Arachnado

Director - Dustin Ferguson (Ebola Rex, 5G Zombies)

Starring - Brinke Stevens (The Slumber Party Massacre, Teacher Shortage), Julie Anne Prescott (Hell Nurse, Apex Predators), and Mel Novak (Game of Death, RoboWoman)

Release Date - 2020

Genre - Horror

Tagline - "8 legs 80 miles per hour"

Format - DVD (Personal Collection) 

Rating (out of 5):

     Last year was rough for a lot of filmmaker but one indie director that was able to turn the pandemic into a creative outlet.  Dustin Ferguson, the director behind the horror documentary Penny Pinchers, took the pandemic and social distancing guidelines in strides working on film after film while staying six feet apart and protecting his cast and crew.  Over the course of the year he was able to release 5G Zombies, Ebola Rex, Angry Asian Murder Hornets, Stale Popcorn and Sticky Floors, and Arachnado just to name a few.  He was hard at work for this year and a lot of his titles made big splashes on the site when I shared the artwork and trailers.  Sometime back he announced that Arachnado was available on DVD so I quickly snagged a copy to review. 

     The film takes place in L.A. when a series of cyclones tears through the city.  Along the way they bust through a science lab where it picks up a genetically mutated spider.  The spider lays eggs in the cyclone and soon the baby spiders are flying all over L.A. creating havoc.  

     Ebola Rex and Angry Asian Murder Hornets were tough films to sit through.  I can appreciate Ferguson's desire and passion to make films during the pandemic but the social distancing and so forth has really created a tough situation for filmmakers to film.  It's because of this that these films consist of one or two cast members delivering their lines in a strange and awkward scene with the entire film consisting of these random scenes strung together.  Arachando is more of this which resulted in another movie that was tough to finish.  The acting in this one is very inconsistent.  Some of the scenes has a few cast members in them so the cast has someone else to interact with.  These scenes were not so bad.  However, the scenes that just feature one of the cast members going about their own business is severely awkward to watch and has a very unintentional funny reaction from the viewer.  I don't know if Ferguson watched the video back once he receives it but these scenes are tough to sit through.  The story for this one is Spider-Man meets Sharknado with very little meat on the bone.  As I stated earlier, the film consists of random scenes with single cast members for the most part who act out their dialogue and so forth.  It's then editing together with the other scenes which creates a rather chaotic and uneven film.  I understand that because of covid and the risk of exposing the cast that this is the only way the movie could be filmed but maybe waiting would have been the best choice.  Finally, we get plenty of low quality visual effects and blurry spider action.  However, if you are looking for some fun practical effects you will be very disappointed.  Overall, Arachnado was a huge miss for me.  I live for movies like this and I hate to be negative about a film that was made during one of the worst years most of us has ever lived through but the way this had to be made resulted in one rough movie.  I can't recommend this one.  Skip it.