Prosperity, Arizona is a nice and quiet little desert mining town complete with a small town diner and a radio station DJ who talks daily about the possibility of an alien invasion. Then a rash of farm animals and people start disappearing. The local authorities believe that a pack of rabid coyotes or wolves are responsible but the DJ believes that aliens really have invaded the small town that's similar to the Area 51 site in New Mexico where UFO's have been supposedly seen. Soon the reality hits as the residents see for themselves that giant mutant spiders that are the result of a chemical spill are invading their beloved town. Now it's up to mining engineer Chris McCormack (David Arquette) and town sheriff Sam Parker (Kari Wuhrer) to gather together a group of people to battle the giant arachnids. Scarlett Johansson and Doug E. Doug also appear in the film as Wuhrer's daughter and the eclectic radio DJ respectively.
When one hears about a giant mutated animal film they have two bipolar thoughts about the film prospect of being an entertaining experience. On one hand, they wonder if the film will be the perfect mix of action and comedy. On the other hand, they wonder if the film will end up being too cheesy to be enjoyable. Thankfully, Eight Legged Freaks is the former instead of the latter.
Direction by Ellory Elkayem (They Nest) is appropriately darkly comedic in style with lots and lots of views of the title beasts shown after Elkayem smartly keeps the beasts in the shadows at the beginning of the film. Elkayem still manages to elicit fear into the viewer without actually showing the spiders of the title. Once the spiders are unveiled in their full glory the film becomes one big spider feast for a while. Throughout the film, Elkayem sidesteps the chance to descend into cheesiness inherent in the giant mutated creature sub-genre even though he does inject the right amount of humor into the film so what is a far-reaching plot doesn't become needlessly dark and humorless.
In the acting department, the film fares fine but not outstanding. Basically, the acting is what you would expect from a monster movie. David Arquette may be the perfect actor for such a film. He's really just a kid in a man's body and his giddy demeanor fits the film perfectly despite certainly not being the best example of acting you'll see this year. Kari Wuhrer follows the same model and has what looks like great fun with her role. Supporting performances by Doug and Scarlett Johansson are fine and this film is quite a departure for Johansson after Ghost World and The Horse Whisperer yet she gets the fact that the film is just a fun monster film and performs like you would expect for an actor in this type of film.
Overall, Eight Legged Freaks is one very fun and entertaining monster movie that is the perfect summer movie.
Rating: 88
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