EIGHT LEGS, TWO FANGS AND AN ATTITUDE. 

After moving to the small town of Canaima, California, hoping to open a practice, doctor Ross Jennings (Jeff Daniels) looks into a series of mysterious deaths that might be caused by spiders…

Frequent Spielberg collaborator Frank Marshall made his directing debut with this loving, humorous homage to old monster B movies, starring a new species of fierce spiders running amok all over a small town. Just like those old films, this one wants to entertain with equal doses of comedy and horror. Full of Spielbergian touches, but also inspired by Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963).

Easy to sympathize with Daniels’s character and his fear of spiders; John Goodman is fun to watch as a colorful exterminator.

1990-U.S. 109 min. Color. Produced by Kathleen Kennedy. Directed by Frank Marshall. Screenplay: Don Jakoby, Wesley Strick. Music: Trevor Jones. Cast: Jeff Daniels (Ross Jennings), Harley Jane Kozak (Molly Jennings), John Goodman (Delbert McClintock), Julian Sands, Stuart Pankin, Brian McNamara.

Trivia: Co-executive produced by Steven Spielberg. Harmless Australian Avondale spiders are used as the killer arachnids in the film. 

Last word: “I had had a lot of experience with this kind of movie, this kind of situation where you’re dealing with sort of uncontrollable elements, like rats and snakes and whatever, from the Indiana Jones days. I also felt it was a movie I was capable of doing. It was an ensemble movie, one where the movie itself was the star. I wouldn’t have to deal with a major movie star. And several of the directors I’ve worked with, Peter Bogdanovich and Steven (Spielberg), for example, did a thriller as their first movie. Peter’s was Targets and Steven’s was Duel.” (Marshall, Deseret News)