Arachnoquake

So, OK I've watched about a dozen of these Sy Fy, Asylum, low rent films in recent weeks because (well I hate myself) and it wasn't until I came to this one that I realised what is wrong with most of these films.

OK yes the effects are bad and the acting can be hit and miss, some of that comes down to the script. But what the main crime seems to be is that they're boring.

A film about giant fire breathing water walking flesh eating spiders who emerge from a crack in the earth caused by an earthquake shouldn't really be dull. It should at least be energetic enough that plot and reality don't matter.

What happens though is, as these films are made for TV they are made and written in 9-13 sections. They are disjointed because each section has to have something to keep the audience coming back, so an attack or bit of flesh every 10 minutes or so.

As a result the films are badly paced and the characters don't develop naturally, meaning you get massive contrast in attitude and pace because they're filling time until the next Ad break.

Id go a step further and suggest that the films aren't even written in one go, the 4 or 5 big scenes (the opening, first attack, heroes attack, finale etc) are written first in a way that 'works' and the rest is filled in, so you end up with often long dull exposition scenes explaining why the action that they need to happen next is about to happen.

You end up with lots of scenes of people driving saying "hey it must be because A,B and C so there fore we must now go and do X, Y and Z).. and then that happens.

There's nothing wrong with building your film to fit the broadcast format, in fact its sometimes better to factor in Advert when editing a TV movie like so many TV dramas do, but the problem is that filling in between the breaks has to be worth it, not just a semi cliff hanger.

Now I know I haven't mentioned the film specifically in this review very much and the reason is, it's THAT forgettable. I watched so many of these recently that they blend into one... I think the kid from Terminator was in this or maybe Malcom McDowell as he'll do anything... but other than that it was forgettable.... oh and throw in a hot blond in denim shorts Boring, forgettable and ignorable... they should start calling these films Slow Budget Movies

I do not mind low-budget movies at all, in fact some are entertaining. However I do dislike it when a movie comes across as so cheap and literally brainless that you are annoyed by it. Sadly that was the case with Arachnoquake. It is not SyFy's worst, not by a long shot, but it is really not one of their more tolerable ones either. There is one redeeming quality however, and that is the decent, if not great, performance of Tracey Gold. The remaining actors give the impression that they don't want to be there and don't show much if any chemistry with one another. That is especially true of Edward Furlong who spends his screen time looking stiff and bored, and with his shockingly bloated appearance time has not been kind to him. In all fairness though, they are not helped by the characters they play. I don't mind if a character is clichéd, as long as they are well-written. That wasn't the case with Arachnoquake, every single character here is shallow and made to do stupid things that makes you annoyed with them fast. The only exception is the Superman imitation, which was actually quite fun, but little moments like this are like sprinkles of fun in a vast sea of truly horrible. Nor are the actors helped by the script, which even for SyFy is so cheesy that it becomes too much and in the end doesn't give them much to do, or the story, which is very thin, unsurprising and lacking in any kind of atmosphere. The film even manages to look cheap, with the editing very hackneyed and the spider effects crude and artificial in look. The spiders are lacking in any kind of presence, let alone menace, that if you want to be scared, enthralled or even have your phobia of spiders cured then you may want to look elsewhere, as Arachnoquake manages to do neither. All in all, very poor, cheap, intelligence-insulting and badly written and acted. 1/10 for Gold and the Superman imitation. Bethany Cox

Flipped the stations, came across this title and decided to cheaply entertain myself. I used to watch movies like this all the time just for the hell of it (though once in a rare while, there's a gem in all the rubble).

When I looked at who was in this movie - Tracey Gold, Ethan Phillips, and Edward Furlong among others - I already knew this was going to be one of THOSE movies. It was more out of seeing what Furlong was doing and what the spiders looked like more than anything that kept me tuned in. The spiders are as atrocious as any bad movie "monster". Even in 2012 and on TV, this was seriously poor.

Furlong looked bad as anyone would suspect. His acting (which to me was never all that great to begin with) was terrible and he was seriously miscast.

I made it halfway through and decided to just watch the rest, knowing full well this will be the last time I watch this garbage movie. Predictable and nothing greatly original, but if you enjoy bad movies like this, by all means - but this is pretty much as bad as it gets.

This is definitely the best SyFy movie I have seen. It has all the usual things these movies have, a useless military, a female scientist, a hot girl and the hunky star. Unfortunately, about half of the movie has no reason to exist. They run their boat onto the ground and abandon ship, implying that the boat wouldn't move. After running from spiders for an hour they go back to the boat and leave. Still not bad for this type of movie.

Arachnoquake (2012)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

The latest film to debut on the SyFy channel has New Orleans being hit by an earthquake, which causes the ground to crack open and soon large, pink spiders are attacking people. Those expecting a fun monster mash are going to be disappointed because this film is pretty bad from the word go and it never picks up any speed. You know, I understand that horror films need dumb characters to do dumb things but there's a certain line you shouldn't cross in terms of dumbness and this film crosses that line and makes it's own new line. I really couldn't believe how stupid all of these characters were. So, you see a giant pink spider coming at you so what do you do? Well, of course, you pick it up. There are six or seven small spiders about the size of a baseball card coming after you so what do you do? Step on them? You'd think so but the characters here just jump around like little children. The entire film pretty much doesn't have an ounce of brains going for it and this doesn't cause any "fun" but instead it makes you grow more and more aggravated because the characters just become annoying. Tracey Gold gives a decent performance here and it's a shame her character wasn't a lead. Edward Furlong from T2 fame is on hand here playing the father (!?!?) of two teenagers. He really doesn't give a "good" performance but it was fun seeing him again. ARACHNOQUAKE is pure dumbness from start to finish but there are a few good moments with most of them being the bubble, explosion and gore that happens when a spider starts to come out of a human body. It's a shame that the director and writer didn't exploit this a little bit more and given fans more bang for their buck. The CGI effects are obviously very cheap but I thought the design of the spiders were nice. Still, this is certainly a film that can be skipped as there are much better killer spider movies out there.