Any movie that comes bearing a highly specific and incredibly niche concept is always going to end up being compared to its spiritual predecessors, but it would have helped had Eight Legged Freaks at least tried to differentiate itself from Hollywood’s back catalogue of giant spider terrors.
Co-writer and director Ellory Elkayem does admittedly make a point of paying homage to the classics, but reinventing the wheel even the slightest doesn’t really seem to be on the agenda. If you’ve seen one tale of humongous arachnids wreaking havoc on smalltown America then you’ve seen ’em all, so at least people got exactly what they were expecting.
In the case of Eight Legged Freaks, though, that wasn’t exactly a positive. In fact, it was a marked disappointment all-round after earning a disappointing $45 million at the box office on a $30 million budget, while respective Rotten Tomatoes scores of 47 and 33 percent from critics and crowds didn’t even elevate the film into “so bad it’s actually kinda good” territory.
Instead, it’s been left to lurk in the background to spin a web of cult classic adulation, something that’s been proven as a worthwhile exercise based on the response to a celebratory Reddit thread. Eight Legged Freaks isn’t good, but it definitely does possess some entertainment factor if you’re in the mood for watching the inevitable shenanigans that follow a chemical spill mutating regular-sized spiders into hulking beasts with nothing but death on their mind.
Obviously, Arachnophobia is right there if you want an identical adventure that’s genuinely great, but Eight Legged Freaks does tick all of the exact same boxes regardless.
Published: May 27, 2023 01:33 am