SPIDERS

From the Internet Movie Database:

After a Soviet space station crashes into a New York City subway
tunnel, a species of venomous spiders is discovered, and soon they
mutate to gigantic proportions and wreak havoc on the city.

Spiders [Nu Image; 2013] was also known as Spiders 3D.  According
to my Blu-ray box, it features both “Blu-ray 3D and Blu-ray on one
disc.”  The box’s art is one of the precious few good things about
this surely destined for the SyFy Channel movie...and that’s coming
from a guy who loves giant monster movies.

SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD

Spiders is almost completely lacking in suspense as it proceeds in
its utterly predictable telling.  We see a dead Soviet spacecraft
filled with spiders and dead Soviets.  We see a meteor.  What are
the odds of the meteor hitting the spacecraft and causing part of
the craft - a small part with incredibly hardy spiders - to crash
into the New York City subway system? 

Subway gets shut down.  Spiders start building a nest undetected.
Military asshat and former Soviet scientist conspire to make folks
think the area is quarantined due to a virus.  Because they see the
spiders as weapons of war.  What could possibly go wrong?

Patrick Muldoon, who also starred in Ice Spiders, plays a divorced
transit official obsessed with making the trains run on time.  His
ex-wife is a health department official.  They have a daughter and
she has a babysitter.  Which one of these characters is expendable?

When a transit worker is killed after being bitten by spiders and
implanted with spider-eggs, it is thought that he was electrocuted
on the third rail of a subway line.  An autopsy recovers the eggs,
including the “Queen Spider” egg.  Military asshat man wants that
egg and sends black ops hitmen to get it.  Though they get the egg,
the former Mrs. Muldoon escapes with her life. The ex-wife is
played by Christa Campbell, whose credits include Hyenas, Kraken:
Tentacles of the Deep and Mansquito. 

The former Soviet scientist pauses to admire the fully-grown Queen
Spider at one point.  Is she flattered enough not to impale him on
one of her arms?  You tell me.

Is there any good in Spiders?  Actually, a couple things.

The spiders themselves are decent enough.  We get some okay action
sequences when they leave the nest to explore the territory they will
be conquering for their queen.

The daughter of the stars escapes from quarantine with her doomed
babysitter. She features in the only truly suspenseful moments in
this movie when she tries to hide from the spiders and the queen in
first a toy store and then underneath the city streets. 

The Queen Spider is pretty awesome in her size and strength.  But,
unfortunately, she suffers from something common to giant monster
movies.  Her size changes depending on what the script needs her to
do.  Once she makes her above-ground appearance at about the size
of a two-story building, she shouldn’t be able to fit back into the
subway tunnels.

Back to the bad...

Colonel Asshat has a particularly creepy black ops assassin on the
job.  The guy is scarier than most of the spiders.  Given the task
of destroying any trail leading to the military, he’s efficient and
ruthless...and then disappears from the movie as if he were never
there.  I admit it, I wanted to see him die in a horrible manner.
That’s how I roll.

Queen Spider is chasing the hero and his family through the subway
tunnels.  This is her big death scene.  I figured the transit guy
would use the third rail to fry her.  He doesn’t.  How he does kill
her depends on the subway system being used to store a buttload of
explosive gas.  Because what danger could that possibly pose to the
millions of people who ride the subways daily?

Transit guy, ex-wife and daughter reunite.  Maybe there’s hope for
their family.  Military units are cleaning up the damage from the
spiders, presumably either killing or capturing surviving critters.
We can all rest easier knowing the menace is over.  Care to guess
what the last shot of the movie is?

Spiders will almost certainly air on the SyFy Channel before long.
Even if its 89-minute running time gets cut for extra commercials,
I don’t recommend buying or renting it.  Even if you’re as obsessed
with cheesy monster movies as I am, you can wait and watch it for
free.  I sure wish I had.

Spiders was the last of three monster movies I watched while under
the weather this past weekend.  I’m still feeling off my game, but
I think the bloggy thing will move on to other stuff on the morrow.
See you then.   

© 2013 Tony Isabella