Editorials
‘Eight Legged Freaks’ Remains a Criminally Overlooked Horror Comedy
In the early 2000s, America was in dire need of a good time, and Ellory Elkayem brought it in spades with what is one of the most criminally overlooked monster comedies of all time.
Eight Legged Freaks came to the big screen from the indie director in 2002. Elkayem had mined the idea from a black and white short film from 1997 entitled Larger than Life. I vividly remember watching the short on the Sci Fi Channel series “Exposure,” where Elkayem unveiled the short for audiences and revealed he was working on a big screen adaptation.
When the big screen adaptation eventually did hit theaters, another spider-oriented film (a certain Mr. Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man) completely consumed pop culture that same year, prompting Eight Legged Freaks to be generally pushed aside and forgotten. Despite the TV ads drawing humor from the Sam Raimi blockbuster, Eight Legged Freaks never quite caught on, and has lived on as a genuinely unappreciated hybrid of giant monster movies, giant bug movies, horror, and comedy.
David Arquette is the unlikely hero Chris, who returns to his hometown of Prosperity, Arizona, a small dusky land that’s built on an abandoned mine. Chris, who has returned after leaving a decade before, hopes to reconnect with the love of his life Samantha who is now the Sheriff. He is surprised to learn that the town mayor Wade wants to restructure the place for the sake of tourism and bringing in new town folks. Building a new mall against the will of the town, Wade proposes either shutting down the town or moving elsewhere.
As Wade continues underhanded deals, a barrel of toxic waste falls into a local reservoir affecting the wildlife, including the crickets. When local spider collector Joshua feeds the crickets to his gallery of deadly and rare spiders, they ingest the toxic waste and begin growing to horrific size. After preying on Joshua, the now predatory and hungry giant spiders make their way through Prosperity, kidnapping various members of the town, dragging them into the abandoned mines. Now with the town being overrun by the giant spiders, it’s up to Chris, Samantha, her kids Mike and Ashley, hapless Deputy Pete, and local conspiracy theorist Harlan to convince locals of the looming threat and put a stop to them before the monsters spread out into other towns.
Elkayem shifts the setting and tone from Larger than Life a bit for a more contemporary setting, as opposed to the fifties chic short, and the change benefits the film a great deal. Eight Legged Freaks is a fast paced throwback to the classic monster movies of the nuclear age that always has its thumb on the pulse of what make these movies so much damn fun. While Arquette mostly plays the role with a straight face, most of the horror and comedy comes from the vicious spiders, all of whom have a huge appetite, and murmur to one another (voices provided by the immortal Frank Welker). Writers Elkayem and Jesse Alexander bring a lot of plot to the film’s script, but balance it out well, while never forgetting to deliver on some prime spider carnage.
With visual effects from CFX, Eight Legged Freaks embraces the traditional tropes of the schlocky science fiction films from the fifties, while also staging some genuinely creepy and vicious scenes of spider carnage. Among them, there’s a tense chase scene where a group of dirt bikers flee from hungry jumping spiders, a close encounter with a giant tarantula on a police car, and a big fight between a house cat and a scout spider inside a wall. And who can forget the big turn of events where daughter Ashley is pinned and covered by the webbing of a giant orb weaver spider? Eight Legged Freaks is low budget, but the charm lies in the obviously-somewhat-dated computer animation that brings the arachnid monsters to life.
Not to mention that Elkayem is able to build a fun cast that contributes to the energy a great deal. Along with horror veterans Kari Wuhrer and Tom Noonan, Arquette (coming off of the Scream series) is joined by Scarlett Johansson, before she became a blockbuster star. The cast collectively garners excellent chemistry, each of them portraying smart and sensible protagonists who almost always display common sense during this extraordinary circumstance. In fact, most of the basis for defeating these giant spiders relies on young hero Mike’s encyclopedic knowledge of arachnids, which allows the humans the upper hand… however temporary.
True, Eight Legged Freaks adheres to a ton of the great and memorable monster movie tropes, but writers Elkayem and Alexander also restructure a lot of the classic character archetypes that we’re used to seeing in this kind of movie. Arquette plays the hero, but he’s more of an every guy, all the while Kari Wuhrer’s turn as sheriff Samantha Parker is a great precursor to a lot of the modern horror heroines who take on the monsters rather than run and hide. In fact most of the men in Eight Legged Freaks have little idea how to evade the giant spiders save for Samantha, who always has a plan in mind. One of the banner moments in her story arc shows the town folks fleeing from the spiders and hiding out in the abandoned mall, all the while Samantha and deputy Pete hold the fort with her handy shotgun in tow. This leads in to one of the greatest mall sieges since the climax of Romero’s Dawn of the Dead.
With such a solid cast, a score by John Ottman, “X-Files” director of photography John Bartley working on the speedy film shoot, and producing duties going to Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich, Eight Legged Freaks seemed like a formula for a hit. Sadly, Elkayem’s pet project barely made a dent commercially and was ushered off to a pretty measly home DVD release. It’s a shame, because Eight Legged Freaks has everything for just about everyone, and doesn’t mind poking fun at itself from time to time. It’s deserving of a second look, especially in a film climate where audiences are once again welcoming of giant monster movies like Big Ass Spider! and Kong: Skull Island.
Editorials
Tales from ‘Tales from the Crypt’: Exhuming The Final Season’s “A Slight Case of Murder” Episode
All good things must come to an end—yes, even Tales from the Crypt (1989–1996). That iconic horror show finally concluded after airing ninety-three episodes. As we all know, traditional anthologies aren’t too common to see on TV anymore, much less be that long, so this kind of endurance is even more impressive.
Now, I would be remiss to not bring up how very off that last season felt, in comparison to past ones. If not for the Crypt Keeper’s bookends, it was like a different show at that point. Essentially, it was when you assessed how much had changed. Producer Gilbert Adler was responsible for those divisive renovations; his moving production to England was an attempt to give Crypt “a shot in the arm”. What he instead did was create obstacles for both himself and the series. Some could be overcome, whereas others were less yielding.
Fans decry Season Seven, but in all fairness, Season Six wasn’t all roses, either. And like Six, Seven does have a few bright spots. The move to merry England couldn’t completely undo what we love about the series. Yes, there was a decline in gore; the dial had especially been turned down on those big, bloody conclusions we all love. It must be said, though, that the final season was hardly the only one to be gruesome-lite. Plenty of past episodes also did without copious amounts of the red stuff.
At the time, traveling abroad may not have been seen as a bad thing. The new season was off to a strong start, based on favorable reactions to the premiere. The Natasha Richardson-starring opener, “Fatal Caper” (Bob Hoskins, Colman deKay, A. L. Katz, Gilbert Adler), is as ridiculous as it is clever. However, it would soon become apparent that not everything to come in Season Seven was up to the same standards as that first episode. It was going to be a bumpy ride, to say the least.
Most will agree that the seventh season wasn’t a complete bust. The blood-soaked “Horror in the Night” (Russell Mulcahy, John Harrison) is atmospheric and trippy; there, a jewel thief (James Wilby) experiences a nightmarish evening while hiding out in a haunted hotel. Then there is what many consider to be the season’s standout, and perhaps even the last great episode of the series. In the gritty “Confession” (Peter Hewitt, Scott Nimerfro), a detective (Ciarán Hinds) suspects a screenwriter (Eddie Izzard) is behind a string of murders. Although it is a strange way to end things, “The Third Pig” (Bill Kopp, Pat Ventura) also has its admirers; this animated entry is a demented new spin on the classic fairytale “The Three Little Pigs“, as opposed to anything out of EC Comics‘ vault.
Another fine episode is “A Slight Case of Murder”, which I find a bit lighthearted for Tales from the Crypt. In spite of all the killing, of course. It also makes good use of the scenery change; an upside of the show’s relocation is the real estate. A Tudor-style home sits at the heart of this amusing episode, written and directed by Brian Helgeland (A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, 976-EVIL). Cozy mystery lovers should be quite smitten with the story’s choice of venue.
A common complaint about Season Seven is its lack of star power. Gone were the days when anyone who was anyone in Hollywood stopped by and played a role. That said, it wasn’t as if the series was now just hiring nobodies off the street; the problem was that many American viewers weren’t as familiar with the new casts. “A Slight Case of Murder” was such a case, given how Francesca Annis, Elizabeth Spriggs, and Christopher Cazenove weren’t exactly household names in the States. Naturally, the English would have an easier time recognizing the leads of this and other Season Seven episodes.
“A Slight Case of Murder” is an example of a crabby author getting what’s coming to them. Generally speaking, the horror genre has never cared much for depictions of kind writers. And here, Annis plays that rather irritable novelist whose next bestseller is at risk of being published posthumously. After brilliantly insulting her neighbor, an aspiring author named Mrs. Trask (Spriggs), Sharon Bannister detects a prowler. She then takes no comfort knowing the intruder is just her ex (Cazenove). He’s not here to reminisce about old times.
The last page from “A Slight Case of Murder!”, as seen in EC Comics’ The Vault of Horror.
The episode, while amusing, feels like it belongs in another anthology. The one I’m thinking of, on account of the British actors and the story being centered around jealousy, is Tales of the Unexpected. That series, by the way, also eventually went overseas; some later episodes cast Americans and were set in the U.S. So, yes, “A Slight Case of Murder” isn’t a thing like classic Crypt, but it is awfully charming.
By now, no one should be shocked to learn that an episode of Tales from the Crypt is different from its basis. In fact, the “A Slight Case of Murder!” found in EC’s The Vault of Horror bears no resemblance to Helgeland’s adaptation. An old doctor returns to his hometown to solve a bunch of murders—the victims were all women. At each crime, there was no sign of a break-in, seeing as how the women’s doors and windows were locked from the inside. The sheriff says the only other way in, in one case, was a hot-air vent. He concludes no human could have fit through that, but the doctor suggests the culprit is “not an ordinary human”.
The doctor meets with the sheriff at an old house formerly known as the Bates Mansion. Yet before revealing the killer’s identity, the doctor tells a story about a local widow named Amelia Bates. After her newborn turned out to be—and I’m merely quoting writers Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein—a “misshapen monster”, Amelia asked the doctor to tell everyone her child was a stillborn. She kept that underdeveloped, slithering boy a secret from everyone; only the doctor knew.
Years later, that same child went on to murder a series of women. All of whom rejected his love. And who, pray tell, did that baby become? The town’s sheriff, that’s who! The last frame of the comic, one showing the sheriff’s hidden mechanical body, is so startling that it’s actually disappointing that Tales from the Crypt didn’t properly adapt this story. It would have fit in so well with the older seasons.
As they say in the biz, the show must go on—and Tales from the Crypt did just that, even when the quality had noticeably dropped. But like I always tell myself during the lesser episodes, any Crypt is still better than no Crypt.
Along with Seasons One through Six, Season Seven of Tales from the Crypt can be streamed on Shudder, starting on June 12.
A delightful shot from “A Slight Case of Murder” suggests Elizabeth Spriggs’ character, Mrs. Trask, is more devilish than she first seemed.
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