Ice Spiders

I've watched about 30 minutes of this movie, and it's been enough to conclude that the script is a piece of junk, the acting is just as bad, the CGI looks like an tenth grader programmed it in his afternoon study hall, and that the movie is a total waste of time and brain power. The only thing that could make this movie worse would be to cast Steven Seagal as the lead. Actually, he couldn't have done any worse than the guy who did play the lead. NOTHING about this movie is entertaining or of any value. I honestly wish I would not have wasted the past half an hour of my life watching it.

Spider food? Come on.

If nothing else, the giant spiders in ICE SPIDERS look pretty convincing. A group of skiers run into a messed-up lab experiment, a bunch of black widow spiders the size of rottweilers that are on the loose and plenty hungry. The location photography is gorgeous and the skiing sequences are great, although they sometimes give the appearance of being stock footage. Pat Muldoon of STARSHIP TROOPERS stars, and legendary TV mogul Steven Cannell is on board as one of the besieged group. Beware: This is otherwise a typical Sci-Fi Channel job, so have a good stiff drink before watching. We do get snow scenes instead of the endless eastern European wood and field scenes of past productions for the channel.

The federal government is at it again in Ice Spiders. In the mountains of Utah where only a few skiers are having a great old time at a resort, our government has a big old giant laboratory where scientists Vanessa Williams and David Milbern have been breeding some ancient giant spiders with a technique that was first mentioned in Jurassic Park. It's also a plot idea that was used in the Lou Diamond Phillips movie Bats where Milbern goes as batty as the scientist who created those creatures in that film. Your tax dollars at work.

The hunters and the skiers are being chewed up, stored and eaten by these critters, the usual mayhem that giant anythings cause among the human population in these films. The guy who takes it the most seriously is ski instructor Patrick Muldoon, once a US Olympic hopeful. He and Vanessa see eye to eye on the giant spiders and each other of course.

I guess the idea was breed these things and then loose them on North Korea or Iran or any other country that was giving us problems. As is usual in these films, the critters get out of hand. The whole cast walks around with embarrassed looks on their faces.

Vanessa Williams lost her Miss America crown over those embarrassing nude pictures. She looks more embarrassed in this film than those snapshots of long ago ever caused.

And well she should.

Patrick Muldoon is no stranger to what awaits, as he took on intergalactic space bugs at one stage of his career, now in this lame-brain Syfy enterprise, he finds himself facing a much different type of creepy crawly; genetically altered gigantic arachnids on the ski slopes courtesy of government secret experimenting going on in nearby labs. "ICE SPIDERS" does exactly what it says on the tin, and much more. Overdone, streamlined CGI spiders run rampant, causing bloody carnage, jumping on and cocooning government employees and skiers at the remote Lost Mountain ski resort. It's up to Muldoon (retired Olympic skier), Vanessa Williams (doctor working at the lab) and Stephen J. Cannell (resort owner) to put a stop on these spiders killing the remaining survivors. The genuine combination between the three, keeps it perky and on the move. Everything sticks to clichés and thrills are cheesy, yet mostly played straight with moments of outrageous blood splatter and spider POV vision, where you can't help but chuckle. Sure it won't win any awards, but it's okay time-waster, even if only for background noise.

There's a ski resort far far away from civilization, yet there's a nice little city within viewing distance of the facility. Also next to the resort is a secret government research laboratory that studies spiders, giant spiders at that. The spiders escape... didn't see that one coming.

Anyways, if you pull the fire alarm in this so-called laboratory, a squad of shirtless idiots with m-16's come charging in looking for something to shoot. Some bimbo girl dressed like she's in a winter clothing catalog is the "doctor" in charge of the research and tries to call the shots. Instead we end up listening to some cocky guy with silly eyeglasses and a lab-coat on as he tries to capture the spiders as opposed to killing them. The spiders were smart though. Instead of listening to the horrible dialog going on at the lab set, they go and join the ski resort patrons next door for some snow packed action. They pull off some awesome jumps, tricks, etc. I think the spiders were actually better than the "olympic trainees" working on their skills. Anyways, the spiders squeal with delight, eat people, then ski some more.

I'm not really sure of what else to say about this near-fatal blow to the human IQ. A lot of the dialog was hard to tolerate as it was just flat out awful. All of the characters were undeveloped, clichéd, and brought a whole new meaning to being stupid. None-the-less, the spiders on ice action was hysterical in a sad way. Me and my friend enjoyed ripping on this movie all the way through.

If you can tolerate horrible dialog for some hilarious "creature violence," this film may be worth laughing at. Otherwise, I think it'd be best to avoid it at all costs.