Eight Legged Freaks

June 22, 2006

Starring David Arquette, my third favorite Arquette.

David is only my third favorite Arquette because he still has a penis, unlike my first favorite Arquette, Alexis. He also was not in Stigmata, Flirting with Disaster or A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors like my second favorite Arquette. David gets third status based on Airheads and the Scream movies. We’ll not mention the whole 1-800-CALL-ATT thing, where he was only slightly less annoying than his replacement, Carrot Top.

David Arquette returns to his hometown to get busy with the sheriff – Kari Wuhrer. Before he can get the booty, he must save the town (and his gold mine) from the titular eight legged freaks. The spiders grew to monstrous proportions after ingesting toxic waste laced crickets. Apparently, this is a new type of toxic waste – not to be confused with the kind that turns you into a mutant super hero as in The Toxic Avenger or the kind that turns you into a brain munching zombie, as in The Return of the Living Dead. Actually, the only effect on humans was as a topical hair growth agent. Interesting.

Scarlett Johansson also stars as Sheriff Kari’s teenage daughter. She gets to taser her boyfriend in the nuts when he gets too fresh. He sports a pee stain for the rest of the movie. Nice.

The one thing about Eight Legged Freaks that bugged the shit out of me – the sound effects. Why did the spiders make chipmunk noises? I don’t find it outside the realm of possibility that spiders make some kind of noise and that their noises would be magnified into the human hearing range proportionately to their growth…but would they really sound like Chip and Dale, Rescue Rangers?

I liked this movie better the first time I saw it, when it was called Arachnophobia. I know, the spiders are bigger because of toxic waste…but killer spiders are killer spiders, no matter the size. Besides, Arachnophobia was just a rip-off of Kingdom of the Spiders, a great piece of 70s cheese starring The Shat.