Eight Legged Freaks

Here’s another entry, along with a movie called Tucker and Dale vs. Evil that we just saw, in the rather small and specialized genre known as horror comedies. That one satirized the college-students-terrorized-and-slaughtered-by-inbred-hillbilly-psychopath movies. The best example of a horror comedy that I can think of is Shaun of the Dead, which spoofed zombie movies. This one takes the giant monster/giant insect movies that began in the 1950s, like Them! (One of the all-time great titles, in my opinion, and not a bad little movie.) Only with the CGI available in 2002 they can have a thousand spiders instead of a dozen creaky old giant ant models, and if you are creeped out (though not quite phobic) by spiders like I am, it is a little itchy and crawly to watch. Because these spiders move fast, they don’t dawdle like the giant spiders in old movies like Tarantula. And they look damn real. It is all very silly, of course, but I thought they did a good job of it. We enjoyed it. Scarlett Johansson, who looks very young (she was eighteen) has a supporting role. The movie was made the year before she got her breakout role in Lost in Translation.