Man, this one holds up really well. Spiders never stop being scary, am I right? After watching Arachnophobia, you can’t help but feel spiders crawling along the back of your neck, or see them creeping through the shadowy corner of your living room or beneath the sheets of your bed; you can’t help but imagine them everywhere. As if the world needed any encouragement in being afraid of spiders.
It’s arguably Jeff Daniels’ best acting role in easily Frank Marshall’s best film as director. And then there’s John Goodman’s excellent portrayal of the hapless pest control guy. An extremely deadly spider hitches a ride from South America in the coffin of the man it killed, landing it in small town America, where it breeds with a spider in a barn. The offspring waste no time in terrorizing the town, injecting death into one person after another. Ross Jennings (Daniels) is the town’s new doctor, and it’s his barn that, unbeknownst to him, is exploding with killer spiders.
Really, the only downside of Arachnophobia is how it pretty much makes everyone in this little country town out to be idiots or jerks. This is a common occurrence in horror movies in general, where the country folk are often cannibals and toothless hillbillies, so I’ve gotten used to it. The Hollywood types don’t understand those of us from small towns, so they make villains and idiots of us on film. It’s no big deal. But it’s completely unnecessary in this movie. The villains are the spiders; there was no need to make villains of the townsfolk, too.
If you want to watch this classic slice of horror, you can find it Amazon.