Eight legs, two fangs and an attitude.
A large spider from the jungles of South America is accidentally transported in a crate with a dead body to America where it mates with a local spider. Soon after, the residents of a small California town disappear as the result of spider bites from the deadly spider offspring. It's up to a couple of doctors with the help of an insect exterminator to annihilate these eight legged freaks.
- Animal harm
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Character
Classical in form, resolved, effortless and contemporary.
- classical in formformally daring
- resolvedopen-ended
- effortlessdemanding
- contemporarynostalgic
- character-ledplot-driven
Who loves it, who doesn't
53 profiled raters. Loved most by The Archivists; disliked most by The Prestige Hunters.
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“Is Jeff Daniels the best thing in Arachnophobia?”
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“Is it actually scary?”
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“Would Arachnophobia hit harder if it came out today rather than in 1990?”
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A yes-or-no question, answered from what people wrote here, on TMDB and on Wikipedia. Never made up.
Reviews
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Reviews on TMDB
Written by TMDB members; each links to the original. Not part of Tastebuds's numbers.
- John Chardon TMDB · Oct 20197/10
The itsy-bitsy spider crawled up the water spout; down came the rain and washed the spider out. When a photographer is bitten and killed by a spider in the Venezuelan jungle, his body is shipped back to his home town of Canaima in California. Unfortunately something has hitched a ride in his coffin... Mixing "B" movie conventions with a modern day fun sensibility, Arachnophobia sees Frank Marshall direct and Jeff Daniels, Julian Sands, John Goodman and Harley Jane Kozak line up in the cast. Though horror and comedy on the surface doesn't seem to be a that hard to blend together, it's actually surprising over the years just how few horror comedy movies can claim to be successful, and crucially, have been able to to win over a like minded audience. In fact, if we move away from the likes of "Sean Of The Dead", the "B" movie creature feature, especially in modern times, has few offerings of worth. We can certainly mention the awesome (and best of the modern bunch) "Tremors", which turned a small Worldwide profit, and then we turn to "Lake Placid" and "Arachnophobia". Both of the latter made considerable amounts of cash (for the genre) and are propelled by a degree of star wattage. Wha
Read the whole review on TMDB - kevin2019on TMDB · Jun 20268/10
"Arachnophobia" is structured along reasonably simplistic lines and it is obviously geared more towards squeezing every last second of excitement and tension from the climatic sequences when the arachnids are out in the open for the first time. The unheralded spider unit responsible for achieving all these terrific sequences must be wholeheartedly congratulated for some sterling work with the spiders scuttling around all over the place and you are never quite sure exactly where or when they will make a startling and unwelcome appearance and usually with deadly results, but don't despair too much. This is a well paced piece of entertainment throughout and it will leave you scratching your head - in the best and certainly in the most satisfying way possible.
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Cast
- Jeff DanielsRoss Jennings
- Harley Jane KozakMolly Jennings
- John GoodmanDelbert McClintock
- Julian SandsDr. James Atherton
- Brian McNamaraChris Collins
- Stuart PankinSheriff Parsons
- Henry JonesDr. Sam Metcalf
- Peter JasonHenry Beechwood
- Mark L. TaylorJerry Manley
- James HandyMilton Briggs
Crew
- Frank MarshallDirector
- Don JakobyScreenplay
- Wesley StrickScreenplay
- Mikael SalomonDirector of Photography
- Trevor JonesOriginal Music Composer
- Michael KahnEditor
- Kathleen KennedyProducer
- Richard VaneProducer
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Pairings
Companions we picked from the closest works, and how to take them.
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Often watched with
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