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Amityville Death House (2015) is one of the prolific Mark Polonia’s many movies. This slow-moving chore to get through has a screenplay by filmmaker John Oak Dalton and focuses on a 300-year-old witch who grows eight legs to become a spider lady! Despite its title, the film has nothing to do with the Amityville Horror franchise and merely uses the name to sell the movie.
Guardians of the Tomb is a 2017 Australian/Chinese action-horror film. Also known as 7 Guardians of the Tomb and Nest 3D. A team of scientists battle their way through a swarm of deadly funnel web spiders and discover the secret behind the arachnids’ power and intelligence – before it’s too late… The film is notable for the unusual appearance of actor Kelsey Grammer (best known as pompous Frasier in the sitcom of the same name) amongst a cast of unknowns led by the more famous Li Bingbing.
Itsy Bitsy (2019) involves a prehistoric cave-dwelling spider that gets too entangled in a family drama to the detriment of the arachnid action.
Arachnicide is an appallingly poor Italian movie that takes 45 minutes to get going and then involves troops shooting at CGI spiders in what looks like an ill-conceived video game. It’s a classic case of nice artwork, shame about the movie. Also released as Spiders and one to avoid.
Arachnado is a 2020 American sci-fi horror film about a tornado that whips up a storm of giant spiders in Los Angeles. Sounds like fun in the vein of Sharknado! Unfortunately, this is another one of low-rent auteur Dustin Ferguson’s duds so the expected monster mayhem is deeply disappointing. But it must have made some money cos Arachnado 2: Flaming Spiders arrived the following year.
Monkey King: Cave of the Silk Web is a 2020 Chinese fantasy film about the four masters and apprentices’ encounter with a spider spirit.
Future Fear (2021) is a surreal sci-fi anthology film which features a sequence in which a couple in a motel are attacked by a huge spider whilst they are having passionless coitus. The arachnid devours the chubby man and then sprouts a woman’s head!
Bloodthirsty Spider (2021) is a Chinese movie with typical anti-capitalist and pro-environmental messages. To reduce costs, a greedy factory owner is secretly dumping toxic waste in the mountains. However, the resulting pollution leakage causes the spiders (plural) in the area to mutate and go on a rampage.
Also from China the same year, Giant Spider is a routine sci-fi action-horror film about a special forces team rescuing trapped personnel from a lab.
Crazy Spider is yet another 2021 Chinese action horror film about genetic research that results in a giant mutated spider.
Spider in the Attic is a cheap 2021 British horror film about a deadly nest of nasty big arachnids lurking in a dead scientist’s country cottage. Sounds creepy, eh? Unfortunately, after a few fleeting moments of a CGI spider at the start, it’s 28 minutes in until we briefly see a couple of the oddly-shaped spiders for a few seconds. Predictably, as this is a Jagged Edge production, the film immediately reverts to a tiresome pregnancy/relationship drama that surely no one is in the slightest bit interested in. Beyond all the domestic dreariness, the main characters’ actions and decisions are head-shakingly daft.
Infested is a superior 2023 French horror film about a loner who purchases a deadly spider that escapes and soon reproduces turning an apartment building into a giant trap.
Spider is a 2023 Pakistani CGI mind-numbingly low-budget monster movie about an accountant who has to fight off a huge arachnid in the jungle.
British cheapie Spiders on a Plane (2024) is self-explanatory and mostly disappointing given its promising premise.
Spider Baby is a 2024 horror remake of the aforementioned ’60s cult classic by Jack Hill who is the executive producer of this movie. Although it’s written and directed by Dustin Ferguson (Archanado movies) this looks a step up from the ultra-cheap dross he usually churns out.
Sting is a 2024 Australian horror film about an alien egg that produces a ravenous supersized spider with a taste for human flesh. Unfortunately, much of the movie focuses on a family drama, and some supposedly quirky characters intended to be amusing but prove irritating instead. The spider is notably absent for much of the first half of the movie.
NB. Spiders also creep out movie characters with minor appearances in films such as Rush Week (1988), The Faculty (1998) and Honeyspider (2014).
Arachnophobia shower scene:
The Haunted Mansion (2003) “whack a spider” scene:
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