms of contrast either, detail is strong and the black levels look well balanced also. This might have been a low budget picture, but it looks glossy and excellent in this release.
Audio: How does it sound?
This release sports a Dolby Digital 5.1 track, which opens up the audio presence a lot, even in the more conservative scenes. A few sequences do have some dynamic use of the surrounds, but even the less tense ones sound great, very immersive throughout here. The music comes through well also, with a full texture and ends up being very effective. No issues with vocals either, as screams, whispers, and all the tones in between come across in fine form. This disc also includes subtitles in English, Spanish, and French.
Supplements: What are the extras?
This disc includes a twenty-three minute behind the scenes featurette, which includes interviews, special effects shots, and some production footage, all of which helps give a look behind the curtains. I was expecting a brief piece here, but this was a very nice and informative featurette, kudos to Trimark for packing it on this disc. You can view a trailer for this film, as well as a couple other animal attack flicks from Trimark.
