FREAKS AND TREATS
by Ed Owens

Although I've never been too drunk to fish, I know exactly where Jim Stafford's childhood sweetheart was coming from...at least partially - neither of us are particularly fond of spiders (she dislikes snakes as well, but I can live with them). Unlike phobias in the movies, mine can't be traced back to any childhood trauma: no dead mother in a mineshaft, no near death experience at the beach, and certainly no spiders in the park dressed as Abraham Lincoln. In fact, the more I think about it rationally, the less I understand our failed attempts at cohabitation. To put it quite simply, something about them just creeps me out.

Actually, I wouldn't really call it a phobia...more of strong dislike, a gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach that begins building whenever I see one, until I explode in a rage of fiery hatred and raise my arms to call down the holy wrath of the almighty in the form of a searing rain of sulfur to cleanse the earth of the wretched beings wrought by his, or her, hand.

A shoe also works.

Granted, using a shoe assumes the natural order of things, that the spider is a fraction of my size and small enough for me to handily beat in a footrace. I'm not a very good shot, so throwing the shoe is out of the question. Knowing my luck, I wouldn't even stun it, which leaves me in the awkward position of having to retrieve the shoe from within mere inches of an alert - and now pissed off - arachnid. It only took losing one pair for me to learn that lesson (fool me once...). Of course, the natural order of things is nowhere to be seen in Eight Legged Freaks!. Aside from the missing hyphen, there's also contaminated water, super crickets, and a relatively restrained performance by David Arquette, all clues that we're not in Kansas anymore.

Actually, we're in Prosperity, Arizona, a small, desert town down on its luck thanks to a financially bankrupt mine and a morally bankrupt mayor. Seems the new-fangled shopping mall and the New Age ostrich farm, both of which were thought up by the mayor, have failed to stimulate the local economy, leaving Prosperity's odd assortment of quirky townsfolk holding out for a hero. Instead, they get Chris (Arquette), the prodigal son of the recently deceased mine owner, who blows into town with visions of gold in them thar hills. Also in them thar hills is a truckload of toxic waste, hurtling towards its date with destiny and a particulary cute bunny.

Fans of 50's horror can already see the gears moving: Prosperity also happens to be home to an exotic spider farm whose residents feed on the crickets who live by the side of the pond into which a wayward barrel of toxic waste will eventually fall. Eight Legged Freaks makes no attempt to distance itself from its camp roots, but embraces them like a long lost sibling. First time writer/director Ellory Elkayem plays with and off of the genre with a contagious affection, serving up deliciously post-modern camp without the smugness that has drained many post-modern films of their life and charm. Elkayem doesn't hit his stride right away (the first twenty minutes tend to meander), but once he does - with a remarkable desert chase featuring dirt-bike riding teens and fast moving jumping spiders - he sets a perfect tone and energy that propels the film easily through to its climax.

Shakespeare it ain't, but it is good, campy fun. Arquette was my biggest concern going in, but, as I mentioned earlier, he is remarkably restrained. The rest of the ensemble cast (including Kari Wuhrer as the town's sheriff, Scott Terra and Scarlett Johansson as her children, and scene-stealing Doug E. Doug and Rick Overton as a pirate radio conspiracy theorist and a dimwitted deputy, respectively) has a lot of fun with the material, which translates well to the audience. Best of all, Freaks is often clever and silly without being sophmoric, a line few films have attempted successfully in recent memory. Elkayem knows his source material, both old (Them!, Tarantula) and new (Tremors), weaving in enough references and homages to keep you guessing.

If I had to complain, I would say that the anthropomorphism of the spiders doesn't always work (their noises come awfully close to those of cartoon characters at times) and the special effects aren't always seamless. Yet both of these things actually contribute to the overall tone of the film. Phobias aside, I enjoyed Eight Legged Freaks a great deal (though not nearly as much as Gremlins 2, with which Freaks shares its darkly silly sense of humor), a film that revels in its own excesses and gleefully invites you to join in. I certainly did...

...though my hand was never far from my shoe.

©2002 Ed Owens
CineScene