Saturday, October 24, 2020

ziggy sunburst.






Arachnoquake (2012).
Dir: Griff Furst.
Cast:  Tracey Gold, Edward Furlong, Bug Hall, Ethan Phillips,
Megan Adelle, Gralen Bryant Banks, Dane Rhodes, Paul Boocock, Skyy Moore, Tiara Gathright, Olivia Hardt, Grant James and Lucky Johnson.


Jumbo spiders, some as big as dwarves!


A massive (off-screen) nighttime earthquake has cause even more massive CGI holes to appear in and around New Orleans (and not, I repeat not Orville, Texas as it says on the back of the box) and from these holes crawl an army of mutant albino arachnids.

Using sonar to detect their prey, these multi-legged monsters can also shoot web strong enough to capture a man, spit fire and walk on water.

Oh yes, and due to a lack of continuity between the computer artists they appear to be getting bigger and bigger depending what scene they're in.

"Laugh now!"



Anyway, that's the monsters dealt with so let's meet the human cast, first up is our hero for the next 90 minutes, a young ne'er do well named Paul (Hall, from the Robert Hays comedy series Kelly Kelly) who spends his nights drinking and shagging and his days helping out with the family tour business alongside his Hobbit like dad Roy (Star Trek: Voyagers Phillips) and his blonde 'n' buxom sister Petra (Hot Hot Los Angeles star Hardt, best known for snogging American Horror Story's Alexandra Breckenridge in an episode of the Courteney Cox TV show Dirt).

It appears that due to his excess drinking, sodomizing and habit of losing the tour boat, Paul's dad has decided that if anything else at all goes wrong he's going to kick poor Paul out on his ear.

His last chance of redemption?

Take out the tour bus that's been booked by teachers from a Houston school, in town for a girl on girl baseball match.

Sounds legit.

Furlong, using a matchstick defends the Corgi bus from normal sized spiders yesterday.


Unfortunately the class assistant is stuck in bed covered in webbing leaving biology teacher Katelynn (ex Growing Pains star and uber MiLF Gold) and her kids Annabel (the long faced Adelle) and Justin (Moore) to their own devices whilst dad Charlie (the one mighty Furlong, now looking younger - and considerably shorter -  than his kids) has to drive the Baseball babes back to Houston.

It's a terrible job but someone has to do it.

Deciding to make the best of it, the family decide to take the tour themselves alongside a motley crew of wannabe spider fodder including a grumpy old man (James) and the Ghetto-tastic newly weds Glenn and Tina (Johnson and Gathright).

"It's behind you!"...Well it will be in a couple of months when we've added it to the background.

As the tour begins our bus riding 'rachnid snacks soon become aware of the mysterious holes in the road and the tiny eight legged terrors emerging from them.

Tho' due to budgetary constraints you can catch glimpses of local residents going about their every day lives in the background, totally oblivious to the drama unfolding on the streets.

Spiders crawl across roofs and passed cars as commuters head to and from work, families enjoy a picnic and shopper look for bargains. it's almost as if only a chosen few can see the eight-legged beasts.

Either that or the production was so threadbare they couldn't afford to close of the roads for shooting.

"Monsta!"

Will our heroes survive the giant spider situation?

Will they make it to Roy's boat in time?

Will Paul take control and become the hero the movie deserves or will he end up just so much spider snack?

And just how many times can you be distracted by the lead actresses frankly pendulous freckly mommy breasts during one movie?

Even tho' they're quite securely held in place by a V neck top.

Only one way to find out.

Font.


All hail the multi talented actor/director Griff Furst (Chase from the fantastic Monsterwolf), beaming to us from a world where the 50's monster flick never died and proving with his latest flick, the shoestring shocker Arachnoquake that you can, in fact polish a turd.

I mean come on, when a movie's DVD sleeve gets the plot wrong you know you're in trouble and when Edward Furlong turns up with the obvious DT's and the haunted look a lost child trapped in a hotel room about to be horribly abused by a hooded bad man you know there's something amiss and the whole endeavor should by rights be utterly devoid of any entertainment value.

But guess what?

Arachnoquake is actually really enjoyable.

Mike Pence's attempt to change the batteries in Melania's vibrator were doomed to failure.


True the spiders look like they've been rendered on a Casio calculator by a blind boy and everything is shot in uncomfortable close-ups to disguise the fact that no-one bothered to seek shooting permission but the cast are great with enough one liners, spider attacks and humour (mostly intentional but with a few unintentional thrown in) to totally win you over.

Plus it's probably the only movie I know of where the hero dons a deep sea diving suit in order to enter a giant monster and tie a stick of dynamite to it's intestines before failing out it's arse.

Need I say more?

No comments: