Arachnophobia (film)

Arachnophobia is a 1990 American black comedy horror film directed by Frank Marshall and starring Jeff Daniels and John Goodman. The first film released by the Walt Disney Studios' Hollywood Pictures, it was Marshall's directorial debut. Its plot centers on a newly-discovered, prehistoric spider from Venezuela which is transported to a small California town. The spider produces an invasive species of deadly spiders which begin killing the town's residents.
Shot in Venezuela and California, the film was released in the United States on July 18, 1990. It was a modest commercial success, earning $53.21 million at the box office, and received generally positive reviews from critics.
Plot.
In a Venezuelan tepui, entomologist James Atherton captures two members of an aggressive new species of spider of prehistoric origin. The spiders lack sex organs, indicating that they are laborers or soldiers, thereby existing as a hive (atypical of spiders). A fertile male of the same species bites bedridden American nature photographer Jerry Manley, who has a severe seizure from the venom and dies. The scientist sends Manley's body back to his hometown of Canaima, California, unaware that the spider has crawled into the coffin.
Manley's desiccated body arrives at the mortuary of mortician Irv Kendall. The spider escapes from the coffin, is picked up by a crow and bites the bird. The crow falls dead outside the barn of Ross Jennings, a family physician who has moved from San Francisco to take over the practice of the retiring town doctor. Like his son, Ross has arachnophobia.
He is short of patients after Sam Metcalf, the elderly town doctor, hesitates about retiring. The Venezuelan spider mates with a house spider in the Jennings' barn. The domestic spider produces hundreds of infertile, drone offspring with their father's lethal bite, and they leave the nest after consuming her.
Ross' first patient, Margaret Hollins, dies after being bitten by one of the new spiders, and he doubts Metcalf's diagnosis of a heart attack. Another spider kills high school football player Todd Miller just after Ross conducted a routine team checkup, earning him the nickname of "Dr. Death". The next victim is Metcalf, who is bitten and dies in front of his wife.
With Metcalf dead, Ross becomes Canaima's town doctor. Knowing that Metcalf was bitten by a spider and a minute amount of an unknown toxin was detected in his body, he suspects that the town may be infested by deadly arachnids.
Ross calls Atherton and asks him to help his investigation. The skeptical Atherton sends Chris Collins, his assistant. Ross and county coroner Milt Briggs order that Hollins and Miller be exhumed. They perform autopsies, and Chris confirms Ross' suspicion after he identifies bite marks. Ross and Chris catch one of the spiders in Metcalf's house the following day. When Chris mentions the new species discovered by Atherton, Ross realizes that the town's killer spiders and Atherton's discovery are related.
Atherton joins Ross, Chris, Milt, Sheriff Lloyd Parsons, and exterminator Delbert McClintock in Canaima, and they discover the spiders have a short lifespan due to their crossbreeding. Atherton tells them that the spiders are soldiers sent to eliminate potential threats for the head male spider which he calls "the general". He learns that the general produced a queen and inbred with her to produce a second nest (guarded by the queen) which could produce fertile offspring, culminating in worldwide dispersal.
Ross, Chris, and Delbert discover that one nest is in Ross's barn. When he destroys the nest, Delbert finds Atherton deadbitten by the general before it escaped. Chris gets the Jennings family out of their infested house, but Ross falls through the floor into his wine cellar: the spiders' second nest, guarded by the queen and the general.
After he electrocutes the queen, Ross battles the general while he tries to burn the second egg sac (overcoming his fear of spiders by focusing on his need to stop them). Trapped by fallen debris as the general prepares to bite him, Ross stays perfectly still until the general is in position, then flings the spider into the fire; as the egg sac hatches, the general jumps out of the fire. Ross shoots it with a nail gun, sending the flaming spider into the egg sac and destroying the nest. Delbert rescues Ross: with the general, the queen and the nests destroyed and the soldiers dying, the spiders' threat is over. Deciding that they missed their old life, the Jennings family returns to San Francisco.
Production.
Steven Spielberg was involved with "Arachnophobia", with Frank Marshall (one of his earlier producers) directing for the first time. Spielberg and Marshall were the film's executive producers, and Amblin Entertainment received a production credit.
Marshall intended that the film would be reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds": "People like to be scared but laughing, like a roller coaster. No one wants to be terrified." "Arachnophobia" also bears similarities to the 1977 film, "Kingdom of the Spiders".
Jamie Hyneman of "MythBusters" said in "Popular Mechanics" that "Arachnophobia" was one of the first films on which he worked, and he often relied on simple magnets for effects. The film used over 300 Avondale spiders from New Zealand, chosen for their large size, unusually-social lifestyle, and harmlessness to humans; they were guided around the set by heat and cold. The large general and queen spiders were articulated models. 
"Arachnophobia" was primarily filmed in Cambria, California; the introductory and jungle scenes were filmed in southern Venezuela. The school scenes were filmed at Coast Union High School, with students and staff used in the football scenes and group events; players in the locker room were CUHS student athletes. For the sound effect of spiders being crushed, Foley artists stepped on mustard packages or potato chips.
Release and reception.
"Arachnophobia" was the first film released by Hollywood Pictures. Advertisers were uncertain if they should market it as a thriller or a comedy, and television commercials for the film called it a "thrill-omedy".
Box office.
"Arachnophobia" debuted at number three (behind "Ghost" and "Die Hard 2", earning $8 million over its first weekend. The film was a financial success, grossing $53,208,180 domestically and an additional $30 million in video rentals.
Critical response.
In "Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide", film critic Leonard Maltin calls "Arachnophobia" a "slick comic thriller", praising the acting with a caveat: "Not recommended for anyone who's "ever" covered their eyes during a movie." Writing for "Newsweek", David Ansen compared the film to B movies "about the small town threatened by alien invaders", calling it well-made but "oddly unresonant." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" said that the film made audiences "squirm out of enjoyment, not terror", and gave it three out of four stars.
"Arachnophobia" has a 93% rating based on 42 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 7 out of 10. According to the website's critical consensus, ""Arachnophobia" may not deliver genuine chills, but it's an affectionate, solidly built tribute to Hollywood's classic creature features." Some people interested in spiders protested against the film, believing that it tarnished the public's view of spiders.
Home media.
"Arachnophobia" was released on VHS and LaserDisc in 1991, on DVD in 1999, and on Blu-ray on September 25, 2012.
Merchandising.
The video-game version of "Arachnophobia" was released in 1991 for Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 and DOS. Nicholas Edwards wrote a novelization of the film. Hollywood Comics (an imprint of Disney Comics) released a comic-book adaptation of the film, written by William Rotsler with art by Dan Spiegle. The characters in the comic adaptation bear little resemblance to those in the film.
An "Arachnophobia" soundtrack album was released in 1990. It included Trevor Jones's instrumental music from the film, dialogue excerpts, and songs such as "Blue Eyes Are Sensitive to the Light" by Sara Hickman, "Caught in Your Web (Swear to Your Heart)" by Russell Hitchcock, and "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" by Tony Bennett.