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ACTOR
Rob MonkiewiczIrene JosephDavid BunceBevin McGraw
DIRECTOR
Brett Piper
SYNOPSICS
Arachnia (2003) is a English movie. Brett Piper has directed this movie. Rob Monkiewicz,Irene Joseph,David Bunce,Bevin McGraw are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2003. Arachnia (2003) is considered one of the best Action,Adventure,Comedy,Horror,Sci-Fi,Thriller movie in India and around the world.
When a small research plane carrying a group of science students and their professor crash-lands in the middle of nowhere, the survivors go to a nearby farmhouse to look for help but soon find themselves besieged by giant mutant spiders.
Arachnia (2003) Reviews
Just plain fun...
Yep, it's good fun, somewhat low-buck, er, um, no-buck special effects of the Harryhausen school, unintentionally funny dialogue, actors who seem to be buying the preposterous plotline, a couple of cute girls for the guys, a suitably hunky leading man, and spiders, spiders, spiders! Highly recommended on the fun scale, if you're expecting Oscar winners, you're in the wrong place....definitely worth a rental! Oddly enough, none of the reviews I've seen have mentioned the chemistry between the two leads, nice sparks between the two, and believable, plus, she's quite hot, also, all the actors, except for the requisite slimeball come off as very likable folks. My only complaint is that the Vermont location used for shooting can never look anything like the supposed Arizona in the plot...
Giant spiders!! In a boring film...
In a way, you have to respect Arachnia. It's clearly meant as a tribute to the big bug movies of the fifties, and while the special effects look terrible; at least the film doesn't feature CGI. However, on the other hand; you can't respect the film too much because it's a load of rubbish. The acting is terrible, the special effects (as mentioned) are impossible to take seriously, and once you've seen one giant spider being blown up; you've seen them all, so it gets boring rather quickly. The plot follows a bunch of people who are unlucky enough to be in a plane crash after a meteor shower. They go to the only house in the area; which just happens to be a house where a man has a huge spider he used to use as a circus attraction. Coincidently around the same time, the meteor shower has caused more giant spiders to rise from underground. All the characters in this film are poor caricatures; none of them have anything even resembling a third dimension and they will soon begin to thoroughly bore you. You've got to feel for director Brett Piper as he clearly didn't have much to work with for this film; but that doesn't make Arachnia worth a damn, and overall there are better giant bug films than this, and therefore Arachnia doesn't get the seal of approval from me.
Entertaining cheese fest
"Arachnia" isn't that bad of a cheesy creature feature. **SPOILERS** Traveling to Arizona to examine a new fossil recently unearthed, pilot Sean Pachowski, (Rob Monkiewicz) with Professor Mugford, (David Bruce) and his assistants Chandra Weaver, (Irene Joseph) Trina, (Bevin McGraw) Kelly, (Alexxus Young) and Deke, (Dan Merriman) witness a meteor shower flying close-by, and a crashing one forces their plane down. Regrouping and attempting to find shelter, they come across an abandoned house in the middle of the desert. The owner of the house, Moses Cobb, (James Aspden) thinks them trespassers until they prove otherwise, and returning to his house, he shows them a gigantic spider that he claims was once alive. When giant spiders show up and attack the farm, they devise a plan to help survive against the ever-increasing number of spiders. The Good News: There is a lot of good here, most of it the campy nature of the film. Few films today are willing to pay homage to the creature features of the early 50s, opting instead to concentrate on the 70s films and leave the earlier ones alone . It's refreshing when one comes along to have the spirit of those films quite competently. From the easily explained and rendered plot to the blatant borrowing of other films to carry it's storyline, the exploitative elements of nudity and violence as well as the well-timed comic relief, this just screams giant camp-fest. The brief moments of greatness do come across as being quite nice. One of the best is the moment where a character runs from the crashed plane and nose dives at the point where the cliché would have the thing explode, only for nothing to happen. A quite inspired moment that left a well-deserved chuckle afterwards. The bathtub scene, and in general anything with the two women were nice to watch, even though one of them was a total cop-out. The ending is the real highlight, where the film shifts gears and becomes the all-out camp classic that it was destined to be but wasn't, with loads of action, a couple of witty moments, and some nice moments strung together. It's the real highlight of the film. The Bad News: As much as their was to like in the movie, there was also a couple of things hurting it. First off, the pacing is a big mess. The opening gets things off to a flying start, but then it seriously drags things out until the very end, only sporadically showing signs of life. That means the middle section will really test the most discriminating viewer's patience, even before they're rewarded with a grand conclusion. The spiders come into the movie much too late, and their low kill total does them no favors. Speaking about the spiders, they are so cheesily rendered and depicted that hardly anyone would be scared of these creatures. They are just beyond looking bad and instead are laughable. It's hard to believe what would be more realistic in this situation: cheap CGI or what was presented here. They were that bad. They invoke the tone they wanted quite admirably, but come nowhere close to being believable. The Final Verdict: While not the best giant spider flick, there's some others that aren't as good. Some pacing issues aside, this could've been a great little find. It has the potential, the ingredients, and the sense of fun, but it doesn't quite make it there. Only for those hardcore fans of the genre or those in desperate need of a new flick for their annual Friday Night MST party with friends. Rated R: Violence, Nudity and Language
Just what I expected it to be!
This is a low budget stop motion monster movie from Brett (A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell) Piper... and it delivers just what I'd expect from such a production: light-hearted (though cheesy) dialogue, some cute actresses and lots of stop motion critters. That's why I've given the film 10 out of 10 - because it delivers what I expected it to deliver... and a bit more: Brett doesn't penny-pinch when it comes to putting his critters on screen. He hurls lots of bugs at his cast for the finale. And, anyway, I LOVE stop motion monsters which, compared to CGI critters in bigger budgeted movies, just seem to be that much fun to watch.
You know, I actually though this had some nice moments & ideas.
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).