Film Screening: Arachnophobia

Spiders may be fascinating and misunderstood critters, but this Amblin horror-comedy sets scientific interest aside and goes for pure Arachnophobia (1990, rated PG-13)! In the remote Venezuelan outback, a British expedition runs into trouble when its photographer is bitten by a rare venomous spider, and immediately has horrible seizures and dies. They crate up his body and send it back to his California hometown – but the spider has crept in along with it, and goes along for the ride. When the crate arrives in the charming town of Canaima, the spider scuttles off to set up shop on the rural property of Dr. Ross Jennings (Jeff Daniels), a family doctor who has recently moved there from San Francisco. It mates with a local spider and produces a host of deadly offspring, and soon more townspeople are dying from mysterious bites. Ross contacts the British scientist and the two of them figure out that Venezuelan crossbred spiders have infested the town. Eccentric local exterminator Delbert McClintock (John Goodman) goes after them with a flamethrower, but he’s outmatched – especially when we learn that the little ones are just the advance army for the “general”, a mega-spider that’s lurking around somewhere. Can Ross overcome his fear and save the town from arachno-tastrophe? It’s a thrill-packed homage to classic creepy-crawly creature features.