Face-Off: Kingdom of the Spiders vs. Arachnophobia

Another killer spider infestation, another small American town. This time it’s Canaima, California, the sort of place where everybody knows each other and everyone is mixed up in each other’s business. The residents are also quick to turn against outsiders. There’s a reason there were no songs written about how nice this place is; if a town were to get eradicated by super spiders, Canaima, California is the sort of place you wouldn’t mind to see go. The only problem is, where would the spiders go after Canaima is gone?

Rather than give a boost to (and possibly tarnish the reputation of) existing spiders, the makers of ARACHNOPHOBIA decided to create their own arachnid: a hybrid of a very lethal spider just discovered in the rainforests of Venezuela, a specimen of which hitches a ride to California with a corpse, and some sort of domestic spider. The result is a new species of spider that can cause death with just one bite. Thanks to advances in special effects, they didn’t only let some spiders loose on the set, either. Some of these spiders are standout individuals. Specifically, there is a General and a Queen that need to be located, and we can tell these two apart from the drones that do most of the running around.

Jeff Daniels is incredibly endearing as the lead character, arachnophobic doctor Ross Jennings. Ross and his wife Molly have just brought their children to Canaima to escape the crime and grime of the big city, and the Jennings are a nice bunch. Nearly everyone else in Canaima is a pain; the obstinate older doctor, the bully turned police officer, the blabbermouth mortician, the fitness-obsessed family. The entomologist who discovered the Venezuelan spider isn’t so appealing, either. However, we do get the great John Goodman as quirky exterminator Delbert McClintock, and his presence makes up for a lot of the annoyance caused by others.

ARACHNOPHBIA’s spiders don’t need as much help in the creepiness department as KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS’ tarantulas did. Director Frank Marshall does eventually follow Cardos’s lead and send a whole bunch of the spiders at his characters at once, but the fact that just one bite from one of these little things can kill a person makes each of them extremely creepy. All you need is to see one of them crawling in the vicinity of a person and a feeling of unease sets in. These things are everywhere – in slippers and helmets, inside toilets, jumping on your face in the shower – and are much more lethal than the tarantulas… And yet no one shoots themselves in the hand because of them, even though it would have been more warranted this time. To make up for it, there’s an equally ridiculous moment involving a nailgun.

It takes a long time for the town of Canaima to accept that they’re being invaded by killer spiders, so there aren’t that many tactics used against the arachnids. Delbert McClintock sprays and crushes any spider that crosses his path, but the characters are able to deduce that there is one way to wipe out this species before it spreads around the world. The spiders have a hierarchy, and that is their weakness. All that has to be done is that the General and the Queen spiders have to be destroyed, and that will put an end to this. No more of these spiders will be born. The ARACHNOPHOBIA situation is less dire than the one in KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS.