Spiders (DVD)

Starring: Patrick Muldoon, Christa Campbell, William Hope, Shelly Varod, Brian Hankey
Director: Tibor Takacs
Running Time: 89 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: October 14th 2013

3D has largely been limited to the cinema. While 3D Blu-ray has attempted to bring it to the small screen, nearly all the releases have been for cinema movies when they come to the home. However Spiders comes direct to Blu-ray as a 3D release, which may mark a new horizon for straight-to-disc movies. However on DVD we only get it in two-dimensions, which robs the film of a lot of the fun it might have had – which would have been mild anyway.

After a Russian satellite is destroyed in orbit, a small piece of the debris comes through the atmosphere and smashes into a New York City subway tunnel (although New York looks suspiciously like Eastern Europe).  Inside are some small spiders – remnants of an abandoned experiment – but they don’t stay small for long, quickly growing until giant arachnids are threatening the whole city.

The premise is typical monster movie nonsense, which suggests the film could be a lot of fun. However while the spiders themselves are quite fun, everything else is tedious and annoying. Vague attempts at plot, such as a father looking for his child and a Russian scientist who may know more than he’s letting on are incredibly dull, and constantly insult the audience’s intelligence with just how ludicrous the whole thing is. You don’t expect a b-movie monster movie to make sense, but Spiders ties itself in knots so much that the creatures end up the most realistic thing in the movie.

The acting isn’t so much bad as that it gives the impression no one is giving more than about 20% of their effort. Indeed half the actors look as confused about what they’re being asked to say as the audience will be hearing it.

The disc includes a ‘making of…’ Featurette and some interviews, where everyone tries to suggest reasons you should watch the film, but even in these they seem unconvinced.

Overall Verdict: The fun of giant spiders is neutered by a script that’s dull, tedious and so silly is makes the overgrown animals seem logical in comparison. No one expects an Oscar-winning screenplay from this sort of film, but with Spiders it feels like they only started writing the script just as filming began.

Reviewer: Tim Isaac