Eight Legged Freaks (2002)

Title: 'Eight Legged Freaks' (2002)
Genre: Giant bugs eat your face
Rating: 6/10

It's a well known fact that special effects alone cannot save a movie. It's all about the story, dummy. But are there films whose effects alone are the cornerstone of the story? And what happens when those effects are... Subpar?

Behold! I have found the film that is the exception to the rule! And, lo, he stood on the precipice and thrust it henceforth from folded cloth. And the masses stood still, gazing upward at that which he'eth holden. And did cry out, in manner of suffering, 'Wrest this taint from mine eyes, foul stranger! What havest we done to deserve such torment?'. And lo, he did withdraw it into the fold of his tunic, but only after he felt he hath made his point, and the small children had broketh into tears.

When you watch and older movie like 'The Birds' (1963) or 'Godzilla' (1954), the special effects aren't a problem. Later movies like 'Tron' (1982) or 'Gremlins' (1986)? Still good. But there are some bad fx movies out there, 'Blade Trinity' (2004), 'Garfield' (2004) are two recent examples. Hence the general consensus that 'effects alone do not a movie make'.

There's also the 'Uncanny Valley' principle, 'The Uncanny Valley is a principle of robotics concerning the emotional response of humans to robots and other non-human entities. It was theorized by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori in the late 1970s through psychological experiments in which he measured human response to robots of varying degrees of anthropomorphism. The principle states that as a robot is made more humanlike in its appearance and motion the emotional response from a human being to robot will become increasingly positive and empathic, until a point is reached at which the response suddenly becomes strongly repulsive; as the appearance and motion are made to be indistinguishable to that of human being, the emotional response becomes positive once more and approaches human-human empathy levels.'

Let's put this to the test with a couple of screenshots. One from the movie 'Tremors' (1990), and another from this movie, 'Eight Legged Freaks'. First, 'Tremors':


Just a big ole' rubbery wormy puppet, painted with some glossy paint and drug through the dirt. Very effective. This is one of my favorite movies. The Budget was pretty small for a movie of this genre ($10,000,000) and it made the producers quite a bit of money. That was the kind of quality I was expecting out of 'Eight Legged Freaks'. But alas: ...


As you can see, they decided to go with some fancy 'computer generated' spiders. Which kicked their budget up to $30,000,000. Some people may like the computer critters. George Lucas has built a dynasty out of this. But when you put these two movies side by side, I'm gonna have to stick with 'Tremors'. Maybe those spiders fall into the 'Uncanny Valley' we addressed earlier. I just didn't buy it. I knew that those actors were just reacting to thin air, and with crummy dialogue to boot. But when the actors reacted in 'Tremors', you knew it was to a good, honest, chunk of slimy rubber. And, although the dialogue was equally crummy, it was still awesome. Also, I was only thirteen and not quite as jaded.

Judgment: Unless you are high and/or have an extra chromosone, stay away from this movie.