Arachnoquake (2012)

Arachnoquake - that's a great title, isn't it? Up there with the likes of Piranhaconda, Sharktopus and Frankenfish (which, don't laugh, is actually better than the title would make you think). Okay, I admit that a title like that probably wouldn't get everyone excited but most people know by now that a title like that will get me excited. My childish little mind starts to fill up with fluffy dreams of naive potential. I'm not completely stupid, despite how it may appear, and I know that these movies are more than likely to be horrible nonsense full of bad CGI but I also know that a lot of them make up for their failings with big helpings of humour, sometimes intentional but often not.

Arachnoquake starts off with a sense of humour accompanying the preposterous premise and bad CGI but quickly slumps to become just another horrible creature feature churned out for the Syfy Channel.

The biggest name in the cast would be Edward Furlong and it's a shame to see him in something this bad, especially after his appearance in the excellent Below Zero. Sci-fi fans might also enjoy seeing the likeable Ethan Phillips (best known to many as Neelix in Star Trek: Voyager) getting a decent amount of screentime. There's not much else here though.

Directed by Griff Furst, with a script by Paul A. Birkett based on a story by Eric Forsberg, Arachnoquake is a tale of giant, dangerous spiders released from an earthquake and the people who are thrown together and try to survive and escape the situation. Things start off ridiculous and fun but the movie just spirals down and down until it's nothing but ridiculous, sadly.

Aside from those already mentioned, Bug Hall plays a lead role and Tracey Gold is the person who just happens to know a thing or two about spiders. The rest of the cast is full of the hopeful and the hopeless, all playing characters that it's almost impossible to care for.

I suppose that I should grudgingly concede that things are okay on a technical level but I'm not even sure if that's true. The camera is usually pointing the right way and the audio is fine but when so many other aspects are poor or missing (such as the not-so-special effects, shot composition, the bland score from That's What I Call A Syfy Movie Vol. 4) it's hard to even admit that there's a minimum level of competence on display, though I suppose there is.

3/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Arachnoquake-DVD/dp/B008KYOFPE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350074503&sr=8-1