ARACHNOPHOBIA (1990)

What has Eight Legs, Two Fangs, and an Attitude?

It's your typical spider of course....only the villains of this creature feature offer much more than that: they swarm, they have high vertical leaps, AND they can kill you with just ONE bite! :o And they happen to reaching the same small-town destination of Canaima at the same time as one mild-mannered family moving from San Francisco out the country for the first time, the Jennings.  They are lead by Dr. Ross played by Jeff Daniels (Speed, Dumb & Dumber, The Newsroom) and his wife Molly played by Harley Jane Kozak (Parenthood, When Harry Met Sally, The Righteous Gemstones)....and wouldn't you know it but Ross himself has an irrational fear of spiders, otherwise known as ARACHNOPHOBIA!  Directed by Frank Marshall (Alive, Congo, Eight Below) and featuring a stellar cast including John Goodman and Julian Sands, this horror comedy (?) was released thirty-five years ago by a studio which didn't know how to promote it - it still did solid business at the time and is now fondly remembered as one of the better family-friendly scare flicks of the '90's!

Host & Editor: Geoff Gershon

Editor: Ella Gershon

Producer: Marlene Gershon

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Transcript

ARACHNOPHOBIA – 1990

Directed by Frank Marshall

Starring Jeff Daniels, Harley Jane Kozak, Julian Sands, Brian McNamara, Stuart Pankin, Henry Jones, Peter Jason, Mark L. Taylor, James Handy, Roy Brocksmith, Kathy Kinney, Mary Carver, and John Goodman

Genre:  Comedic Horror (Audio clip)

Could this be one of the more underrated horror-hybrids of the '90's? I think so and beyond that, Jeff Daniels should have become a bigger star after this as he is pitch-perfect as Dr. Ross Jennings, the friendly new doctor in town who has moved from San Fran with his family (including Harley Jane Kozak as his wife Molly, armed with several of the movie's best lines and a withering glance which could have put Clair Huxtable to shame) and set up an office to find that the douchey town doctor Dr. Metcalf (Henry Jones who's also quite entertaining as the prickly type that James Rebhorn was killing at around this time....guess he turned them down) he was coming to replace has suddenly decided NOT to retire. And of course, Dr. Ross has a long-running irrational fear of spiders which Daniels sells SO well with humor and pathos that you even almost kinda-sorta buy his ridiculous trauma story of being explored by a spider when he was a two-year-old in his crib. 🤭

Wouldn't you know it, spiders DO start invading the town....but not just ANY spiders, nope a more fatal strain coming from South America. :o They're not only more lethal as just one bite will kill you but they're more spry....these bugs have a vertical leap which will unnerve you if you're not asking them to play some pick-up on the court! They're spreading and they're spreading FAST and first-time director Frank Marshall is smart enough to know exactly how and when to utilize, backed by some truly IMPRESSIVE work from a “spider wrangler” whom I’ll get to in just a bit… 

The spiders just make incredibly fierce villains here even when they're generally so small that all it takes is to simply step on them....as so adeptly demonstrated by John Goldman's comic-relief Delbert McClintock who is the town's exterminator. :) They can get anywhere and DO....inside your slippers, your wine cellar, a bucket of popcorn, a football helmet, or even inside of a barn FILLED with massive spiderweb which results in one major character acting inexplicably SURPRISED when one comes leaping out at him. 😜

The story gets increasingly tense and scary but never particularly gross...some close-ups of the queen/General's eyes during the film's balls-out climax are somewhat off-putting as are shots of the developing egg-sack but it never gets to be too much. Just the mere images of these creepy-crawly's maneuvering through your house does the job!

Best Needledrop (best song cue or score used throughout runtime of film): 

To help serve the scares and the tension, you NEED an effective score and that’s where veteran composer Trevor Jones comes in.  Straight out of Cape Town, South Africa, Jones had a pretty solid run through the ‘80’s with some of his most memorable orchestral scores for Angel Heart, Dark City, previous episode Cliffhanger, and two ESPECIALLY banger scores for previous episodes Runaway Train and The Last of the Mohicans….when he’s on fire, HE’S on fire! (Audio clip) 

Now his varied score isn’t QUITE on the level of those two but it’s still pretty damn good providing a good mixture of scary, playful, and even towards the beginning as we venture to the South American rainforest HOME of these spiders….some WONDER.  We hear this especially during the extended opening title sequence as the camera pans across the jungles of Venezuela….GREAT use of pan-flutes to accentuate the main theme, this is the ”Main Title” theme. (Audio clip)  

And I would be remiss if I did NOT mention a pretty bizarre needle-drop which kicks off the closing credits as we see a bottle of wine spill on the counter of a high-rise San Francscisco apartment – it’s part of a VERY short-lived trend which I can only recall from a few movies of this era….closing pop songs which DESCRIBE the creatures featured within the movie.  I mean come on…it’s clear why this sort of thing wasn’t common because HOW can you take such a movie seriously ending on this kind of note?  I mean can you IMAGINE if Jaws ended with a song describing how vicious the title villain was??  Well maybe not but for me the pinnacle of this short-lived trend was previous episode Deep Blue Sea….where we get to hear co-star LL wax about “the Gottis of the Deep.” (Audio clip) 

Now the track used here isn’t QUITE as goofy but it still comes from some one unexpected who I have had a MIXED personal history with – which I won’t get into – and that would be the late, great party anthem troubadour born in Pascagoula, Mississippi….JIMMY BUFFET.  It was YEARS before I realized that HE performed this song and the lyrics are pretty wild, ALL told from the perspective of an innocent spider.  The song is….”Don’t Bug Me” You’re welcome! (Audio clip) 

Wasted Talent (most under-utilized talent involved with film): 

Before its release in July of 1990, this film had some hype behind it - given its pedigree with Marshall as director and with Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy as producers….and with the whole primal scariness of spiders, some were even nicknaming it, “Jaws on Land.”  Unfortunately its own studio (Disney) was irrationally afraid of promoting the scary element and took to nicknaming it a “Thrill-omedy” as the main tagline….yeah THRILLOMEDY….sigh….

And here’s the thing, there WAS a precedent for this kind of mid-range semi-horror film with comedic elements released about six years prior…..you know, funny, creepy and kind of absurd….hmmm….sounds a lot like Gremlins! :) It's got so many of those Spielberg/Amblin touchpoints throughout: a kick-off modern Western scientists flying too close to the Sun by going somewhere they shouldn't go....and bringing something back (!), a reluctant hero who's DEATHLY afraid of even the most minor versions of this looming threat, practical creature effects which are way too convincing at points, side characters with knowledge who serve as clever exposition machines, making the mundane seem scary, and of course.....an acid take on the ruthlessness of small town life. 

ALL of those elements in place yet the studio was just afraid to sell it that way….no mentions of Spielberg OR Gremlins in the marketing no less!  So it had a modest of opening weekend of $8 million….and with solid WOM, it legged it out to $53 million domestic….on a $31 mill budget, ehh….and here’s the thing.  Whatever traction it could have built up was KIND of stolen by a LITTLE film which opened the weekend before and was actually INCREASING its box office week-to-week….that film was called GHOST.  Ghost ended up being the biggest film of the summer no less….oh well.

Trailer Moment (scene or moment that best describes this movie):

This is a tough one because there are virtually no bad scenes.  But with a movie like this, you always need that ONE character who can set the stakes a key moment…..explain things to the other characters on screen AND the audience of course….say a Hooper OR Quint from Jaws or a Professor Grant OR Ian Malcolm with their monologues early in Jurassic Park.  And for this film, THAT’S where Dr. Atherton comes in.  And he’s played by the the late great Julian Sands who also steals every one of his scenes.

Often disturbingly calm, he's adept at laying out all of the facts about spiders in a manner which will unnerve you even he THINKS he's providing reassurance. 🫣Athis This occurs at two key points in the movie one via a throwaway phone call to Dr. Jennings about thirty minutes in and the even MORE important one late in the movie….when all of the key players have gathered up. (Audio clip)

And of course, this is followed up just a COUPLE of scenes later with of those great “Shit just got real!” moments when Jennings himself has a fateful encounter with the lead spider. Just a fun, engaging character which the film makes PERFECT usage of to move the plot forward.(Audio clip) 

MVP (person or people most responsible for the success of this film):

Even though I’m not in any way minimizing the exemplary work from the director, the cast, every one involved…..I just HAVE to tip my hat to some one with a unique talent who TRULY makes this film work and that would be American entomologist BORN in New York City no less….Steven Kutcher.  This guy has handled the performances of insects on some BIG movies including 2002’s Spider-Man and Jurassic Park….and THIS movie was not only his breakout but genuinely next-level stuff involving hundreds of REAL spiders mixed in with some spider puppets.  I mean it’s just SO convincing especially in some of those latter sequences when we see the spiders literally SWARMING around the house of our protagonist. (Audio clip) 

And I’m not going to get into to it TOO much but this guy truly went above and beyond to not only get these spiders to ACT….but pain-staking efforts were taken to avoid ANY being harmed in the making of the film.  Just crazy stuff just to get them moving in the right directions involving heat and tungston wires WOW.  For delivering the scares for this film and earning his moniker as the “The Bug Man of Hollywood” Steven R Kutcher is the MVP. (Audio clip) 

Final Rating: 4.4 stars out of 5 

Bottom line everyone comes to play and the result is a highly entertaining creature thriller which I think deserves to be in be in the conversation with The Big Boys like Jurassic Park or Gremlins!  Happy 35th to one of the more underrated horror films….sort of, there ARE laughs you know….of the 1990’s!

Streaming on Prime Video

And that ends another CREEPY CRAWLY review!