ITSY BITSY (2019)

I’m a sucker for a good giant monster movie and after seeing the trailer for ITSY BITSY (2019) I was instantly intrigued but sadly what I was given is not as interesting as I would have hoped.  Kara Spencer (Elizabeth Roberts), is a down on her luck nurse whose just uprooted her two children to move to a new town for a job taking care of Walter Clark (Bruce Davison), who is an eccentric collector of exotic items which includes a relic that houses a spider goddess.  When the relic is broken, the spider goddess is released and sets out to kill.

The visual and practical FX for the spider is great!  The problem is that the spider doesn’t really do much in the film as the film itself is more concerned with telling a good myth regarding the spider goddess and more concerned with family dysfunction of the main characters and their secrets.  This is all great background for characters but what you want in a giant monster movie is the scares, the fun, and the absurdity that comes with this genre of film.  Instead, the film is very much a drama until the action is kicked into high gear in the third act which for some may too late.

If you do stick with the film the third act is at least entertaining with the film never getting too boring it just won’t be what you are expecting.  Davison does an excellent job as the character responsible for all the background info about the spider goddess and the rest of the cast is equally good but the film-makers themselves may have just been trying too hard to make a film with actual real life characters with problems and conflicts.  These conflicts just don’t fit in a giant spider film.

Film Review: ICE SPIDERS (2007)

Director Tibor Takacs’ Ice Spiders (2007) is about as ludicrous and entertaining as most of his films having been directed the cult favorites The Gate (1987) and its sequel Gate 2 (1990) and I, Madman (1989), among many others.  The biggest fault with his films in this modern day and age is the over reliance on CGI good, bad, and otherwise.  You get a lot of the otherwise in this film.

The film concerns former ski bum Dash Dashiell (Patrick Muldoon) whose fed up with teaching rich people at the ski resort the “fine art” of skiing when they would rather just be having a good time.  When Dr. April Sommers (Vanessa Williams) military science experiment of deadly mutated spiders decides to jump ship from the secret government laboratory on the mountain everyone’s lives are nothing more than spider-food.  Unbeknownst to Sommers her spiders were injected with a growth hormone to speed up their growth and aggression and now they are bigger, stronger, and more deadly than she could have possibly imagined.  And did I also mention that the cold has no effect on them whatsoever?

Now Sommers must team up with Dashiell to protect the survivors on the mountain and find a way to outsmart and kill the giant spiders before they all become spider-food.  The whole film is pretty ludicrous but Muldoon and Williams are game and keep the film entertaining even through all the bad CGI spiders.  Even legendary producer Stephen J. Cannell (The Rockford Files, 21 Jump Street, The A-Team, and Stingray, to name a few) shows up in a major supporting role as the owner of the ski resort. 

Overall the film is pretty bad and a far cry from Takacs’ previous ‘80s films but he still knows how to entertain regardless.

Movie Review: SPIDERS (2013)

Spiders (2013) is one of those films where the trailer advertises it in 3D and its gets you excited because giant spiders coming out of the screen is the perfect way to spend an evening.  Too bad all the excitement was left in the trailer as this is a subpar horror film mainly because the film makers forgot that any film about a giant spider should first be fun and entertaining.  

 

When a Russian lab in space comes crashing down to the city a deadly breed of spider that has been genetically altered takes up residence in the city sewers and subway system.  The spider starts to breed uncontrollably feeding at first on the street people before moving onto bigger prey.  Only an estranged husband (played by Patrick Muldoon) stands in the way of a military cover-up that will see the birth of a super-spider which will advance military weapons division by decades (by producing virtually indestructible webbing).  Sounds like B-movie giant spider goodness to me except the film makers decide to play the material too serious by making Muldoon’s character trying to save his wife (Christa Campbell) and teenage daughter before the giant spiders completely over take the city.  

What’s missing from the film is any sense of fun – it’s a giant spider movie!  The breed of spider crafted for the film is actually interesting but like the remake of Piranha (2010), which was a fun movie, there has to be more than just a cool creature to carry the film.  There was lots of entertainment and fun to be had in the Piranha film but here the whole film is uninspired and cliché with very little thought put into crafting interesting scenes.  This is surprising considering that the director Tibor Takacs was the man behind the better than expected The Gate (1987) and I, Madman (1989) which were both fun and entertaining.  Even Takacs subpar sequel The Gate II (1990) was more fun than this dud.

Another annoyance is that the film is filled with dumb characters that do dumb things which if it happens once it’s fine but if it continuously happens throughout it’s just the film makers being lazy and not dotting the “I”s and crossing the “T”s.  A case in point is the fact that the main characters are constantly passing by guns and weapons left behind by dead soldiers (killed by the spiders) but never picking any of them up to defend themselves from the spiders.  The main character also continuously enters into the subway where he knows the spiders are breeding with complete disregard and let’s not forget that by the end of the film the city should be ravaged by giant spiders but once the big bad mama spider is defeated the rest of them just disappear as if it was all just a nightmare.  Where did all the other spiders go?  These may seem like small details to some but it’s these small details that become more annoying as the film drags along (and it does drag).  The CGI is laughable at times, which means that the 3D version probably wouldn’t have been that good and to make matters worse is the fact that none of the actors seem like they’re having fun in the film.  The film is about GIANT SPIDERS!  How can you not see the fun in that?  Eight Legged Freaks (2002) and Tarantula (1955) and even Arachnid (2001) were more fun that this film and if you want normal sized spiders then there’s always Kingdom of the Spiders (1977) and Arachnophobia (1990).

This is a film to bypass and just wait for the more fun and entertaining (at least title wise) Big Ass Spider (2013) which will see release later this year.