A large spider from the jungles of South America is accidentally transported in a crate with a dead body to America where it mates with a local spider. Soon after, the residents of a small California town disappear as the result of spider bites from the deadly spider offspring. It's up to a couple of doctors with the help of an insect exterminator to annihilate these eight legged freaks.
It's a one-joke movie, a funhouse ride, the cinematic equivalent of having a rubber spider thrown in your lap. But it doesn't matter if you reject the wispy script or the plot, which has as much substance as a spider's web; you'll jump every time.
– Joe Brown,
Washington Post,
1 Jan 2000
fresh:
That sound you hear in the background is the ''ugh!'' heard round the world. Luckily, ''Arachnophobia'' will also be generating its share of boisterous, nervous laughter.
– Janet Maslin,
New York Times,
20 May 2003
fresh:
Designed to reduce the audience to a squirming mass, the film yields plenty of grisly pleasures.
– Geoff Andrew,
Time Out,
24 Jun 2006
fresh:
First-time director Frank Marshall has long been Steven Spielberg's producer, and he's learned the master's lessons well.
– David Ansen,
Newsweek,
7 Apr 2008
fresh:
Frank Marshall's sophisticated feature directing debut never indulges in ultimate gross-out effects and carefully chooses both its victims and its means of depicting their dispatch.