'Eight Legged Freaks' is just crawling with big fun

With a title like "Eight Legged Freaks," no one is going to mistake this guns-and-gooey-green-spider-guts mutant-creature feature for a meditation on the human condition.

MOVIE REVIEW

EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS

DIRECTOR: Ellory Elkayem

CAST: David Arquette, Kari Wuhrer, Scott Terra, Doug E. Doug, Scarlett Johansson

RUNNING TIME: 99 minutes

RATING: PG-13 for sci-fi violence, brief sexuality and language

WHERE: Alderwood 7, Cinema 17, Crossroads, East Valley, Factoria, Galleria 11, Gateway 8, Issaquah 9, Kent 6, Lewis & Clark, Mountlake 9, Oak Tree, Pacific Place, Redmond Town Center, Valley 6 Drive-in, Varsity, Woodinville 12

GRADE: B

In a nutshell, a toxic waste management company has been secretly making premature deposits in an isolated economic dust bowl of a desert mining town, one of which ends up floating in the local swamp. Whoops, the radioactive goop turns swamp crickets into, in the words of a harmless but slightly ghoulish entomologist (an uncredited Tom Noonan), "spider steroids" for the hundreds of specimens on his exotic spider farm.

Think '50s sci-fantasy "Tarantula" dosed with "Gremlins," a high-spirited updating of the old giant-insect-rampage flicks that doesn't so much make fun of the classic genre as have fun with it.

Taking on arachnid-exterminator duties are David Arquette, the black sheep son who's come home to take on the bankrupt legacy of his gold-miner dad, and Kari Wuhrer as his would-be sweetie, Sam, a single mom who puts the life lessons of past mistakes to work as the crack-shot county sheriff. Arquette's trademark twitches and spastic energy are under tight rein, but there's still something askew about the guy, which fits the off-center humor and knowing attitude in director Ellory Elkayem's on-the-edge-of-spoof style.

"You won't believe me because I'm the kid, and they never believe the kid," complains the sheriff's son, spider-nut Mike (Scott Terra), as he tries to warn everyone about the coming invasion. That about captures the tone, a well-balanced mix of funhouse roller-coaster ride, winking in-joke, and creepy-crawly menace gone large.


Giant spiders are on the loose in the summer romp "Eight Legged Freaks."

The spiders, who get to show their stuff in the opening scenes, are creepy enough at actual size, but pumped up to Volkswagen dimension they're like the bugs of "Starship Troopers" turned into furry feral guerrilla warriors.

They skitter, hop, leap, ambush from underground pits, and cocoon their human victims with a speed that put all those sedate, snail-pace giant spider films of old to shame, yet never lose that scrabbly sense of arachnid movement. These digitally hatched creatures have style and character, and they practically giggle with cartoonlike howls and quizzical coos.

"Eight Legged Freaks" is a B-movie-and-proud-of-it thrill ride, probably the best of its kind since "Tremors." It does just what a good creature feature is supposed to do: It entertains with laughs, gasps, gooey spectacle and a bemused sense of fun.