I feel the same way about spiders as Indiana Jones does about snakes - I hate them! Given that fact you'd probably think a couple of movies about giant arachnids wouldn't get anywhere near my DVD player, but you'd be wrong. After watching Arachnophobia I came out of the cinema thinking I could deal with even the biggest (at least the biggest we get in the UK) of the ugly little buggers. Until I encountered one anyway.

So, armed with a really BIG slipper, bring it on!

Spiders (2000)

When you’re dealing with giant spider movies you can be pretty sure you’re in for some cheese, the question is will it be tasty cheddar or stinky gorgonzola. Well, in the case of Spiders it’s definitely the latter.

What we have here is an attempt to merge Alien with Arachnophobia, with a secret government experiment to combine extraterrestrial and spider DNA. A dim-witted reporter and her equally intellectually challenged crew stumble on to the scheme and end up trapped in a secret base with the hybrid spider.

The DVD sleeve says this is from the FX team who created From Dusk Till Dawn, Spawn, and Wishmaster. That may be so but here they are responsible for some of the worst CGI effects I’ve ever seen. It’s bad enough when the film stays in the confined space of the base but when things head outside for the over-the-top climax with a spider of King Kong-sized proportions, it’s so bad it’s not even funny.

Ineptly directed by Gary Jones, a man whose career highlight was working on the Xena and Hercules TV series, this was a real chore to sit through. Lead actress Lana Parrilla is a familiar face, having had recurring roles in 24, NYPD Blue, and Boomtown but here, with everything working against her, she’s not up to the task of saving a very bad movie; still even Sigourney Weaver couldn’t have salvaged this one.