 |
| A monster arachnid that seems to be jumping out at us features prominently on the effective poster for Ellory Elkayem's Eight Legged Freaks |
A little town in Arizona is threatened by a novel kind of termination, when a spider enthusiast's eight-legged friends get in contact with some dropped chemicals and grow enormous!
Eight Legged Freaks is written by Jesse Alexander (Star Trek: Discovery (2017), TV-series) and co-debuting writer-director Ellory Elkayem (Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis (2005)), with Randy Kornfield (Jingle All the Way (1996)) contributing story elements. It is based on Elkayem's own 1998 short, Larger Than Life.
The film's dubious construction is palpable early on, when the spider enthusiast (played by Tom Noonan (The Roost (2005))) is killed by one of his spiders, who run amuck in one of the very first scenes.
Scarlett Johansson (Manny & Lo (1996)) admirers may watch Eight Legged Freaks exclusively to ogle her as an already physically highly well-developed 17 year-old here. David Arquette (TRON: Uprising (2012), TV-series) plays the protagonist, but unfortunately simply isn't an exciting lead actor, and the film's humor and nostalgic relationship with related 1950s giant monster titles (Tarantula (1955) especially, of course) is regrettably not as much as fun, as it clearly wants to be.
Loud noise and incredible spider attacks break out so early on in Eight Legged Freaks that their many returns manage to weary us as audiences, before it is over. Best in all these attacks I found was the old barber's amusing reactions in his few scenes, - but then he's eaten.
Eight Legged Freaks is made with enthusiasm and daring, - in that it features a huge amount of effects, including some, for its time, pretty good CGI effects, although the giant spiders are still obviously fake and therefore not very exciting. Unfortunately, Elkayem's Larger Than Life short basis for the film is in fact substantially better on the whole.
Here's a short clip of Johansson from the Hollywood premiere of the film
Cost: 30 mil. $
Box office: 45.8 mil. $
= Big flop
[Eight Legged Freaks premiered 30 May (Zurich, Switzerland) and runs 100 minutes. The original title, Arac Attack, was altered due to the onslaught of the Iraq War, as it was deemed as sounding too close to Iraq Attack and therefore tasteless. 'Eight Legged Freaks' was an ad-lib of Arquette's during production that became the new title. Shooting took place in Arizona from January 2001 - ?. At least 8 different spider species and sub-species are featured in the film. It opened #7 to a disappointing 6.4 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it grossed 17.3 mil. $ (37.8 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 5.1 mil. $ (11.1 %) and Germany with 3 mil. $ (6.6 %). The film likely made profits with home video sales and other auxiliary markets figured in. Elkayem returned with Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave (2005), and Arquette returned in Happy Here and Now (2002). Eight Legged Freaks is rotten at 48 % with a 5.5/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Eight Legged Freaks?
No comments:
Post a Comment