Arachnoquake.

If Cockneys vs Zombies is able to be a genuinely good, well made film even despite a title that seems to have it destined for the Poundland DVD shelf, then this film has no excuse. Also, as an aside, I wrote a large bulk of this post on my new Nexus 10, mainly to test out if typing on a tablet touchscreen is really as horrible as people have said. And I can report that for the Nexus 10 at least, it's a joy to type with. The buttons are big and spaced out, you can set it so the thing vibrates and makes sounds to give you feedback so you can type as quickly and as fluidly as you can on a keyboard. I mean it isn't quite as nice to type on as an actual keyboard but it's a huge step up from trying to use the touchpad on my Lumia. It's just a shame the Blogger app is so awful that I have to come on here to polish my posts.

In 2001, back when it was still called the Sci-Fi channel, a man called Thomas P. Vitale spearheaded an original SyFy film company which specialised in independent B-Movies. According to Wikipedia the films have a budget of at most $2, even despite how bad they are, I find that a little hard to believe. No matter how awful a film turns out to be, a herculean amount of work needs to go into them to get them finished, a lot of work most people don't really think about, especially with films like this. This is also normally reflected in the production costs, in movies fifty thousand is considered low budget, I'd be lucky to make that in my life time. Although SyFy have largely abandoned trying to suggest these films will actually be any good and instead have chosen to push the 'escapism' and 'fun' angles instead, they have nonetheless made several hundred of these films over the last decade, each one original in some sense and they largely work with independent production companies.

Okay, so I could summarise the plot but the title really does it for me. It's called Arachnoquake, so you better believe it's centred around an earthquake that unleashes spiders. Not just any old spiders either, they are giant, fire breathing ones, fuck yeah! Oh yeah and there is this vague green peaceesque message tacked on as sort of subtext too. Let's not give the thing too much credit.

The acting in this film is awful, the lines feel rushed like the actors haven't learnt them properly and aren't quite comfortable, which shows bad direction. Then again with the amount of these kind of films director Griff Furst has done by now, I can't help but feel that maybe that was his intention. Why that would be his intention however is another question entirely and one I do not have an answer too. And to be fair to him, even if they did deliver the lines with more confidence, the actors are so wooden anyway it probably wouldn't have made a difference. Plus, the characters really are very unlikable, if you ever spend a film where you want to punch most of the main characters in the face the whole way through, you know you the film has problems.

To be fair to the special effects, CGI only really last year started to come together as a decent way of doing special effects in my mind. CGI in its very nature doesn't look realistic and since the technology is constantly advancing, what looks photo realistic at the time of production is already looking pretty dated by the time of its release. With practical effects actually being really there, with a bit of make up and camera magic to hide the seams, it was a lot easier to fake reality, especially if you've established a certain amount of goofiness in your film in the first place. So I won't really say that the CGI in this film is really any more terrible than most CGI in films in the last decade, I mean hell even rewatching blockbusters from like four or five years ago, it's almost mind blowing just how poorly the CGI has aged. And this didn't cost two hundred million to produce, either. Really the main thing that cheapens the CGI is the colours and patterns, they styled the spiders in such a way that they look a lot like what a game does before the textures pop in.

That isn't to say it's all good though, given that they can constantly recycle the spider effects with just a few extra effects shots thrown in, rather than having to constantly rebuild the effect, the film never really has a lot of fun with itself. Sure there is a certain amount of goofy fun but the film never really explores all the fun ways you could take down the spiders. This was just a shame for me because in the very nature of a film like this and the ease that CGI effects provide should mean people are allowed to explore really creative ideas and this film doesn't really. Ironically I think the people die more creatively than they kill things. What there is though is some surprisingly disgusting body horror, if you manage to watch this film without getting itchy, then I take my hat off to you sir/madam.

Although yes, it is a film where the title is a detailed plot summary and it is full of horrible characters, the film is surprisingly well written, this becomes pretty obvious when it comes to pacing. It is by no stretch a long film but you'd be surprised just how many low-budget features rely on padding even to get over the hour mark, so I was really impressed when I found no flab at all. It is all carefully paced to build atmosphere and leads to a pretty explosive conclusion albeit one straining under a tiny budget. It's just a shame the film keeps outsmarting itself.

What really took me by surprise is how serious it all gets, I know I've said in the past that goofy films like this can only work if they recognise how goofy they are but honestly I was pleasantly surprised by how dark this film could get, even being about giant fire breathing spiders. It really gave a sense of humanity both to the characters and the situation. I'm not saying it was the best decision or even necessarily the right one but it just deserves to be recognised that this film can get serious without feeling insincere or corny.

I don't know much about the production, but it does seem at times that they shot this on location without telling anyone. I mean there are scenes of extras running away and so on, but also lots of shots of a New Orleans which is meant to have been rocked by a giant earthquake and spider attacks where the people on the street and the drivers in the background seem to be very casual about it, almost as if they are going about their daily business, unbeknownst that they are being filmed...

I could complain that this film wasn't scary, because it wasn't, well minus the spiders laying eggs in people...that was disgusting. But honestly I don't think the film ever planned to be scary, aside from those few serious moments this is basically a '50s drive-in feature done with modern sensibilities and I really dug it for that.

So do I recommend it? It takes a certain kind of person to appreciate what Arachnoquake has to offer and as I am one of those certain kinds of people, I felt that what you end up with is nothing great but certainly a bit better than the destined for the Poundland DVD shelf title. It wasn't quite as impressive as Cockneys vs Zombies but that film set the bar ridiculously high. So I won't all out recommend it but I do certainly feel this film could have turned out a whole lot worse. Take from that, what you will.

Think About It!

Locke, the world's worst film snob.