I feel like I’ve been on a solid run lately with these giant spider movies. While not all of them can be considered ‘good’ by conventional standards, they have at least managed to be interesting, and that’s almost as important, I think.
Consider this a screeching halt to that run.
The latest offering from giant spiderdom is Spiders 3D, or just Spiders, if you take out the gimmick.
Its non-3D title ought to be Spiders 3. This is because Spiders 3D is apparently the third instalment in the Spiders trilogy. The number 3 represents the third film in the franchise as well as the headache-inducing format that refuses to die, like Jaws 3D.
The same production company made all three movies. The origin story for the spiders is similar: scientists working on a space station cross breed alien DNA with spiders.
The difference here is that the experiments take place on a Russian space station in the 1980s. This is long before the Americans did the same thing on a space shuttle in Spiders, but I guess they could have copied the Russians’ homework (or the screenwriters did).
I didn’t spot any other references, but then Spiders 2 didn’t reference Spiders either.
Most convincing of all is the existence of a Blu-Ray box set with all three movies included. I guess that settles it, but it still seems like an afterthought.
Spider Cinematic Universe Multiverse
You know what? I don’t know why I’m fighting this. Am I not the person who called for a spider cinematic universe multiverse (SCUM)? Here we have a golden opportunity to create links between spider movies, so let’s do it.
And we needn’t stop with Spiders and Spiders 2, because Spiders 3D also heralds the return of Patrick Muldoon (RIP) to the genre. You might remember him from Ice Spiders and Starship Troopers.
Muldoon plays a different character here (definitely not Dash Dashiell from Ice Spiders) but if you squint a little bit and are willing to deny basic reality in the face of overwhelming evidence, you could concoct a theory involving Dash hanging up his skis, cutting his hair, acting his age, changing his name (because it’s stupid) and moving to New York to work for the Metro Transport Police.
It could be a witness relocation program! Seeing as we’re retconning, we can let our collective imaginations run wild. We might even come up with something more interesting than this movie, which I should really start talking about.
The Format That Refuses To Die
But first, let’s talk about 3D. It’s short for ‘three-dimensional.’ You’re welcome. When the usual two dimensions of left/right and up/down are simply not enough, moviemakers add the illusion of depth (backwards/forwards). Nobody cares.
The technology is almost as old as film itself. 3D was invented in 1903 and has never really gone away. Like the bubonic plague in the Middle Ages, it hung around, with a few odd cases here and there followed by a major outbreak every thirty years or so.
The first 3D feature film was released in 1922 but the first real pandemic boom occurred in 1952. This period popularised the use of the iconic 3D glasses with one blue lens and one red lens.
1982 saw the onset of the next plague craze, with the release of aforementioned Jaws 3D as well as Friday 13th part III and Amityville 3D. I wonder if this boom was driven by the format or the opportunity, given that a number of horror threequels were being made at that time and they wanted to be clever with their titles.
I remember watching Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare in 3D in 1991, but that was more of an isolated case.
James Cameron’s Avatar was responsible for the most recent outbreak boom in 2009. It represented the most serious attempt yet to make 3D a permanent part of the movie landscape and not just a novelty that gets remembered every thirty years and then forgotten again because it sucks.
Totally unrelated, but the Swine Flu pandemic also emerged in 2009.
Spiders 3D was released in 2013, at the tail-end of the Avatar-driven 3D flare up. The idea of giant spiders jumping out of the screen is a sound idea, at least on paper. I can’t tell you if it works because I watched it in 2D, as God intended. But I didn’t notice any shots that I thought would be enhanced by an additional dimension.
Spiders In The Subway
Anyway, let’s get back to the Russian space station. It has long been abandoned, as evidenced by the cosmonaut skeletons floating around in their space suits. Years later, the place is still crawling with hybrid alien spiders just hanging out. Do they not require a food source?
It would be more convincing if just the spider eggs remained, lying dormant, but whatever. The space station is struck by space rocks and part of it breaks off and crash lands in a New York subway tunnel. This puts them squarely in the purview of Dash Dashiell, sorry, Jason Cole (these witness protection aliases aren’t very imaginative). I’ll just call him Dash for short.
Dash gets on the walkie talkie to a subway worker called Jimmy, who is Dash’s friend. They are close, so Jimmy’s definitely going to die.
Jimmy investigates and gets bitten by a spider who has improbably survived re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere and a terminal velocity swan dive through fifty feet of concrete and rock. These hombres are tough, but I’m sure Dash will find a weakness.
Jimmy keels over and electrocutes himself on the rail. Dash arrives and the army is already on the scene, along with a Russian called Dr Darnoff, who knows all about the space station and the spiders.
That’s astonishingly quick work, seeing as no-one even knew what the crashed meteor was. Was he in the neighbourhood?
Dash argues with a lady called Rachel from the Health Department about closing the station. To complicate matters, Rachel is his wife (but not for long – their divorce comes through a couple of scenes later).
Bad Father
Dash and Rachel have a twelve-year-old daughter called Emily, played by a young Sydney Sweeney. Yes, really.
Back in 2003, Eight Legged Freaks featured a young Scarlet Johannsen, who grew up to be a generational hottie. Spiders 3D features a young Sydney Sweeney, who grew up to be the current generation’s Pamela Anderson. Note to aspiring young actresses: get a spider movie on your CV early.
Anyway, Dash is so committed to his job he keeps letting Emily down. At one point Rachel says that Dash means well. Emily replies:
‘He always tries but he never dies.’
That’s seriously dark, so I had to rewind. I think she actually says:
‘He always tries but he never DOES.’
I like the first one better.
Dash dashes off and misses Emily’s birthday meal because he wants to visit his dead friend in the morgue. He soon regrets it when the coroner reveals that Jimmy’s dissected body is full of spider eggs.
Dash takes them to Rachel for her to test, wishes Emily a quick happy birthday, makes a few empty promises about making it up to her, then heads back to work.
Don’t worry though, I’m sure he’ll have an opportunity to prove his worth to his ex-wife and daughter by the end of the movie. Giant spiders are always good for that.
Dash, his co-worker Caz and some pest control guys arrive at the station to find the rats leaving via the main entrance, which is unusually civilised behaviour for vermin.
But seriously, they are legging it from the spiders. They find dead homeless people with spider eggs laid in them. Dozens of spiders swarm Caz.
You Always Were An Asshole, Gorman
The army locks down the area and runs a bullshit story about a virus as cover (like that would ever happen).
The army is led by Colonel Jenkins, played by William Hope. You may remember him from Aliens, my joint favourite movie ever. In Aliens he plays Lieutenant Gorman, who is inexperienced and incompetent and gets a lot of people killed, but we all make mistakes.
Gorman wasn’t a bad guy. He even gets a heroic moment near the end where he returns to aid a stricken Vasquez, sets off a grenade and goes out in a blaze of glory.
Jenkins is far more capable, and sinister. If Gorman survived Aliens, served for another twenty years and became jaded and desensitised to it all, I could imagine him becoming someone like Colonel Jenkins.
He sends out assassins to kill everyone who knows about the spiders, including ANOTHER one of Dash’s colleagues, Pete (Dash is a jinx, do not work with the guy).
Rachel has published a report on the spider eggs, so Jenkins has her hunted down. She escapes but they grab her eggs. That sounded weird, so allow me to clarify: they take the spider eggs, because one of them is a queen egg.
This begs the obvious question: if the queen is still a larvae, who’s been laying all these eggs up until now? No, we don’t get an answer.
Start Spreading The News
The spiders are becoming sizeable by this point, but Dr Darnoff still wants a queen because she’s the only one capable of producing quality web to make lightweight body armour, which is the entire reason they are doing this.
It’s the exact same motivation as the scientists in Ice Spiders (another connection!) but how can it possibly be worth the effort? It’s not exactly the H-bomb, is it? Having lighter body armour is not going to win you World War 3.
And if the queen is all they want, why keep the male spiders alive? It would make more sense if they were breeding them as weapons, but nobody even floats the idea.
Jenkins quarantines Emily and her babysitter in their apartment because he hates her parents. Dash and Rachel try to rescue her but they’re on the run. At this point the spiders start spreading the news and leaving the subway to explore the Big Apple.
Forking Hell
A spider chases Dash and Rachel into a warehouse full of empty cardboard boxes. They save each other’s lives and he calls her ‘babe,’ so you know they’re on the road to reconciliation. Dash also discovers the spiders’ Achilles’ heel (I knew he would!).
No, it isn’t fire, but it does begin with an f. You guessed it, it’s forklift trucks. Dash impales not one but two spiders with the blunt prongs of a forklift, and also uses it to clear away webbing and scoop up Rachel, who is stuck in it.
Who knew that forklifts would be the best weapon we’ve got against the giant alien spider threat? Not the army, that’s for sure. The next few scenes involve soldiers attacking giant spiders with a variety of conventional weapons without inflicting much damage.
I guess the old adage is true: armies always fight the last war rather than the current one. Expect Spiders 4D to feature a shitload of forklift trucks.
Last Stand. Must Have Been One Hell Of A Fight
Soldiers capture Dash and Rachel and take them to Jenkins. Spiders then overrun Jenkins and his men. Jenkins makes a last stand with a minigun, which is the most inappropriately named gun ever because have you seen the size of the thing?
It isn’t as heroic as Gorman’s last stand, but we don’t always get that opportunity, do we? Dr Darnoff arrives and frees Dash and Rachel. Darnoff ruefully mutters ‘I was set to change the world,’ but I think he’s kidding himself. Lighter body armour? Not exactly Oppenheimer, is it?
The Big Ass queen spider chooses this moment to announce her arrival by bursting out of the ground. Dr Darnoff approaches and says:
‘You’re so beautiful.’
I’m not seeing it. I realise that beauty is subjective but come on, we don’t need to test that theory to destruction. This thing rivals the three-toed sloth monstrosity from Horrors of Spider Island for sheer ugliness. It has the face of a pug dog.
Anyway, the queen doesn’t buy Dr Darnoff’s bullshit flattery either and spears him through the chest.
Get Away From Her, You Bitch
The queen embarks on a rampage and steps on Emily’s babysitter after they escape their apartment. Emily hides in a toy shop but ends up falling through a broken floor and into the subway. Dash and Rachel find her there.
Dash helps them escape but remains behind to engage the queen in a final showdown. Alas, there are no forklift trucks in sight, so Dash uses the next best thing: a train.
He finds an old subway train that looks like it has been abandoned for years but starts first time. He drives it into the queen and crushes her against gas pipes, which explode. The fireball vaporises the remainder of the spiders in the tunnel (how convenient!) but Dash dashes really fast and outruns it.
Sting alert! As Dash, Rachel and Emily walk away arm-in-arm, we see a spider crawling on a traffic light. So the blast didn’t get them all!
Gat, that means Spiders 4D might be on its way (maybe the 4th dimension involves theatre staff throwing real spiders at you). Message to the production company: if you could just not do any of that, that would be great.
Rating: 2 spider legs out of 8
