Movie Review: Arachnoquake (2012)

Synopsis: A fracking operation near New Orleans causes a series of earthquakes that release giant, fire-breathing spiders on the city and leave residents in terror as they attempt to escape before being eaten.

Who's in it? The movie stars Megan Adelle, Gralen Bryant Banks, Tracey Gold, Edward Furlong and Grant James.

Review: I watch a lot of horror movies and, as part of that, have watched more than my share of bad horror films, especially those that were made for TV. However, every once in a while, I'll come across a film that is so terrible, I wind up wondering if some of my brain cells exploded from watching it. The film Arachnoquake is one of those movies.

To be fair, I probably should have expected as much from the title. In my defense, however, I have seen a similar film, Lavalantula, that turned out to be surprisingly good so, based on that, I was willing to give this movie a shot this morning. Too bad the film didn't hold up its end.

My biggest problem with this movie is there is very little attempt at being unique. Giant spiders terrorizing a town has been done before plenty of times and most of those times were done better. The lone attempt at making the spiders special by having them breath fire just seemed desperate and, at times, was even underutilized. Why wrap a school bus in web if you could just set it on fire and force your prey out into the open?

The special effects didn't do this movie any favors either. I know it was made 14 years ago and didn't have a big budget to work with, but the spiders were almost cartoonish in appearance and weren't anywhere near being scary. I should feel like I have something crawling up my leg while watching a movie like this, not laughing.

On a positive note, the acting in the movie was surprisingly good. I don't think there was a particular actor who stood out but as an ensemble, the cast did at least keep things serious and attempted to make the movie believable, even as the weak special effects and not-so-great script made that impossible. It wasn't enough for me to give the movie a passing grade, but it did at least make me feel sorry about their wasted efforts.

Final Opinion: There are plenty of giant spider movies and at least one other one (plus a sequel) that has fire-breathing spiders. Do yourself a favor and watch one of those instead of this one.

My Grade: F

___________________________________________________________________

Here are some reviews of other movies featuring deadly spiders:

Movie Review: Earth vs. the Spider (1958)

Movie Review: Itsy Bitsy (2019)

Movie Review: Spider in the Attic (2021)

Movie Review: The Giant Spider Invasion (1975)