Arachnia

Year of Release: 2003
Genre:  Horror / Sci-Fi
IMDB Rating: 3.8 / 10
Level of Awful: Requires Post-Film Lobotomy

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

Yay! The first cheese of 2011! And this little wonder has absolutely blown me away with its sheer terribleness. Since starting my little project of critiquing the worst horror movies I could find and sharing this wonder with other people I have tried to categorise the movies properly so those who want to watch them know what they are getting themselves into. I have done this primarily because, although it is a wonderful site, IMDB doesn’t always get it right: some movies with great ratings are terrible and some with terrible ratings have turned out to be highly enjoyable. But since the beginning of the B-Horror Blog only one piece of cheese has held an Awful Rating of ‘Requires Post-Film Lobotomy’. It brings me much happiness to start 2011 off by adding Arachnia to this elite group of crappy horror movies.

Let us begin our little adventure on a tiny charted plane busy flying through a meteor shower. On board we have pilot Sean Pachowski, horny Professor Mugford, Mugford’s PA Chandra Weaver, pseudo-stoner grad-student Deke and the whiniest dumb college sluts to ever grace a b-horror, Trina and Kelly. This little band is headed to Arizona where Professor Mugford is helping with an archaeological dig but, unfortunately for them, a meteor strikes the earth and its shock waves force the plane to land / crash in the middle of nowhere. Having escaped the plane crash the survivors go off in search of shelter so they can bed down for the night before hiking to the nearest town in the morning.

After stumbling upon an abandoned house, breaking furniture for firewood, drinking 100-year-old moonshine and the sluts stripping naked to take a bath the team is discovered by gun-toting Moses Cobb, the owner of the house (although he admits that he wouldn’t live in it, what with it being a shit hole and all). Despite being armed with a gun the sluts manage to calm Moses down with their perky breasts, whereupon they all sit down to continue a pleasant evening of smalltalk and moonshine. In a very bizarre twist conversation turns to the corpse of a giant spider out in the barn and Moses insists that Professor Mugford come out and look at it. Mugford (hopefully the movie is making fun of itself here) insists that the spider must be a fake made of plastic and chicken wire and refuses to take the old man seriously. Rightfully insulted Moses then invites the rest of the group to come back to his house for the night while Mugford is forced to sleep in the barn with the spider corpse.

Back at the house while Deke snores and the sluts decide to do some lesbian experimentation, old man Moses swears that he sees the giant spider running around the side of the house. Blonde Slut swears that she has seen it too, but naturally nobody takes that kind of thing seriously. Sadly for them blonde sluts and gun-carrying, moonshine-addicted hillbillies are always right when they say they’ve seen a monster and we discover that the same meteor that struck the plane out of the sky has also unleashed a swarm of rare and vicious spiders that begin to descend on the household in hopes of catching a fresh dinner. Now these spiders are not only rare because of their sheer body size but also for their means of movement: stop animation. Stop animation was a huge thing in every 1950s creature flick, but to see such a method of animation used with such amateur precision in a modern movie is something truly spectacular.

And to round it all off is the beautiful and ambient piano music that plays throughout the entire movie.

THINGS I’VE LEARNED:

• Falling stars make ‘swoosh’ noises as they burn through Earth’s atmosphere.
• Falling stars explode like green fireworks at random.
• When a large-enough meteor crashes into the Earth it sends up a green aurora.
• You can make a plane by attaching wings to a VW minivan.
• Despite being in a plane crash you can easily walk away from the scene without any injuries or any sign of the accident.
• Spiders growl.
• Spiders can start their lives in one of two ways: either being born a spider or starting as a larva and working your way up to a proper spider.
• It is perfectly natural for frozen tundra and desert wasteland to occur side-by-side.
• Dynamite doesn’t damage buildings, only insects.
• Caves will not collapse when a truck-load of explosives go off in them.
• Having a gun means people will do anything you ask.
• Moonshine makes you act drunk but doesn’t actually make you drunk.
• Never trust sluts with perimeter defense during a monster insect onslaught.