It seems like every Friday night, the channel formerly known as Sci-Fi airs an original flick parodying the monster movies of yore. They’re consistently horrible, but people seem to get a kick outta them because they keep producing the damn things. Although Big Ass Spider! suffers from some of the same trappings of these turds (like abysmal CGI), Mike Mendez’s film is genuinely funny. I laughed with it, not at it. Anchored by a charming cast and relentless pace, this self-aware homage makes for a great party movie.
Greg Grunberg (Heroes) stars as Alex, an exterminator who’s used to dealing with skittish old ladies who blow the horn at the sight of any creepy crawly they may see. After being bitten by a brown recluse on the job, he heads to a hospital where a fresh corpse has just been taken into the morgue. This corpse contains an alien-spider hybrid that starts out the size of a dog, then gradually grows into a 100 ft. rampaging monstrosity. Aided by Mexican security guard Jose (Lombardo Boyar), Alex takes on the mutant arachnid while an Army major played by Ray Wise looks important. Don’t sweat the details, just go along with it, man.
Once Alex and Jose team up, the film essentially becomes a buddy-comedy, which Evan pointed out in his review as well. And it really is funny. Grunberg is charming as hell, ya can’t help but root for the guy. I like that he’s chubby too. Not enough leading men in action flicks have real weight on them. His average American stature makes Alex more sympathetic, more accessible. Also, I’m fat so I like seeing fat people in movies.
I’m not familiar with this Lombardo Boyar guy at all (he did some voices in those Happy Feet movies) but he’s funny as all hell. Jose is Alex’s straight man, delivering a hysterical series of deadpan lines and reactions. I especially liked the parts before the spider became big ass, and Alex and Jose are hunting it in the hospital. There’s something about a small Mexican man expressing his fear of spiders I find hysterical. The majority of the film’s most entertaining moments come from him and Alex exchanging quips, of which there are a lot of. The key to the film’s success is their palpable relationship.
Like I mentioned earlier, the CGI is terrible. The spider itself looks like a Playstation 2 era animation and there’s some dreadful green screen peppered throughout. These were budgetary constraints, of course, and luckily the film’s humor and self-awareness distracts from the shitty look.
Big Ass Spider! may not have a place on the shelf next to the classic monster movies, but shit, at least put it on the shelf below with all of the go-to Saturday night drinking films. It’s a satisfying film that knows what it is, knows how you like your buddy-comedy-monster-movies, and doesn’t strive to be anything else.
Special Features: The DVD comes with a bunch of special features, including cast interviews, a SXSW featurette, and an insightful look at how Greg Grunberg and Lombardo Boyar really feel about director Mike Mendez.
Big Ass Spider! is available on DVD and Blu-ray come Jan. 7.