Big Ass Spider! (2013): Arachnids, an exterminator and one hell of a day off
(Spoiler alert, obvs.)
In a world of shark-filled tornadoes and incessant zombie apocalypses a movie about spiders might not be completely unique, but it certainly does offer a reprieve.
Even though this movie is in the Horror Comedy section of Netflix, it is considered to be a comic science fiction movie (at least according to Wikipedia). I would say that the movie blends all of these aspects rather well.
This movie was really enjoyable from start to finish. The movie starts off near the end of the tale, before taking the viewer back to the beginning of the day (and the beginning of the adventure) to fill us in.
The movie follows the day off of Alex Mathis (played by Greg Grunberg, though I’d love to see Kevin James in a remake), an exterminator who is rather passionate about insects. Spiders are his favorite (he even has a spider tattoo).
Because Mathis answers a call from a client on his day off that has him in the crawl space under under the client’s house hunting for a mouse, he ends up bitten by a brown recluse.
The spider bite takes him to the hospital, where he is treated and on his way home when the hospitals mortician comes to speak to the director of the hospital about a creature he escaped down in the morgue. Alex overhears the conversation and of course becomes interested.
Eventually the director of the hospital agrees to let Alex hunt whatever is down in the morgue, and sends the hospital security guard Jose Ramos (Lombardo Boyar) along with him. What Alex and Jose don’t know while they are down in the morgue is that the military has shown up at the hospital looking to contain a problem they have, which happens to have to do with the very creature that Alex and Jose are hunting!
Alex is introduced to Lieutenant Karly Brant (Clare Kramer) when she shoots the spider who is just about to pounce onto Alex.
The hi-jinks of the movie lead the characters all around Los Angeles (where the movie is set, and where it was filmed on location), hunting down the spider as it gets bigger and bigger. The military keeps falling just short and all the while they are trying to get Alex to abandon his quest to be the one who bests the spider, but him and Jose refuse to quit.
The weakest part of the plot is when the Lieutenant becomes a damsel-in-distress who the Major (Braxton Tanner, played by Ray Wise)) sends Alex in to save.
All-in-all, however, the movie is great. The scenes of the spider eating people, or spinning them into a web, or melting their faces off with poison are all great! The chemistry between the two main characters Alex and Jose comes across really well (even if you, like myself, feel that Jose’s character is written as much as a racial caricaturization as a character). The movie could also do without the caricaturized newsreel that shows groups of black people reacting to sightings of the spider.
Coming it an hour and twenty minutes, and rated PG-13, this movie might not be gut-bustingly funny, but it also is neither terrifying nor too disturbingly graphic in the gore department.
I would rate this movie a solid 7 out of 8 spider legs.
