This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Lack of good storyline.

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Arachnid opens with a giant water spout on top of which would appear to be a UFO capable of becoming invisible. This attracts the attention of a stealth fighter pilot who ejects from his plane seconds before it crashes into the UFO. Having safely parachuted onto a jungle island, the pilot confronts and shoots an alien only to find himself facing a giant spider...We are transported both forward in time and geographically to Guam where locals from the aforementioned island are dying from spider bites. In order to find a cure an expedition is raised thus giving our film makers the opportunity to introduce the usual collection of clichéd characters and gradually eliminate most of them.Our motley crew are made up of Valentine (Chris Potter) the gung-ho gun-toting hero, his sidekicks Reyes (Luis Lorenzo Crespo) and Bear (Roqueford Allen), Mercer (Alex Reid) the tough as boots charter pilot also on a mission to find out what happened to her fighter pilot brother, Dr. Samuel Leon (Jose Sancho), his glamorous but tough assistant Susana (Neus Asensi), Henry Capri (Ravil Isyanov), arachnologist and a few of the islanders.Suffice to say that they soon find themselves arguing with each other and eventually, as their numbers dwindle, bonding. In between, various members of the party come to sticky ends involving body infesting giant ticks, cocoons and the title character.This formulaic dross is only enlivened in small parts by one or two special effects moments, the giant spider being the highlight - although even this is let down by the sight of it 'running'. Most of the cast seem to be more well-known on the small screen which is quite apt as the dialogue is certainly not up to the standards of a major motion picture. The music seems to have absolutely no connection to what is happening on the screen and simply jars. Background sounds of waves breaking and jungle noises are loud enough to drown out speech which itself is often totally unintelligible. The original involvement of alien creatures is never clearly explained - unfortunately merely a prelude to various plot holes. To top all this off, we have yet another film without a proper ending. Whether this is done in the expectation of a sequel or simply because the budgetary pot ran dry is a matter of conjecture.Whilst most of this can be explained away as being caused by budgetary restraints - apparently only $570,000 dollars was wasted - blame must largely lie with screenplay writer Mark Seri and director Jack Sholder.

Expedition to a remote island find themselves stranded after a plane crash, and at the mercy of an army of voracious, giant spiders. Pilot (Alex Reid) has taken the job to search for her missing brother, whose naval jet was last reported in the vicinity of the island, while mercenary (Chris Potter) and his crew (Bear and Lightfoot) tries to remain professional in spite of the chaos.Quirky spider specialist (Isyanov) causes endless grief, as he disappears at every given opportunity, searching for specimens with which to experiment; his final experiment finds him cocooned in a tightly woven spider-web. Thereafter the film is a roller-coaster, and it's mostly downhill, very quickly. Survivors take refuge in a dilapidated WWII shelter while the giant spiders terrorise them like demons on stilts, something akin to "War of the Worlds". Naturally, Reid discovers the fate of her naval pilot brother, and while the couple reunite with the indestructible Bear (Allen), their survival remains tenuous.Horrid special effects and tense action sequences provides the glue that binds this formula picture together. Some light wit and a relaxed performance by Potter offer glimmers of hope, and the film is nothing if at least watchable, although the awkward English translation (most of the characters are obviously of Latin origin, so why pretend to be North Americans?) and absence of any 'name' actors (Potter is by no means a household name) might distance the average viewer.

Sort of a middling "critter feature" seen on the Sci Fi channel. The basic plot idea is fairly interesting, but lacks quite a bit in execution. The acting is pretty good, particularly for this genre, but the critters are pretty bad, looking like closeups of small mechanical (or CGI) spiders made to look large. I particularly liked Chris Potter as Valentine and Ravil Isyanov as Henry Capri. The women were OK, in particular Alex Reid as Mercer, but neither were pretty enough nor hot enough to pull their weight in this kind of flick.The movie starts with some kind of semi-transparent alien craft intersecting a stealth fighter and both crashing. The Navy pilot ejects and parachutes into a jungle environment where he watches the alien pilot get offed by a large pincered critter, then suffers the same fate. Maybe this is where the arachnids pick up their alien DNA, but since they are already large, maybe not.Months later a group of doctors, with Valentine and friends as bodyguards, set off to the fair island -- where the natives are dying so some loathsome disease induced by venom -- in a plane piloted by Mercer (the stealth pilot's sister searching for her brother). Apparently some magnetic interference (never further explained) causes the plane's electronics (and their satellite radio/phone) to go bonkers. Don't expect any cavalry. The natives, by the way, are much more like South American Indians than South Pacific whatevers. They are too small to be Polynesians, and too light skinned to be anything else. Well, it's Science Fiction...After the running and screaming, losing characters right and left to the critters evil machinations, the hero (Valentine), the chick (Mercer) and one of the "natives" off the mama spider and presumably escape the island -- I guess, but how? The plane is still down and the electronics still out. The production ran out of film? Ran out of money? What?

This movie is so horrible that I now suffer from "Movie Arachnophobia" (fear of watching anymore movies about spiders). The beginning alone had me scratching my head wondering what was going through the writers/directors minds when they came up with the idea of how to start this film. It is downright pitiful and was almost enough for me to turn it off right then and there only a couple of minutes into it. ...and now in hindsight, I should have shut it off and not wasted the 90 minutes or so of my life viewing this absolutely awful film. I mean, there is worse out there, but this movie is still not even worth watching. If you must see this film, DO NOT spend the money to rent it...rather, wait for it to come on Sci-Fi sometime. One of the worst spider movies ever!!!