Arachnia starts as Professor Mugford (David Bunce), his personal assistant Chandra (Irene Joseph), a grad student Deke (Dan Merriman) & two twins Kelly (Alexxus Young) & Trina (Bevin McGraw) are flying via a small chartered plane to an archaeological dig in Arizona where Mugford is due to give a lecture. Unfortunately a meteor shower forces the plane to crash in the middle of nowhere, the pilot Sean (Rob Monkiewicz) manages to crash land the plane without any fatalities (& not even a cut, bruise or scratch on anyone come to think of it) & the six survivors look for help. They come across an old farmhouse & decide to pitch up there for the night, however what they don't know is that the meteor shower has unleashed some huge mutant spider like creatures from under the ground who are on the look out for potential food & a host that they can lay their eggs into...
Written & directed by Brett Piper who also credited with the special effects this is another low budget horror flick which is getting universally trashed here on the IMDb by people whom I assume are looking for Transformers (2007) style special effects & a hundred million dollar budget, if that sounds like you then avoid Arachnia at all costs but if you appreciate a nice little homage to the giant bug flicks of the 50's & 60's then this might interest you. The light hearted script by Piper doesn't take itself too seriously & starts off pretty well then it seems to get bogged down with not much happening for a large chunk of running time before the giant spider things attack & the fun kicks in. The character's are cheesy clichés but I felt the film had fun with them & were quite likable, I liked Chandra the obligatory 'strong' female, the air-headed lesbian twins were amusing as one wanted to get undressed & take a bath even in the situation they found themselves in (even though they had no bubble-bath, soap, etc...), the annoying geek is the first to die like the makers knew he'd be the one the audience wanted to see die first, the scheming selfish character who thinks of no-one but themselves is here & the hero feels like Ash from the Evil Dead films complete with chainsaw & the actor's physical appearance to Bruce Campbell who played Ash in the Evil Dead films. I also thought some of the dialogue was amusing, while drinking some alcohol Sean says 'I haven't tasted anything like that since I was in a Bangkok whorehouse' to which Chandra replies 'I take it you mean a beverage'! There were one or two surprises as well, there is a scene when Sean tries to call for help on a mobile & tells the police that giant creatures are attacking them at which point the entire audience is probably shouting out lie or something & then Chandra picks the phone up & does just that just to annoy anyone watching who has already made their minds up everyone in the film is stupid! Unfortunately it's not all good news, the film is a bit slow at times, some of it is rather stupid, there's a serious lack of gore & to many people survive, in fact the giant spider things only kill three people which just isn't enough I'm afraid.
Director Piper does alright, he was obviously working on a low budget & he, or maybe someone else who knows, made the decision to use stop-motion animation rather than CGI computer effects. I see by the comments on the IMDb that a lot of viewers don't like stop-motion which is fine but I think it ties in with the 50's & 60's giant creature features very well & I'm one of those people who would rather see a bad stop-motion effect rather than a bad CGI one, it's take your pick really because I doubt Arachnia would have had the money to create good looking CGI effects anyway so either way the effects were always going to end up cheap looking. There's no gore here, someone is ripped in half seen from a distance & some baby spider things burst from someones chest which reminds me that it seems to pay homage to various other horror flicks like the chest-burster from Alien (1979) while people stranded in a farmhouse having to board it up reminded me of The Night of the Living Dead (1968). For some reason sometimes the point-of-view shots from the spider things is tinted red, other times it's tinted red but the picture is split up into several images while at other times the POV shots are simply normal film like the makers just randomly added the spider eye sight effects to some shots & not other's. I also have to mention the opening credit sequence, the credits are played over a never ending multi coloured tunnel effect that looks remarkably like the opening title sequence of Doctor Who from the Tom Baker era!
Technically the film is OK, sure most will think the special effects are terrible but while I agree they generally are I always felt the makers at least tried. Apparently shot in Vermont. I actually quite liked the acting here, the two leads were pretty good actually.
Arachnia is a fun little homage to the giant bug flicks from the 50's & 60's, unfortunately film-making has progressed a lot since that period & I suppose Arachnia is a good example as to why. I liked a lot of it but at the same time I disliked a lot of it if you know what I mean. Not to be confused with the similarly titled Arachnid (2001) or Spielberg's Arachnophobia (1990).
Written & directed by Brett Piper who also credited with the special effects this is another low budget horror flick which is getting universally trashed here on the IMDb by people whom I assume are looking for Transformers (2007) style special effects & a hundred million dollar budget, if that sounds like you then avoid Arachnia at all costs but if you appreciate a nice little homage to the giant bug flicks of the 50's & 60's then this might interest you. The light hearted script by Piper doesn't take itself too seriously & starts off pretty well then it seems to get bogged down with not much happening for a large chunk of running time before the giant spider things attack & the fun kicks in. The character's are cheesy clichés but I felt the film had fun with them & were quite likable, I liked Chandra the obligatory 'strong' female, the air-headed lesbian twins were amusing as one wanted to get undressed & take a bath even in the situation they found themselves in (even though they had no bubble-bath, soap, etc...), the annoying geek is the first to die like the makers knew he'd be the one the audience wanted to see die first, the scheming selfish character who thinks of no-one but themselves is here & the hero feels like Ash from the Evil Dead films complete with chainsaw & the actor's physical appearance to Bruce Campbell who played Ash in the Evil Dead films. I also thought some of the dialogue was amusing, while drinking some alcohol Sean says 'I haven't tasted anything like that since I was in a Bangkok whorehouse' to which Chandra replies 'I take it you mean a beverage'! There were one or two surprises as well, there is a scene when Sean tries to call for help on a mobile & tells the police that giant creatures are attacking them at which point the entire audience is probably shouting out lie or something & then Chandra picks the phone up & does just that just to annoy anyone watching who has already made their minds up everyone in the film is stupid! Unfortunately it's not all good news, the film is a bit slow at times, some of it is rather stupid, there's a serious lack of gore & to many people survive, in fact the giant spider things only kill three people which just isn't enough I'm afraid.
Director Piper does alright, he was obviously working on a low budget & he, or maybe someone else who knows, made the decision to use stop-motion animation rather than CGI computer effects. I see by the comments on the IMDb that a lot of viewers don't like stop-motion which is fine but I think it ties in with the 50's & 60's giant creature features very well & I'm one of those people who would rather see a bad stop-motion effect rather than a bad CGI one, it's take your pick really because I doubt Arachnia would have had the money to create good looking CGI effects anyway so either way the effects were always going to end up cheap looking. There's no gore here, someone is ripped in half seen from a distance & some baby spider things burst from someones chest which reminds me that it seems to pay homage to various other horror flicks like the chest-burster from Alien (1979) while people stranded in a farmhouse having to board it up reminded me of The Night of the Living Dead (1968). For some reason sometimes the point-of-view shots from the spider things is tinted red, other times it's tinted red but the picture is split up into several images while at other times the POV shots are simply normal film like the makers just randomly added the spider eye sight effects to some shots & not other's. I also have to mention the opening credit sequence, the credits are played over a never ending multi coloured tunnel effect that looks remarkably like the opening title sequence of Doctor Who from the Tom Baker era!
Technically the film is OK, sure most will think the special effects are terrible but while I agree they generally are I always felt the makers at least tried. Apparently shot in Vermont. I actually quite liked the acting here, the two leads were pretty good actually.
Arachnia is a fun little homage to the giant bug flicks from the 50's & 60's, unfortunately film-making has progressed a lot since that period & I suppose Arachnia is a good example as to why. I liked a lot of it but at the same time I disliked a lot of it if you know what I mean. Not to be confused with the similarly titled Arachnid (2001) or Spielberg's Arachnophobia (1990).