Arachnophobia

Arachnophobia (1990) is a movie in my DVD collection and is also available on Amazon Prime. The storyline follows a city doctor who moves out into the country to become a small town doctor. Unfortunately for him this small town has a local man who recently died in Valenzuela and is sent back home to be buried; and within the coffin is a rare breed of spider that is very territorial. This movie is directed by Frank Marshall (Congo) and stars Jeff Daniels (Dumb & Dumber), Julian Sands (Warlock), John Goodman (Roseanne) and Harley Jane Kozak (Parenthood). The opening of this movie in Valenzuela really sets the mood and intensity of the film. They do a great job of using lighting and shadows in this film to create the looks and attacks. They also do a great job of creating the look, feel and characters of the small town. I always think an aspect of this storyline that's interesting is how much people hate the opinions of the educated and how that still plagues our society (COVID as an example). John Goodman is outstanding in this movie and this is one of my favorite performances of his. The horror elements in this start very subtle and build as as the number of spiders increase and gets more and more intense as the movie unfolds. This is an absolute classic horror gem with a few outdated special effects but the characters and elements are so good it remains a masterpiece. This is a 9/10 that I'd strongly recommend.