Spiders II: Breeding Ground

This movie starts out good, almost like a suspense/mystery more than a horror movie. Richard Moll is great as the demented ship doctor. After the first half of the movie it starts to go downhill somewhat. The story gets predictable and the spider special effects are not too great. The majority of the CGI effects look fake and outdated, and some of the spiders are obviously tarantulas in miniature environments. But, a fairly decent sequel offering which is better than most...

The biggest problem with this movie is its simplistic dialogue. One example is when the made scientist gloats "Spiders are carnivores. Did you know that?" It makes one wonder if the writers added that for the 3-year-olds who may be watching. It also lacks creativity and fails to create any suspense or scares. The actors also fail to generate any sense of urgency. Lines such as, "This is creepy" are spoken in the same tone you might use to say "We need milk." If the characters on screen are not afraid of their situation, why should the audience be scared? The spiders themselves never seem very real. There is no sense of scale or consistency. (One spider chasing the heroine seems to change size constantly--almost as if the animator couldn't get it quite right) They have a trumpeting roar that sounds suspiciously like an elephant and which detracts from any realism they may have had. (When was the last time you heard a spider say anything?) If you can see it for free, give it a try. But don't waste your money on this film.

There's a movie channel in LA called 'B' Mania. You can see some of the worst 'fun' movies on it. They wouldn't dare show this one. I expected Richard Moll to lapse in his 'Bull' character at any moment. The CGI is bad, the acting is bad, the movie is bad. Period.

The first "Spiders" is one of my guiltiest guilty pleasures in the horror genre, simply because that movie is just too stupid NOT to enjoy! It had grotesque special effects, featured every single cliché of the freshly revived creature-feature sub genre and it never took itself too seriously, which resulted in a fairly entertaining & campy flick. Part two regretfully is the complete opposite of all that. It tries to be scary and original, which is a pretty bad approach if you're dealing with mutated spiders that look as gigantic as a house! Despite the remotely promising opening sequences (featuring an authentic pirate attack!) and a lot of gory killings near the end, "Spiders 2" is also a very boring film and that's really unforgivable for a post-2000 horror production. The sail boat of a young couple sinks during a storm but they're rescued by a huge cargo ship. The exclusively male crew members are insufferably friendly even though it's more than obvious that they're naughty villains, especially the annoying captain of the ship and the stereotypical mad doctor with the white beard. It takes another tedious half hour before it's confirmed that the cargo ship actually is a floating research lab where the sinister scientist feeds human bodies to over-sized tarantulas. The ramshackle old cargo ship forms an interesting location, but crap-director Sam Firstenberg nearly isn't talented enough to make full use of it. The CGI-effects are atrocious, as are the acting performances and it's really pathetic to see how everyone involved in this Nu-Image production takes this thing so damn seriously.

Most of the people who've seen and slated Spiders 2 have obviously never seen Spiders 1, as the sequel is practically Citizen Kane in comparison. Most of the actors do a passable job (including Richard Moll - an actor I actually recognised, the last thing you expect from a film like this), and the director even throws in some halfhearted camera tricks - brilliantly stupid shots include the heroine diving through a bit of flimsy webbing in slo-mo as if it were a plate glass window.

However, any and all attempts to build up suspense totally disintegrate when the SFX are brought into play (some of the CG shots near the end are laugh-out-loud hilarious), and, unforgivably, it also suffers from Boring Spider Deaths. It also has absolutely no connection to the original, though I'm not sure whether that's a good or bad thing.

Still impossible to recommend as a good film, then, but it's definitely a cut above the original (if not quite as funny).