Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7866 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-02-17
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 95 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Not funny enough to be called a spoof, not scary enough to be outright horror, Eight Legged Freaks is a curious effects-filled pastiche of those mutant B-movies of the 1950s and 60s. The plot is of the standard small-town-overrun-by-giant-spiders variety, after the little critters have been exposed to leaking radiation naturally. Local boy made good David Arquette has returned to the town to make amends with the woman he loves (feisty Sheriff Kari Wuhrer) and to stop the dastardly mayor from selling his father's mine. But before he can sort that out, there is a lot of bug squashing to be done as the CGI spiders cause all manner of havoc and mayhem.

Eight Legged Freaks is admittedly a lot of fun, and there are some great set-pieces to enjoy, including a gang of teenage dirt bikers escaping a horde of jumping spiders. It's also quite gory in places, though with only a couple of decent shocks it's hardly likely to induce large-scale arachnophobia. The spiders are impressive but the CGI is painfully obvious and it never feels real. However, if you can suspend your disbelief for an hour and a half you will enjoy this pacey, fun and action-filled popcorn flick. It doesn't ever take itself too seriously and is certainly a lot more fun than producer Dean Devlin's other genre entries, Godzilla and Independence Day.

On the DVD: Eight Legged Freaks offers some nice, B-movie poster-style menu screens but little in the way of extras. There's no making-of, no special effects breakdowns (astonishing given how heavily reliant it is on these to tell the story) and not even any spider-related factoids which seem almost a necessity. What we do get, though, is a fun and sprightly commentary, the theatrical trailer and director's Ellory Elkayem original short film Larger than Life, that formed the basis for its feature-length offspring. Compact, creepy and almost silent, it's a shudder-inducing little movie and far more creepy than the main feature. Technically, the picture is sharp and the bright, comic book colours and cinematography look gorgeous, and the squelching soundtrack is wonderfully crisp. --Jon Weir

Special Features
Audio Commentary
Additional Scenes
"Larger Than Life" (The Short that inspired the film)
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Ratio: 16 x 9
Language: English, French & Italian
Subtitles: English, French, Italian, Dutch, Arabic, Spanish, German, English SDH & Italian SDH

Synopsis
New Zealand-born Ellory Elkayem's EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS is a ridiculously irreverent romp that pays homage to American b-movies of the 1950s. Set in the nearly bankrupt mining town of Prosperity, Arizona, the film opens with the timely return of Chris McCormack (David Arquette). On the outskirts of town, a spider-loving eccentric discovers that water from a nearby river has a steroid-like effect on his tiny creatures. Unfortunately, that's because it has been contaminated by a toxic substance. It isn't long before the now-monstrous spiders are terrorizing Prosperity's townspeople. Taking refuge in the Prosperity Mall, Chris and his fellow cohorts--the beautiful Sheriff Sam Parker (Kari Wuhrer), her kids Mike (Scott Terra) and Ashley (Scarlett Johansson), Deputy Pete (Rick Overton), and paranoid radio DJ Harlan (Doug E. Doug)--search for a way to destroy the gigantic monsters before they are destroyed. Handpicked by producers Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich, writer-director Elkayem rises to the challenge. He successfully retains the lighthearted, low-budget feel of similar-toned 1950s classics (TARANTULA, THEM!) and merges it with a modern, big-budget aesthetic, to create an outrageously fresh contribution to the "mutant bug" genre.

Customer Reviews

yikes! giant squeeking spiders!
The title of this film really does sum up the finished article, as its a comedy based on all those old 50's and 60's b-movie horror flicks. Ive never been a fan of Ellory Elkayams work, nearly all of his previous movies have been bad (anyone remember the awful Godzilla). So whats the story, well here it is in a nutshell ... chemical truck crashes and sheds its load over a small lake, spiders get infected, grow to huge monsters, go on the rampage and terrorise the locals.

This is one of those films where you can leave your brain at home as its basically designed as a fun movie to past a couple of hours. This movie has its good points and its bad points, on the downside the characters are flat and the script isnt fantastic (but then again, as this is based on those b-movies, maybe the films supposed to be this way). This film has two huge plus points, the spiders are great, they really look the part, crawling and scampering around the town. The other main plus is Kari Wuhrer, probably one of the sexiest women alive! and any scene with her in is well worth paying the ticket fee for :). This isnt a terrible movie, but its not great either, just somewhere in the middle. Worth renting, just maybe not worth buying.

A silly film. Great fun, though.
"Eight Legged Freaks" works better than it really ought to. It goes through every cliché in the book, yet it does not work DESPITE of its overuse of clichés - it works BECAUSE of them.

There is the Geeky kid (Harry Potter look-a-like Scott Terra), and his Weird old friend (Tom Noonan). The Weird old friend has a spider fetish, and has found that if he feeds his spiders cockroaches from a specific lake they grow very big. What he doesn't know is that the lake is actually where a toxic waste spill occurred recently (toxic waste... it's always the toxic waste), and soon the spiders are out of control. The Geeky kid tries to warn the town, but he is the Geeky kid, and who is going to believe the Geeky kid?

The Geeky kid lives with his Popular sister (the ever-good Scarlett Johansson), and his Tough-cop mother (Kari Wuhrer), who left her Unfaithful husband. David Arquette plays the Former citizen, who has heard that a Greedy Mayor wants to try and sell the his father's mines to businesses that will fill them with toxic waste (yep, more toxic waste). All the while the Geeky kid is jumping up and down trying to tell the town the giant spiders are coming their way, and no one is paying any attention whatsoever.

On top of all of this, we have the Popular sister's Horny boyfriend and his Dumb friends, the Old residents, the Tough-cop mother's Dumb sidekick and, of course, the Scary monsters which are, in this case, Giant mutant spiders. There are more clichés, but if I told you them, it would feel like I was spoiling something for you.

Last month I saw "Jason X", which suffered not because it overused clichés as much as because it took the concepts that had become cliché and pretended it had come up with them first. "Eight Legged Freaks" knows damn well that these clichés have been around for decades, and is only an inch away from self mocking.

Take, for example, the scene where the Popular daughter is kissing her Horny boyfriend in the front of his truck. He comes on to her a little too much for the Popular Daughter's liking, and she says "look, I don't want to lose my virginity in the front seat of a truck." But is she saying this because she ACTUALLY does not want to lose her virginity, or because she knows that there is a rule that if you have sex in a horror movie, you get killed. Here's another one - when the Geeky boy hitches a lift into town (he is picked up, conveniently, by the Former citizen, who wants to pair up with his Tough-cop mother), the Geeky boy tries to explain to the Former citizen that the spiders have grown to mammoth proportions), then eventually says "but, of course, you don't believe me, 'cause they NEVER believe the kid!"

The movie also has a wicked sense of humour that makes it all the more enjoyable, I found myself tittering regularly (especially at the movie's closing credits song, you gotta stay for that). And it also has thrills and chills, some scenes are pretty exciting, and everyone knows that sticking your hand into a dark place is pretty creepy.

Humour, giant mutant spiders and toxic waste - what more could you ask for from a summer movie? "Eight Legged Freaks" is basically a B-movie with more impressive special effects and a bigger budget, but has no pretensions of be anything more. Its formula has been going around since the '50s, and it plays as more of a tribute to such movies than a spoof. Yes, it lacks any originality whatsoever, has hammy acting and obvious gags but, heck, if you're going to take a movie about giant mutant spiders taking over a town seriously, you don't deserve to enjoy it.

Itsy Bitsy Spider!
I love this type of 'big bugs' movie and now that i have seen this film, i am actually very suprised at why it did so poorly at the box office, and why the critics slated it so much. Ok its not the best movie you will every watch, but its still an entertaining film to watch if you want to pass away a few hours.

The plot is quite simple; a truck driver skids on a road and accidently releases one of his barrels of toxic chemicals into a nearby lake. Unfortunately there happens to be an exotic spider farm very nearby and when they all escape and somehow ingest these chemicals, they turn into huge killer spiders who are extreamly hungry.

As they go on a ramage into the small town killing everyone in sight, the fate of the people rests in the hands of sexy police sherif and Chris Macormic who has returned to stop the nasty mayor from selling his fathers mine. They make a radio broadcast to the town telling everyone to meet at the Prosperity Mall (i don't know how they got the money to build it in a small town in Arizona) which will offer much more protection. Still the spiders manage to penetrate the steel doors and the concrete walls of the mall, and so the people are forced to flee down into the minds, where they stumble accross the spiders nest and the female, which is three times as big as the others.

I'm not really sure what you would call this film; its not scary enough to be a horror, not funny enough to be a spoof or comedy, but theres a really nice mix of all three along with plenty of use of CGI, which although is overall quite good, it is really obvious and the film never feels totally real.

Overall though a good film which although was not received very well by the public or the critics is still very entertaining and is one of those films which doesn't require you to think about the story too much. You just watch the film, enjoy it, and go home more scared of spiders than you went in. Recommended.