Arachnoquake

This movie was the original inspiration for this movie review section.  When I heard (about a year ago) that a movie was going to premiere on the SyFy Channel (Why are we spelling it that way?  Is the shorthand for Science Fiction too much for us to remember?  Get it together, human race) and it was going to be about ALBINO SPIDERS and it was going to star EDWARD FURLONG and TRACEY GOLD – well, I knew my life would never be the same.

I’m a little late in posting this, seeing as how “Arachnoquake” premiered on June 23rd, but I wanted to start the reviews section off with a bang.  An albino bang.  So let’s get after it:

The movie opens up on an undoubtedly authentic Louisiana afternoon.  Two guys who are taking their Southern accents very seriously are filling egg crates up.  Is it time for the Annual Louisiana Egg-Off already?  These two guys – one in overalls and the other in camouflage because THE SOUTH – are arguing about an earthquake that occurred the night before.  FORESHADOWING.

They look like extras from “True Blood”, they’re so authentic.

There is a beardy old man in the background grinding on a tree both for comic relief, and for MORE FORESHADOWING.  Says he got bit the night before.  But by WHAT, you guys?

Old Beardo is sent off into the woods to check on a massive hole in the ground, because I guess he’s an expert.   But before he can submit his findings to the EPA, his bite starts pulsating, and he is confronted by an absolutely perfect tiny albino spider.  Into the hole with Beardo – I hope he doesn’t serve as sustenance for giant mutant spiders!  RIP Beardo.

BOOM!  Beginning credits.  Now we take a trip into New Orleans, where a guy who may or may not be Edward Furlong is dipping out on the skank he slept with the night before.  There’s a nice stroll through the French Quarter so the SyFy Channel can prove to those bastards at the Chiller Network that they had the funding to film at least 5 minutes in New Orleans proper.  The rest will be in someone’s backyard, but for now?  Beads!!!!!!

OK, this guy isn’t Edward Furlong – I IMDB’d it.  He’s just some jerk, and he is late for work at the Boat Tour Bayou Kiosk!!  Rut-roh.  He should have stayed in school.  Good thing his Dad and Sister are the only other employees!  Also – I refuse to take this guy seriously:

Newsies!

So for the rest of this review, I will refer to him as “Lazy Bayou Jerk”.  It is written.

THERE’S EDWARD FURLONG!!!  AND TRACEY GOLD!!!  You’d think they’d want to spread out the appearance of these 2 mega-stars, but no.  Edward Furlong is driving a bus full of scantily-clad co-eds, and Tracey Gold is supervising them, I guess.  Ah, John Connor and Nancy who had the eating disorder, together at last!  Someone’s been reading my fan fiction!!  And for the record – they both look like they’ve seen better days.  But onto this adventure!!

Edward Furlong (Charlie is his character’s name, but let’s not act like I’ll be calling him anything but Edward Furlong) is married to Tracey Gold and they have 2 kids which is perfect.  Because the kids are only about 5 years younger than them:

Look at this believable family of assholes!

Anyhoo!  Edward Furlong runs upstairs to a random apt, pulls back the covers on a random bed, and we see a random woman foaming at the mouth and dying of multiple bites all over her.  Edward Furlong runs back downstairs and is like, “Gross!  But whatever!”, and he gets into the bus to drive off.  There is LITERALLY no other explanation for what just happened.  Because Edward Furlong doesn’t have the time, he has to stop Skynet.

I just realized only 12 minutes have passed in this movie.  I might be going into a little too much detail.

Lazy Bayou Jerk is running a New Orleans streetcar tour.  Look who just boarded!  Tracey Gold and her elderly kids!  If I know anything about SyFy Channel Original Movie formulas, they will be trapped in this streetcar at some point, being attacked by albino spiders.  Streetcar of Death Roll Call!!!: Tracey Gold, Son, Daughter, Excited Tourist Couple, Crotchety Old Man and Lazy Bayou Jerk is driving.  Who will die?  My predictions, in this order: Excited Tourist Woman, Excited Tourist Man, Crotchety Old Man and Lazy Bayou Jerk.  The kids might survive, and there’s no way they’re killing Tracey Gold.  If anorexia didn’t kill her – then giant spiders won’t either.

The streetcar has come across a large fissure in the street.  Everyone piles out.  Lazy Bayou Jerk is attacked by a spider or two, but saved by Crotchety Old Man.  Do I smell romance?  No time to think about it, as all of a sudden the spiders have quadrupled in size, and are just EVERYWHERE.  Rooftops, the streets, on top of the streetcar they all just piled back into.  You idiots!

The streetcar escapes into the outskirts of New Orleans, which happens to look a lot like some backwoods town in Canada, which happens to be where most SyFy movies are filmed.  Everyone speculates on what’s crappening, and Crotchety Old Man tells us he was in WWII.  Aw, man!  Now I want him to live.  Take one of the kids instead!!

Where is Edward Furlong?  Do you think he’s freeing more lobsters?  That guy…what happened to you, man?

So anyways, Tourist Couple leads everyone off the streetcar to look for “Bear Traps” in a shitty local store.  Ahahahahaha.  City folk, am I right?  Tracey Gold just angrily announced that she has a Masters in Zoology, and she has NEVER seen these kinds of spiders before.  Well, bitch – looks like your fancy degrees and fancier scarves can’t save you now!!

The spiders have followed our hapless band of dumbasses to town, and so they take refuge in the store, at which point the store employee’s neck explodes apropos of nothing, and a spider crawls out.  And we’re all horrified, because we’re like, “Is that Tom Green?  Is Tom Green in this?  Would we even be surprised if he was?”  RIP Tom Green Store Clerk.

The spider is all like, “My bum is on your face! My bum is on your face!” Get it? The 90s? Remember the 90s?

And then we see – the albino spiders are coming out of the egg cartons!  Cuz remember from the beginning of the movie?  With the two guys and Beardo?  I miss Beardo, you guys.

So they’re spraying the spiders with bug spray, and turning hair spray into blowtorches with their lighters, and Crotchety Old Man is just drinking because he’s my Spirit Guide.  All of a sudden, Lazy Bayou Jerk is their de facto leader, and he shows he’s worthy of their deference by calling his Dad.  Who hangs up on him.  Yikes – family drama.  Speaking of which, Tracey Gold and Son and Daughter just remembered there is another member of their family.  So the action cuts to –

Edward Furlong!  Still driving a busload of cheerleaders, who are having an absurd dance party while he drives them through what looks like the Everglades.  Not one of these girls is worried that he’s taking them somewhere to murder them?

Back at the store, Excited Tourist Guy is throwing canned food at the spiders to buy everyone else time to escape.  Fuck – is he gonna go before his girlfriend?  I hate when I predict cheesy deaths wrong.  Dammit!  Curve ball – Crotchety Old Man went first!  A spider dropped down and french kissed him to death.  These spiders are fresh, and they have no respect for our veterans.

One down – everyone else back on the streetcar.  RIP Crotchety Old Man.

Lazy Bayou Jerk’s Dad and Sister are out on the river, not taking his calls.  They find a dead alligator covered in spiderwebs and spend 60 seconds speculating about what could have killed it.  Ugh, these doofuses.  Just die, already.

Back on the streetcar, MASTERS IN ZOOLOGY Tracey Gold says the spiders use echolocation to hunt.  Also – she has asthma.  Plot point!!!  Lazy Bayou Jerk and Excited Tourist Guy fight over who should drive, until a huge building in the distance explodes.  Once again – no explanation.  Just an explosion.  Are the spiders incendiary experts?  Tracey Gold’s inhaler has run out.  Bitch, already?  To the drugstore!

Lazy Bayou Jerk’s family….I care about them so little.  Things happen, blah blah blah.  Where is Edward Furlong?!?!  NEEDS MOAR EDWARD FURLONG.

Back on the streetcar, Daughter heard my cries and calls Edward Furlong.  She tells him about giant spiders and Tracey Gold’s asthma attack, he tells her to stop “huffing that stuff”.  Then he crashes the bus.  Hmmmm…pot calling the kettle black, Edward Furlong?

Out of nowhere, Lazy Bayou Jerk has figured out how to construct a homemade inhaler out of – whatever – for Tracey Gold.  But they have to get 5 miles upriver!  What?

Back at the bus – Edward Furlong is making the cheerleaders push the bus out of the ravine he didn’t crash into.  Good.  But oh no – not good!  Spiders are coming!  Edward Furlong is distressed.

The Getalong Gang (streetcar group) has made it back to Lazy Bayou Jerk’s bayou kiosk.  I guess this is where the inhalers are?  Excited Tourist Guy has had it.  He wants a refund, and the opportunity to stand on a bench and compare their misadventures to Okinawa in WWII.  He’s gonna get it.

Yeah, he got it.  RIP Excited Tourist Guy.  The rest of them jump on a boat.

Back at the bus, Edward Furlong has a baseball bat and a bus full of shrieking cheerleaders.  Oh wait – I think they’re supposed to be baseball players, because there are a ton of baseball bats, and one girl hit a spider with a bat and it flew and then it landed in the grass and AHAHAHAHAHAHA – it burst into flames!!!!  What?  Are they made of gasoline?  Since WHEN?!?!

The SyFy Channel equivalent of “Get away from her you BITCH!”

Back on the boat, Tracey Gold is still suffering from the World’s Most Peaceful Asthma Attack.  Lazy Bayou Jerk hands her a scuba kit, and she’s cured!!!  Man, SyFy went all out with their research on this goddammer.

Back at the bus – they’re discussing how the spiders breathe fire.  OK, sure.  That explains it.

Back on the boat – is it impossible to have a scene last more than 75 seconds in this movie?  They come up alongside another boat that Somali Spider Pirates have hijacked, I guess.  Tracey Gold – ZOOLOGIST – reminds them that if they keep quiet, the spiders won’t be able to hear them and attack.  Excited Tourist Girl is NOT trying to hear that, and freaks the eff OUT.  The spiders hear them!  And apparently they can swim, because they come after the boat in such a comical way, I can’t rightly do it justice.  I CAN tell you that Lazy Bayou Jerk’s Dad shoots one, and it makes a sound like a seagull.  Perfect.  Who’s driving this boat?  Oh, no one?  So it crashes.  Excited Tourist Girl goes flying into the bayou brush.  Everyone else is fine, because everyone else didn’t make a scene.  Excited Tourist Girl gets ate.  RIP Excited Tourist Girl.

There is absolutely no rhyme or reason to the varying sizes of albino spiders.  The ones coming at the boat survivors are the size of an Irish wolfhound, I’d say.  But then Lazy Bayou Jerk’s Dad is attacked by one that’s this big, and so what do I know?  Stop trying to make it make sense, Conroy.:

Ooof, seriously Bro – BEHIND YOU.

But then, just when all is lost, an alligator comes out of nowhere and eats the spider.  LOLWUT?  I think this is the alligator that Lazy Bayou Jerk’s family alluded to when talking about the OTHER dead alligator – like, they’re friends or something.  Anyway – thanks alligator!!

Back on the bus, Edward Furlong is wondering what happened to his career.  “Terminator 2” was HUUUUUGE.  And “”American History X”  was a critically acclaimed movie in which he starred with Edward Norton and that creeper Fairuza Balk.  Things didn’t have to go so bad!!

Also – albino spiders are attacking the bus.  The girls’ championship baseball team is acting like a bunch of pussies and crying a lot.  Then all of a sudden – the Army is there!!!  They shoot all the spiders, and rescue everyone!  Edward Furlong is so relieved, he beats an already dead spider and makes this face:

Come on – he looks fine. He’s gonna be fine.

The streetcar/boat/now-walking-through-the-bayou crew seems lost.  Then all of a sudden, three men jump out of the brush.  Ahahahaha – it’s the two country dudes from the beginning of the movie, and their pock-faced boss!  Hooray?  Is our group saved?  They take them back to their weird egg-stacking settlement that looks a lot like a theme park  ghost town.  Tracey Gold announces that if she can get a hold of an albino spider, she can dissect it, and figure out all it’s weaknesses!!  Geez, someone’s airways open up again and suddenly she’s Jane Goodall.  Jane Goodall dissected all those chimps, right?  More wine!

Back at the bus, Edward Furlong also remembered he has a family.  He asks the Army guy to take him back to New Orleans, and the Army guy agrees.  I guess because his daughter was one of Edward Furlong’s players?  I don’t really care.

Back at the Ghost Town, 17 people are working on trapping 1 albino spider for Tracey Gold.  It was surprisingly easy – why haven’t they been fighting these spiders with leaf-covered netting all along?!?!?!  Tracey Gold starts dissecting with a surgical K-Bar, pulls out the vocal chords and the “gas bladder”.  This is supposed to explain why they breathe fire.  Tracey Gold speculates that they live below ground, but are up here now because their habitat was disturbed.  But how?!?  A random country guy comes in with, “The Oil Companies are always around here drilling into the earth – it’s called fracking…”  HOLY SHIT.  “Arachnoquake” just got EVEN REALER than I could have imagined!!!!  Timely!  Are you listening, Governor Romney?  Fracking will bring about GIANT ALBINO SPIDERS who will try to kill us all.  Also – why are you afraid to let my health insurance cover my birth control?  You know any baby I have will be SUPER WEIRD.

Anyways, after this PRO-OBAMA message, we go back to our country guys from the beginning.  Still in overalls and camouflage, and yelling about moonshine.  Now I’m getting offended on behalf of the South.  No time for that, though – the spiders are coming!!  They launch an attack on the Ghost Town, and everyone runs to their machine guns.  But camouflage guy doesn’t run fast enough, and he is set on fire by the spiders.  RIP Camo.  Overalls is mad sad, you guys.  He runs, but the sadness he carries is probably affecting him.  He falls right into a hole full of spikes (???) and dies.  RIP Overalls.

Everyone else is running.  Tracey Gold is having ANOTHER asthma attack.  Maybe you’re not MEANT to live, woman.   To prove my point, a cartoonish web comes out of nowhere and ensnares her, and she is taken away.  But that’s OK, maybe they have inhalers wherever she’s going.

OK, Lazy Bayou Jerk and his family are also running through the Bayou.  Oh, snap!  The Dad just got stabbed in the brain, like that Brain Bug gets people in “Starship Troopers”!  He’s alive, and father and son are having a moment, but my mind is on “Starship Troopers” now.  Who’d have thunk Neil Patrick Harris would go on to be the most successful guy in that flick?  Oh!  And did you know Carver from “The Wire” was in that too?  Check it out!:

“Let’s go kill some bugs, shitbirds!!!”

Ooops – so Lazy Bayou Jerk’s Dad died.  Lazy Bayou Jerk is very sad.  But also super mad.  I wouldn’t want to be a pack of albino spiders today!!!!  RIP Lazy Bayou Jerk’s Dad.

Lazy Bayou Jerk follows Daughter of Tracey Gold who I guess is trying to find her Mom?  Man, you fill up a wine glass and clean up all you spilled, and you miss some shit that is not important.  He follows her into a dark cave, and there are a lot of seagull sounds, so you know this must be a spider lair.  He finds his sister – who I did not even know was missing – webbed to the wall and frees her and tells her her Dad is dead.  She is pretty bummed.  🙁  Then they hear some coughing, so you KNOW that’s gotta be Tracey Gold asthma-ing it up all over the place.  Sure enough, there she is, and her daughter has saved her.  “There’s the Queen!!!”  Tracey Gold says, and you know we’re all hoping it’s a cross-dressing spider who does circa-1980 Cher songs, but alas!  It’s another terribly-rendered CGI spider!  But this one is BIGGER, so – plot point!  This spider will have to be killed in order to kill all the other spiders and end the madness.  Better send in Chris and Snoop.

So Lazy Bayou Jerk, Tracey Gold ZOOLOGIST, Daughter of Tracey Gold and sister of Lazy Bayou Jerk all get back in the boat that crashed before.  Chillax, everyone – they can just push it off the riverbank now.  They’re fine.  They escape downriver JUST as a hilariously over-sized and pink (??) Queen Spider angrily approaches the riverbank and tears down some trees.

Now we’re back in New Orleans where Edward Furlong (FINALLY) and the Army are just hanging out, talking about their high school days, and all the chicks they’ve banged.  But then Edward Furlong’s Son runs up and he’s like, “this is my son, guys – BE COOL.”  The Son tells Edward Furlong everything that’s happened in a weirdly-roundabout-filmed scene where the Son is acting like he’s underwater, and Edward Furlong is acting like a hunchback with greasy hair and serious regrets….wait….

Anyways!  Back on the boat – they are being chased by the giant Queen Spider (who also walks on water like a spaz) while a totally legit helicopter chases the spider and shoots missiles at it that are a little less believable than anything I ever saw shot from a helicopter while playing the video game “Contra”.  Tracey Gold is dying again I guess below deck, while Lazy Bayou Jerk and his sister are above deck.  Tracey Gold’s daughter looks away while she gasps for breath, and then FREAKS OUT when she stops breathing.  What did you think was happening?  She wasn’t planning your birthday party, dillhole!

Back in New Orleans, Edward Furlong and the Army are watching the Queen Spider walk towards the freeway.  Look at this money shot:

My GPS told me to kill all humans off this exit.

Yes!

The Army attacks, but Giant Queen Spider is winning.  Oh snap!  It’s climbing a building.  “Feathering her nest”, according to Lazy Bayou Jerk.  Why is he an expert, all of a sudden?

Back on the boat, Daughter has snapped to it and realized her Mom is pretty dead.  Save Tracey Gold!!!  She performs the world’s most emotional CPR for 12 seconds, and then tells Lazy Bayou Jerk that she wants to help him blow up the Queen Spider.  He has M-80s, you see.  So she and his sister help dress him in a scuba suit, and give him some copper wire.  Duh.

Dressed like this:

This is also my ‘First Date Outfit’

Oh!  And all of a sudden Tracey Gold is alive and well and being carried out into the street by her Daughter and Lazy Bayou Jerk’s sister.  Doesn’t matter how it happened – she’s aliiiiiiiive!

So Lazy Bayou Jerk/aka Scuba Steve runs towards the Queen Spider.  Tracey Gold comes upon a happily placed ambulance, and I assume dies inside.  A super fly yellow Hummer picks up Daughter and Lazy Bayou Jerk’s sister and takes them to Edward Furlong so they can watch the carnage.  Daughter casually tells Edward Furlong that Tracey Gold is dead.  What?  For real?

I can’t even describe this nonsense.  So the pock-marked boss of Overalls and Camo (RIP) gets taken up into a web by the Queen Spider.  And then Lazy Bayou Jerk gets taken up, even though he’s wearing a scuba suit.  The Queen Spider eats the pock-marked guy, but only after he bestows the following wisdom on Lazy Bayou Jerk: “Don’t start something you can’t finish, boy!!”.  Good.  Good.  I get it.

My shit is RENT CONTROLLED.

The Queen Spider moves down to eat Lazy Bayou Jerk (who I REALLY wish I’d given a shorter nickname to), but he pulls a machete out and stabs the spider in the belly and pulls himself INSIDE the spider.  Edward Furlong is distressed.  Now we get a sick view from inside the spider, and it is gross and red and weird.  On the ground, the main Army guy says, “That guy’s got guts!”  and Edward Furlong says, “In more ways than one!”  and I roll around on my couch at the weak entendre.  Haha!  He’s IN the spider’s guts!!  Oh SyFy Channel, you RASCALS!!!!!

Holy shit.  While inside the Queen Spider, Lazy Bayou Jerk cuts open it’s gas bladder.  I know this, because Tracey Gold’s son is on the ground, and he points it out.  And THEN, the spider poops Lazy Bayou Jerk out.  I don’t mean to be a dick, but I would love for the arachnologists on this movie to show their work.  J/K!  No one did any research!!!!

So Lazy Bayou Jerk is hanging from the gas bladder (fine) of the giant spider, and then he lights a lighter, and the spider blows up FROM THE INSIDE.  That’s how you know it’s dead.  Lazy Bayou Jerk falls.  Falls….where?!?!

The Army announces that all the spiders around town are dying, earlier they said if you killed the Queen spider, you would kill them all. PAY ATTENTION guys.

So everyone is celebrating, Lazy Bayou Jerk’s sister is sad.  But then – wait a second!!  He’s alive, and on some other skyscraper?  Who cares, he’s alive!!!!

And then…it’s just over.  So wait – did Tracey Gold really die?  No way.  Also – how much did Edward Furlong get paid for this?  He didn’t do shit but look doughy!!  Oh man, so many questions.  Like – will the alligator who ate the spider breed a spid-gator?  Because I would watch the crap out of THAT movie.

This was really long.  I’m sorry, it was a labor of love.  I just love albino spiders so much!!!

One comment on “Arachnoquake
  1. hey. you have a pretty good post there mate.

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