31 Days of Halloween: Itsy Bitsy

2019, Micah Gallo (feature debut) -- Amazon

The second in the spider trilogy we are imposing upon ourselves. Luckily, this spider was so obviously animated, I did not react in the bit. The movie also smacked of Straight to VHS level (and I mean .. from the VHS days) that any hint of "scariness" melted away in bad drama and lack of any real tension. 

If Infested had the spider coming from a Jordanian desert (would have been scarier to write 'dessert') and collected by capitalistic opportunists, this spider comes from a ... tomb raider in ... Asia? In a mildly interesting bit of backstory, the tomb raider is stealing the egg jar from a weird spider-god cult out of spite, for they killed the woman who raised him, the wife of a known treasure/antiquity collector... the seedy kind, not the Indiana Jones kind. Either way, the tomb raider tries to gift the egg jar to the collector, Walter Clark (Bruce Davison, The Lords of Salem), but they argue and the tomb raider smashes the egg jar before running off.

Meanwhile, Clark's new live in caregiver, a single mom with two kids in tow, arrives in time to see the tomb raider run out. The caregiver Kara (Elizabeth Roberts, Days of Our Lives) also comes with a major amount of PTSD from an accident that killed one of her children, and ended her marriage, and an oxy addiction. She is not a good mom. But the movie wants to set her up to be seen as a Good Mom, or at least a protective mom, but really, I side with her kid, she is not a good mom. Even on her good days, she leaves the 12 year old Jesse (Arman Darbo, Defenders of Life) to take care of his younger sister -- like everything: food, cleaning, dressing, etc.

So, yeah the egg jar had a spider egg in it, and the spider bit the tomb raider, who crashed his van soon after. But don't pay attention to that, as it doesn't really play into the plot. Pay closer attention to the not-really-ever-hidden puppy sized spider running around Clark's house. Oh, it moults a time or two, but it never really becomes sizeable, just enough to look icky big.

And that's the rub of this movie. It may be the 80s VHS style lack of tension (I mean, Bruce Davison was the king of these bad movies) and cheesy effects, but I was not scared of the spider one bit. Usually spider scenes make me jump out of my skin but..... not so much here. And despite them focusing on seeing the spider lay eggs in two places, we don't end up dealing with more than one spider. They leave that to the lame attempt to hint at a sequel.

Also, I am kind of annoyed that they would associate the movie with kid's nursery rhyme but not play into it. But it did lead to amusing Search Results when I entered into Amazon's search bar.

31 Days of Halloween: Infested

2023, Sébastien Vanicek (feature debut) -- Shudder

Or Vermines.

This season we are doing the recent "spider trilogy". They are unrelated movies from the last few years only connected by the theme of spiders being the monster. The first is this French movie that strikes me as a nod to Rec (we saw that movie before this blog existed) and any French movie that deals with underprivileged surviving in one of the many "housing projects" where immigrant families gather together, likely because they have no choice, and end up building communities among the residents. Also, hints of Attack the Block.

The tower depicted in this movie was something so fantastic looking, I assumed it was CGI, but no, the Arènes de Picasso are very much real buildings built in the 80s. Unlike in the movie, the scant information I can find on the structures implies they are not as rundown as the movie depicted.

Anywayz, spiders. The movie starts with some Arab collectors digging around in the desert for spiders they can sell. They gas an underground nest and collect the spiders as they spill forth, but one man is bitten. As he is writhing in pain, another kills him.

The spiders make their way to Paris, to the grotty shop behind a convenience store where Kaleb (Théo Christine, Gran Turismo) is looking for earrings to give as a gift, but one of the spiders catches his eye. He seems genuinely intrigued, an enthusiast, supported by the veritable zoo in his room, filled with rare species of bugs and lizards. This introduction also includes his sister Manon (Lisa Nyarko, feature debut), who keeps turning off the power in his room leaving all the precious creatures in the dark & cold. She is trying to renovate the apartment, left to them by their late mother, so she can sell it. Kaleb is the opposite, a member of the community of the tower, over-protective and entrepreneurial despite being seen as a requisite criminal by the local busy body, this time portrayed by a man in his 40s instead of the familiar old lady. Kaleb actually seems popular with the elderly of the building. In fact, Kaleb is selling shoes, not drugs.

So yeah, his spider escapes. This is not any normal spider. This is a scifi spider. It replicates really quickly, they grow really big really quickly. Soon the place is infested, webs are in every corridor, every air vent, every dark room. Pretty soon, I was pulling my feet off the floor, and squirming all over the sofa. You see, I like big bugs, I really think hand-sized beetles and stick insects are fascinating, but... spiders... spiders give me the non-stop heebie jeebies. When the palm sized spiders were spilling out of the bathroom air vent I squirmed. When a spider the size of a small dog appeared on the ceiling behind a character, I visibly cringed.

The movie escalates really quickly. Kaleb and his "friends" (one friend, one ex-friend, a girl who hates him, and his sister) decide they have to convince the neighbours to escape the building, but the casualties rack up really quickly. Soon it is just a matter to survive long enough to ... run into a quarantine. Apparently the authorities are aware of what's going on, but have trapped all the residents in the tower, barricading doors, sealing exits, etc.  So, the kids have to find a way to get out before they join the rest of the building as spider food.

This was a fun movie, frantic and chilling, creepy and, if you are like me, scary AF. Well no, not truly scary for me, for I am able to acknowledge my fears and enjoy the ride. The portrayals are really tight but that is made easier by focusing on only the kids, where everyone else is incidental and expendable.