Joshua Cimarric-Penczek The giant monster genre is among the most hackneyed and clichéd of them all, and most of them can be copied and pasted together. In fact, look at giant bug movies. Spiders, Eight Legged Freaks, Mimic, Them, The Deadly Mantis, and Mosquito are all basically the same movie. The same cant be said for Arachnid, which has possibly the most generic of all of those movie titles I just listed. The movie is part King Kong, part Predator, part Mulholland Drive, part Funny Games, and part giant bug flick. It could've just been a monster on the loose movie, but instead the writer and directer aimed for something a bit different. Complete with surreal dream sequences, unknown character motives, aliens, demons, dinosaurs, protagonist arcs that come 360 and then go 180, and several other things to make it as different as possible, Arachnid is truly a bizarre experience; imagine Mosquito or Spiders directed by a French art-house director.The movie involves a group of people in search for a police ranger's lost brother, who went missing in a dogfight with an alien spacecraft. While arriving on the island, they come across strange cannabalistic natives who may or may not hate the invading white folk. Along the way they come across flesh-eating insects, self discoveries, premonitions, and giant spiders. In all serious, the film shouldn't be called "Arachnid" but more "The Island" because that's who the star of the film is. Sure, arachnids take the focus from most of the other things, but the film also has several other things that need focus. It'd be like calling Tremors "Guns" because, yes, there are guns in Tremors, but they aren't really the main focus. The island itself appears to be sentient and playing mind games with the characters, and it becomes apparent that the spiders may not even be real but a figment within the minds of the characters themselves. There's also a seen in the movie where the spiders literally eliminate 80% of the cast, and that's something only a very ballsy writer and director would follow through with.Arachnid is low budget and feels low budget. We always want to remake these big budgeted classic pieces of cinema, why not do something like this? Arachnid isn't well liked because most giant bug movies want only that; giant bugs. They don't want surrealism and they don't like to ask questions. They want their applesauce to be served to them with a spoon while a bib is dangling from their neck. If it comes to this or Spiders (a movie this is often compared to), just buy 10 copies of this.

Chase_Witherspoon Expedition to a remote island find themselves stranded after a plane crash, and at the mercy of an army of voracious, giant spiders. Pilot (Alex Reid) has taken the job to search for her missing brother, whose naval jet was last reported in the vicinity of the island, while mercenary (Chris Potter) and his crew (Bear and Lightfoot) tries to remain professional in spite of the chaos.Quirky spider specialist (Isyanov) causes endless grief, as he disappears at every given opportunity, searching for specimens with which to experiment; his final experiment finds him cocooned in a tightly woven spider-web. Thereafter the film is a roller-coaster, and it's mostly downhill, very quickly. Survivors take refuge in a dilapidated WWII shelter while the giant spiders terrorise them like demons on stilts, something akin to "War of the Worlds". Naturally, Reid discovers the fate of her naval pilot brother, and while the couple reunite with the indestructible Bear (Allen), their survival remains tenuous.Horrid special effects and tense action sequences provides the glue that binds this formula picture together. Some light wit and a relaxed performance by Potter offer glimmers of hope, and the film is nothing if at least watchable, although the awkward English translation (most of the characters are obviously of Latin origin, so why pretend to be North Americans?) and absence of any 'name' actors (Potter is by no means a household name) might distance the average viewer.

Reaper-of-Souls This movie is so horrible that I now suffer from "Movie Arachnophobia" (fear of watching anymore movies about spiders). The beginning alone had me scratching my head wondering what was going through the writers/directors minds when they came up with the idea of how to start this film. It is downright pitiful and was almost enough for me to turn it off right then and there only a couple of minutes into it. ...and now in hindsight, I should have shut it off and not wasted the 90 minutes or so of my life viewing this absolutely awful film. I mean, there is worse out there, but this movie is still not even worth watching. If you must see this film, DO NOT spend the money to rent it...rather, wait for it to come on Sci-Fi sometime. One of the worst spider movies ever!!!

myersan Shame on those who spent a fortune including valet parking to see this "movie"(?) - There must have been a lot of barfing in the cinema during this exercise in disgust. I am convinced PT Barnum was right: "A sucker born every minute" Anyway go rent a DVD of "Its Alive" or "Psycho" if you need thrills. I can never understand the fascination people have with splatter. The old movies had terrific mind games that made you imagine the horrors going on, for example Val Lewton's "Cat People" of 1942 one of the finest horror movies ever made. "King Kong" (1933) still gives me chills and "Bride of Frankenstein" is another one - no blood nor guts just good acting and terrific special effects. "Arachnid" is a juvenile and silly picture - enough said.