This one sat on my DVD-shelf for quite a while. I don't think I'm alone if I admit to prefer any spider larger than a baby's palm to be sealed inside a terrarium. Still, things that can either eat you or lay eggs in your ears during the night tend to make pretty basic mush for all things horror. Here we go.
8 legs (Arachnid)
** (2001, Spain)
As the title suggests, this film has spiders in it. Lots of them. And not just any insects - these are alien and mutated. Normally this wouldn't be a bad beginning point for a typical monster film, but 8 legs doesn't have to offer much more than a 95 minute excuse to postpone doing something useful. Like chores.
After one of the above mentioned creepy-crawlies takes a good bite out of a pilot, landing him to a hospital with foreign symptoms, a medical research expedition is sent to investigate the spiders, which have been pestering the local tribe for a while.
The director Jack Sholder doesn't only break about every rule in horror (concerning the threat of the unknown ) - he trashes them and throws them out of a window. It's very difficult to deliver an artificial but believable and scary creature on the screen, so the Golden Rule in monster horror is to try to be subtle about it and leave as much room to the imagination as possible = show as little as you can.
Of course there are film makers and studios who can pull of a seemingly living giant creature and make it look natural, but when 8 legs was being produced, these people weren't anywhere near it. The visual effects have more resemblance to the 70s film industry than anything from this millennia. By cutting of the beginning credits with their sad attempts at CGI and editing here and there, until the spider wouldn't be more than unnervingly mysterious glimpses, this film could have been exceedingly much more enjoyable.
To me, the method used in here seems unbelievable, because I can't help but to think how much more tasteful and cheaper a more stealthy approach would have been. If you have any doubt, that the enormous space bug you've designed isn't quite up to convincing the audience, then don't throw it on their face in direct sunlight, plastic fangs, hairy eight legs and all! Honestly, I've seen daytime nature documentaries which have made my skin crawl more (even though I'm strangely thankful for the lack of eww-factor close-ups).
The rest of the plot doesn't do any favours for the film, either. The only things that save this train wreck from being a one star piece of junk are Ravil Isyanov's performance as an endearingly weird researcher and the occasional pleasant moments of dialogue.
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