WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers
Additional warning, it may also make you a little itchy. I am really hoping that those of you reading enjoy this article because I have stepped rather far out of my comfort zone to bring it to you. I honestly despise anything creepy-crawly ESPECIALLY spiders (yes, I know, not insects but shh!) so I’m sure you can guess that this will be the first article where I have genuinely never seen these films before. So below, I have compiled a few films where insects, or arachnids, attack…
Slugs
This really is your typical 80s ‘horror’ film. Even though people are dying, everyone seems to carry on like things are completely normal, even down to the characters’ tone of voice. It borders on predictable that it is the couple having sex that end up having one of the worst death of them all – in terms of being killed by the slugs I mean because obviously being blown up isn’t exactly a barrel of laughs – but maybe that’s because I watch a lot of these kind of films. In all honesty, it’s not actually as bad as I was expecting (again, talking about the slugs not the acting) but the squelching sound that is made really did make me feel sick to my stomach.
Ticks
You want a reason not to grow your own marijuana? Ticks on steroids. It’s strange to think with this film that in the end, the ticks actually don’t seem to be the main antagonists. It’s Jerry that makes my skin crawl more (you’ll understand when you watch it). Truthfully, only two people die directly from the tick attacks and it’s not until the last twenty minutes of the film that they even truly ‘attack’. The one thing I will say however is that there is definitely a similarity at the end to Stung but I won’t say any more than that on the subject. Finally, and this is probably going to sound really harsh but I could not take Alfonso Ribiero’s acting that seriously. I get that he’s meant to be this street-tough guy but honestly, all I could see was Carlton Banks (you know, Will Smith’s posh cousin from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air)
Bug Buster
I don’t know what it is about 90’s ‘horror’ films (I say it like this because this film isn’t the least bit scary) but they have this habit of being slow-burners. In a weird way, the plot of this film is almost the same as that of Ticks wherein the cockroaches are using the people of Mountview as hosts for larvae – like the ticks in the film above. The one thing I do like about this film is the recurrence of Shannon’s dream mainly because it lulls you into a false sense of security later on. However, it didn’t affect me as much as I think it was probably supposed to. Unfortunately, the main part that would naturally make you uncomfortable is actually ruined for me by the screaming of the veterinarian.
Tail Sting
At first, this film got it all right. When the attacks start, you see nothing but the tails of the scorpions. Even the isolation of being on-board a plane (see Snakes on a Plane – not an original idea) was a good choice. However, it really does go downhill from there. It falls in line with most of the films on this list with how typically cheesy it is. Truthfully, the only thing worse than the scorpions themselves in the open racial stereotyping, in the script at least, of the Muslim characters aboard the plan. What I mean by this is the fact that the Captain automatically assumes that they have something to do with what’s going on. Now this film was released in 2001, the same year as 9/11 but I honestly don’t think that makes it OK.
Stung
What I enjoyed about this film, even though I’m the kind of person that would freeze in place off of the idea of a wasp coming near me, is that there is 25 minutes of this lovely sedate film before all hell absolutely breaks loose. I have to admit though, that thanks to this film I might actually be able to handle wasps a little bit more as I’m sure they can’t actually use us as hosts for GIANT wasps just by stinging us. I quite like the fact the wasp sting is almost treated like a zombie bite. You know, there’s always that one character that hides the bite from the rest of the group (Shaun’s mum from Shaun of the Dead for example) and Sydney is exactly that character. Honestly though, I’d rather face a pack of zombies than these wasps.
Itsy Bitsy
I am quite arachnophobia so what I’m about to say is going to sound pretty strange. I actually don’t think there’s enough of the spider! I’m not saying that the scenes with the spider don’t make my skin crawl and make me freeze in my seat. However, this would honestly be a much better film if there wasn’t so much focus on how damaged Kara is as a person and the backstory of her son dying in a car crash that has absolutely no relevance to the film. The thing is, I like the angle this film decided to take. Normally, there’s several spiders (Eight Legged Freaks for example) and typically they are attacking the human civilisation because of one genetic experiment or another. However, this is a single spider, weirdly giving this film more of a slasher film vibe and it’s believed to be the reincarnation of an ancient goddess (which makes the opening of the film make SO much more sense I promise).
