I didn't find the characters in this made for pay TV horror/sci-fi film either very smart or believable, from leading comic book geek Devon Gummersall to his love interest Amelia Heinle to over-the-hill detective Dan Ackroyd all the way down to the minor players. They include a weird boyfriend and girlfriend playing a sexual assault game in public that the spider venom infected Gummersall comes across in a convenience store and two local punks who keep harassing him and Heinle, as well as a creepy Theresa Russell as Ackroyd's addicted to everything toss aside trashy chick.
The special effects are absolutely disgusting to watch, and Gummersall's transformation into the huge spider seems to take forever to happen. He's not someone I rooted for as unlike Peter Parker later on in "Spider Man", he purposely has himself injected with spider venom from the ugliest, biggest tarantula I've ever seen. No way was this near the intelligence of the 1986 remake of "The Fly", and the web shooting out of Gummersall's navel had me laughing at the shear audacity of the poorly made up web shooter. Ackroyd plays a humorless character that any actor with half his talent could have played. Just ridiculous on every level of modern sci-fi shock trash.
The special effects are absolutely disgusting to watch, and Gummersall's transformation into the huge spider seems to take forever to happen. He's not someone I rooted for as unlike Peter Parker later on in "Spider Man", he purposely has himself injected with spider venom from the ugliest, biggest tarantula I've ever seen. No way was this near the intelligence of the 1986 remake of "The Fly", and the web shooting out of Gummersall's navel had me laughing at the shear audacity of the poorly made up web shooter. Ackroyd plays a humorless character that any actor with half his talent could have played. Just ridiculous on every level of modern sci-fi shock trash.