105 minutes may be too many for a movie about killer spiders, but other than that, this is an entertaining, well-done horror comedy, in the "animals/serpents/bugs/birds/etc. attack" sub-genre. The director, Frank Marshall, and the screenwriters, Wesley Strick and Don Jakoby, think of every possible and impossible place to put their spiders, which are a near flawless mix of the real thing and animatronic models (thankfully, this movie was made before the days of CGI - notice how fake the same creatures look in later horror movies). Both the sudden shocks and the close calls are expertly timed by Marshall, and because there are no real "villains" among the humans you don't know who is going to get it - obviously the Spielbergian family is safe, but everyone else is fair game. I do, however, have some reservations about John Goodman's bug-exterminator character: he seems to have stepped in from another movie - "Ghostbusters"! **1/2 out of 4.
Review of Arachnophobia
