Arachnophobia

11/8/2026

Another nostalgic revisit, akin to The Witches, but with one major difference: I did not actually see this movie when I was a kid, but rather owned a copy of the novelization, which I read and re-read many times. I probably saw a TV commercial for the movie and wanted to see it, but a trip to the theatre wasn’t so easy to come by at that age, especially if parental guidance was suggested. Instead, I somehow got my hands on the book and experienced it that way.¹

I believe I only watched the movie after reaching adulthood, and so, the visuals of the film aren’t quite as embedded in my brain as they are for other childhood nostalgia movies. Oddly, the names of characters and places (like the fictional town of “Canaima” where the story takes place) felt very familiar, because they were words that I had come across repeatedly. Also, the book had some full-colour inserts with stills from the movie, and those handful of images did stand out, as if my brain had combined those photos and the novel’s descriptions and extrapolated what those scenes would look like.

As for the movie itself, it holds up, in my opinion. Like most movies from that time, it feels slow-paced by today’s standards, but I don’t think there are any wasted scenes. The spider effects, a combination of real critters and puppets/animatronics, are convincing. The scares are pretty tame, usually involving a spider jumping at someone, so it feels more like an adventure movie than a horror movie.

Story-wise, I was a fan of how the first few casualties could all be plausibly explained by other circumstances. Only the inner circle of characters even believes in the spider problem, which ups the tension until the critters completely overrun the town. And when we reach the “final boss fight,” all of the action elements set up earlier (e.g. nail gun, wine bottles) pay off satisfyingly. Simple, but fun.

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