5 out of 5

Director: John ‘Bud’ Cardos

It seems like most people’s experiences with this film (those who liked it) are similar to mine: that the ending still sticks out as a shocker, and that when you were younger, you remember loving the banana-hooey out of it. Does it work when you’re older? Well, the beginning is a lot slower and more innuendo filled than I recall – the latter, sure, I didn’t grasp, but the former – how did I make it through it as a kid? Because I remember watching this film over and over and over and forcing it on friends… how did they make it through? Our introduction to town animal doc “Rack”, played by William Shatner, as he investigates some odd deaths which causes him to call in a specialist – Tiffany Bolling as Ashley – gives us the telltale “the spiders done did it” signs with typical creature-feature POV camera work, but its still a crawl to get to the real danger, at about the hour mark. But once it hits… it’s a weird blend of LAWD that’s creepy (because as remarked these were a lot of real spiders… with some rubber ones thrown in the crowd scenes) and then LAWD that’s so frenzied awesomely stupid… it just jumps from nothing to 100 in a scene, and it’s a lot of fun. It really is such an intense turnaround – with that awesome ending – that it washes away memories of a boring beginning. I guess THAT’S how I made it through as a kid as well. Harumph.