Arachnophobia

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Movie
German title Arachnophobia
Original title Arachnophobia
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1990
length 105 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Frank Marshall
script Don Jakoby ,
Wesley Strick ,
Al Williams
production Kathleen Kennedy ,
Richard Vane
music Trevor Jones
camera Mikael Salomon
cut Michael Kahn
occupation

Arachnophobia is an American horror film released in 1990 . The film, assigned to the subgenre animal horror , shows the fear of arachnids , the so-called arachnophobia . The film opened in German cinemas on January 10, 1991.

action

The US photographer Jerry Manley travels to South America and accompanies one of the spider expert Dr. James Atherton led a group of scientists exploring the Venezuelan jungle . In a deep valley near a table mountain , cut off from the outside world , the team comes across a new, extremely aggressive species of spider, of which Atherton takes a stunned specimen for research purposes. Unnoticed by the group, however, a second spider gets into Manley's backpack, who dies in the camp as a result of a bite from the highly poisonous animal.

His body is then transferred to California - but nobody notices that the death spider is traveling with the man in the man's coffin . In Manley's Californian hometown of Canaima, the specimen escaped after it had consumed the photographer's “juice” during the trip. At the same time as the spider, the general practitioner Dr. Ross Jennings and his family moved to Canaima to take on the position of doctor. What the spider- phobic Jennings does not suspect: the Venezuelan death spider reached his property via detours and has mated with a native species there . This created a very aggressive hybrid that attacks and kills various city dwellers.

The spider bite corpses that appear bring Jennings on the scene, who through an unfortunate chain is sometimes suspected of having the dead on his conscience. Over time, however, he discovers the hybrid spiders and alerts Atherton as a specialist. Together and after uncovering the connection between Manley and Canaima, the team tracks down the spiders. According to this, the male from the jungle valley, which has to be seen as a closed ecosystem, is at the top of the local food chain. For their own protection and to safeguard the brood, the actual offspring, poisonous soldier spiders are produced at the same time, which behave similarly to bee drones . However, the next generation of spiders could already have reproductive organs and would thus be almost unstoppable.

Together with the exterminator Delbert McClintock, the Jennings discover that of all things the beloved wine cellar of their house has been chosen as the nest for the brood. The three go on a deadly hunt to prevent the spider species from multiplying and spreading. They discover the dead Atherton in the barn: he was obviously too hasty and was bitten to death by the mother spider.

Dr. With the help of McClintock, Jennings manages to free his family from the house, which has meanwhile been overrun by the hybrid spiders, but falls into the barricaded wine cellar. Here he accidentally discovers the brood nest of the next generation - as well as the mother animal and the Venezuelan male spider, which is referred to in the film as " General ". In the finale, Jennings succeeds in the cellar, which has partly gone up in flames, to switch off the mother spider by throwing it against the fuse box and to destroy the general (now also burning) with the help of various valuable thrown wine bottles and a nail gun . At the same time, McClintock can render the remaining hybrid spiders harmless, which means that the danger is finally eliminated.

The last scene shows the Jennings, who have since moved to San Francisco and dream of a quieter life. An earthquake struck there shortly afterwards.

Background information

The New Zealand Delena cancerides was used for the filming.
  • The main animal characters in the film were Avondale spiders ( Delena cancerides ), a harmless species of spider that is native to New Zealand . They were trained by Steven R. Kutcher , who trained the spiders for Spider-Man in 2002 .
  • The city in which the scenes were filmed, is Cambria , and is located in San Luis Obispo County ( California ). The city name "Canaima" is derived from the Canaima National Park in Venezuela, where the first part of the film was shot.
  • The production budget of 31 million US dollars has been taken in the US alone, where the film 53 million dollars grossed again.
  • The mask effects come from Oscar winner Chris Walas .

Awards

5 Saturn Award nominations, including 2 awards
2 Young Artist Award nominations
  • Best Young Supporting Actress ( Marlene Katz )
  • Best entertaining youth film, comedy / horror

Reviews

"A horror film that prefers a gentle shudder to brutal shock and perfectly prepares classic role models."

- Lexicon of international film

“A brilliant mix of bizarre humor and spider horror with amazing effects, sophisticated technology and good actors. So: excitement and entertainment at its best. But who's any surprise: In the background stood Steven Spielberg with his production company Amblin Entertainment! "

- prism

New edition

In June 2018 it was announced that a remake of Arachnophobia was planned. James Wan is the producer .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Arachnophobia (1990) on boxofficemojo.com (English), accessed November 15, 2012
  2. ↑ Arachnophobia. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  3. ↑ Arachnophobia on prisma.de , accessed on November 15, 2012
  4. ↑ Aquaman director James Wan awakens your fear of spiders with Arachnophobia Remake . In: moviepilot.de . June 12, 2018 ( moviepilot.de [accessed June 15, 2018]).