October Horror Challenge 2019 #80: "The Giant Spider (2013)"

Since I've been checking out some of the giant creature features of yesteryear, I figured I should check this out as well. This movie was made in 2013, and it's a throwback to those old creature features. It's made iui n the style if those movies, but still a spoof.

Now spoofs can go either way, but I tend not to like them if they stray too far into the territory of mocking people who like those movies. Yes, I know that these movies are silly, but liking them doesn't make me an idiot. Christopher Mihm, the guy who made this movie,  is supposed to be a fan of these types of films, so I was hopeful his movie could poke fun at them without mocking them or the people who enjoy them. Hope springs eternal.

So this movie opens with a little boy playing in the woods, fighting imaginary spacemen, when he sees a giant spider crawling around. Soon scientists from the local college and a reporter from the local newspaper are trying to figure out how to stop the spider before it eats everyone in the town.

I actually really like the opening scene with the little boy. I used to play like that in the woods too, so it rang true for me. Some of the dialogue is ridiculous. I get that it's supposed to be this way, but it does teeter on the edge of being annoying instead of funny. There are some great moments though, with a deeply sexist army guy who won't listen to information unless it's given by a man and not the woman.

There's also a scene where the reporter is trying to get some townspeople to clear out of the spider's path, but they won't believe him until he tells them they're being attacked by aliens. That actually made me chuckle. Well done. Overall,  this movie is silly, but it's a lot of fun, so I dug it.