 |
| Books, covers, etc. |
Directed by: Mike Mendez
Produced by: Shaked Berenson, Patrick Ewald, Travis Stevens, Klaus von Sayn-Wittgenstein
Written by: Gregory Gieras
Budget: I couldn't actually find any information on this movie's exact budget, but it's definitely low.
Starring: Greg Grunberg, Lin Shaye, Patrick Bauchau, Ray Wise, Clare Kramer, Lomardo Boyar
Big Ass Spider is an introspective drama about the lengths families will go to in order to stay together, and the webs we sometimes catch ourselves in when we attempt to fix our own problems.
Ha, just kidding. A genetically altered spider escapes captivity and eats people before attacking a city.
There's honestly not a lot to this one, but some things should be obvious from the title and poster alone. The movie is like a well-done SyFy original monster movie, but with actual care and attention put into the production.
The Good
The acting here is actually not bad. Ray Wise shows up to do his eyebrow thing, and Boyar does a really good job as Jose, a hospital security guard who becomes Mathis's extermination partner. The one performance that doesn't quite live up to the rest is Grunberg as the main character. Though his acting grew on me as the film progressed I felt he rode the line a little bit too much between lovable oaf and charmless oaf. At one point Lloyd Kaufman, the man behind Troma Entertainment, shows up and gets impaled by the spider, so it's cool that they got him.
The spider effects swap between hilariously cheap looking (in a charming way) and actually pretty decent. The monster looks the best when it's smaller, obviously, but when it gets big the movie pretty much throws discretion to the wolves(cops) and just let the animation show. Most of the second half of the movie takes place outside in well-lit areas, which isn't something you often see in monster movies like this, considering darkness and smoke are easy ways to hide bad effects.
Finally, the pacing is actually pretty suited for this movie. It's only 80 minutes long, so it moves pretty quickly from piece to piece, but there's not really any scenes I would cut or shorten. Some of them even have some clever camera tricks with one attack sequence shown in split-screen from two different helmet-cameras. The attention to detail and effort put into that stands out in this genre.
The Bad
There's a shoehorned romantic subplot that feels just a little too serious compared to the rest of the movie. It's the classic "hot blonde action girl gets the chubby hero" plot, but played almost completely straight. I expected some clever subversion at the end, but it never came.
Primarily I thought the movie could have been...more "b." The writing at times felt just a little too good, the shots just a bit too well put together. It's not a bad watch, but it just manages to miss that b-movie sweetspot due to some aspects actually getting close to elevating it outside the genre.
The Rest
There's been talk of a sequel, but the director has said he's played out giant spiders. The movie ends with a tease for a giant cockroach, so maybe we'll expand into other arthropods.
Should You Watch it?
If you like monster b-movies you should give this a shot.
If you're freaked out by spiders, you should probably avoid it. The early stuff has some cat-sized spider antics that would probably get under your skin just a bit.
No comments:
Post a Comment