Camel Spiders

Based on actual creatures that for years have tormented our armed forces in the Middle East, these creatures have now invaded the southwestern deserts of the United States. The Camel Spiders now freely hunt for prey, unafraid of any predator -- including man.

This film should have some redeeming value -- directed by B-legend Jim Wynorski, produced by legend Roger Corman, and starring my good friends Brian Krause ("Sleepwalkers") and Jon Mack... how can this go wrong? I do not know, but it did.

My biggest complaint about this film is that nothing in it is convincing. On top of the bad CGI spiders (which is to be expected from any Corman production these days), there is just no reason to believe the Middle East shots were in the Middle East. The Army uniforms do not look right, and it is not clear why they are wearing camouflage when not in combat.

The story is thin... giant camel spiders attack. When you shoot them, they die. There is no subtext, there is no intellectual theme here. Just a creature feature gone horribly awry.

Well, what can I say. Every now and then I love to watch a silly and bad B-horror flick. And really, for the lovers of bad, cheap cinema, there is plenty to still enjoy in this movie!

And there is a big difference between a just plain bad movie and a movie that is being just so bad and silly that it actually becomes fun to watch. I feel that this for most part is being the case with "Camel Spiders" as well. No matter how bad and silly this movie gets at times, it still remains a pretty fun experience to watch.

Of course the story is totally stupid and doesn't make much sense but basically all of these sort of movies feature the same type of story anyway. It simply delivers exactly what you could and would expect from it, nothing more, nothing less. So really, if you are into these type of movies, by all means watch it and chances are you end up enjoying it, for what it is.

The characters are stupid but at least they aren't annoying (well, expect for the little girl perhaps but children always annoy me in these sort of movies), which really is a positive thing to say, for these sort of movies. Not that you ever feel involved with any of them. None of them are fleshed out and basically you already know how most of them are going to end up. At least if you are somewhat familiar already with these sort of movies.

No, this movie really doesn't hold any surprises and it progresses in an extremely formulaic way. But hey, that's how Roger Corman works and this certainly has its charm to it as well and make sure that these sort of movies are always still better to watch than those coming from other cheap working studios.

The special effects are some of the worst you are likely to see in a modern horror flick. It's also one of those movies that prefers to use CGI gore over practical effects. This is definitely something disappointing and it lets the movie look all the more fake and cheap.

Only watchable to those who can enjoy and appreciate a big, fat, cheap, silly, fake looking Corman flick.

3/10

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"Camel Spiders" was so bad it was actually worth watching just for the laughs. This movie has everything you could possibly want from a cheesy horror movie - bad CGI effects, laughable plot, incoherent story, unlimited ammunition, screaming spiders, bad acting, and much, much more.

The story in "Camel Spiders" is about soldiers in the desert somewhere in the Middle East, fighting someone, when a group of big spiders show up. A soldier is killed, and when shipped home, two fairly small spiders sneak into the box containing the corpse of the soldier. Then back in the US, the box is opened because of an accident, and spiders emerge to wreak havoc on the local residents.

Fairly average storyline that borrows heavily from "Arachnophobia" and "Eight Legged Freaks".

There were two spiders in the box, but suddenly there are hundreds of them in the area in the US, ranging from the size of a man's fist to a coffee table. How did they get to be that numerous and that big so fast? That incoherency in the story was just hilarious. Moving on though, while shooting at the marauding spiders, the people had endless amounts of ammo and never reloaded their weapons. And to make matters worse, most of the time people were not even shooting downward where the spiders were, but they were shooting in hip or chest level, that was just hilarious. And the camel spiders were constantly screaming. Yeah, sure, why not?

"Camel Spiders" was one of the worse spider movies that I have seen, right up there with the likes of "In the Spider's Web" and "Spiders 2". However, the movie is so stupid and cheesy that it is actually worth sitting through it, just to see what bad thing is waiting around the next corner. Just make sure you are sitting in an upright position while watching the movie, I was on a couch and I dozed off once or twice.

I had relatively low expectations going into this one (what do you expect with a $500k budget?!), so I'm happy to report I was pleasantly surprised to find a low-budget, fun, monster movie buried in this straight-to-DVD feature.

Granted, there are no groundbreaking special effects or acting, but the writing and story was not nearly as bad (i.e. boring) as some of the other current movies in this league. Paraphrasing, my favorite line: "If sarcasm worked as well as bullets on these bugs, I'd contact you first." My biggest complaint is with the bad CGI effects. Money should have been better spent on spider puppets and buckets of fake blood. The CGI looks like something 15-year-olds create for a YouTube video.

In the spirit of Tremors and Eight Legged Freaks, Camel Spiders should be remembered has one of the better low-budget, Sci-Fi Channel feature.

This movie should be avoided - the fact that people made some effort with such a terrible movie is really regrettable - don't compound that by watching it!

However if you are going to persist with it make sure you have something else to do at the same time.

The filming is poor, so much so that blood from the spiders splashes on the camera lens on occasion, the special effects - i.e. the spiders - are very poor and the acting is to be honest a waste of the actors' time. They will hopefully get better acting roles in the future.

For any prospective viewers, if you don't like the fun of looking at really poorly made movies, then maybe go for a walk ... just avoid the killer spiders!