Phillemos Wow. Where to begin. First of all, when you call your movie "Earth vs. the Spider," you set people up for a giant spider stomp-a-thon. This movie is nothing of the sort. I don't see any evidence that people in New Zealand or Bolivia are shaking in their shoes because some goofy kid is on a homicidal rampage after injecting himself with spider serum. I don't even see anyone else in the city panicking. The movie is also painfully slow. I had already just about fallen asleep watching "Shapeshifter" with my friends, but at least that movie had a hot lead actress. This movie has a fat Dan Aykroyd playing a police detective investigating the spider-boy's trail of killings (including a serial killer Aykroyd hadn't been able to catch). I wavered on whether Aykroyd worked in this role, because it's a little different than his usual performance. Overall I thought he wasn't bad, but if he wants to play an active police detective in future movies he definitely needs to hit the gym. But the movie is just too slow for my taste, and the misleading title kind of ruins it for me. I think a 2 is even a little generous for this flick.

Carycomic You'd have this movie. It's about a security guard named Quentin who's an avid comic-book fan (which makes me empathize with him, so far). And, one night, masked gunmen (presumably eco-terrorists) raid the genetic research company where he works. His partner, Nick is struggling with one of them, after hitting the silent alarm. And when Quentin tries to help him, he is restrained by one of the so-called "real cops" who respond. As a result, Nick is killed, along with the cop's partner.Quentin is ridiculed for letting that happen, and fired for being "negligent" in his duties (he was patrolling a different part of the building when the raid occurred). That's when he remembers that the shot-up lab is where they were injecting some mysterious red chemical into what look like pygmy tarantulas.As his favorite comic book hero is the Arachnid Avenger (a thinly-disguised version of Marvel's Spidey, during his six-armed phase), he becomes a vigilante. The first enemy he defeats? A serial killer called the Mid-town Murderer, who makes the fatal mistake of targeting Stephanie, Quentin's pretty pre-med neighbor.Enter "Detective Grillo," played--with very surprising realism--by Dan Akroyd. The Mid-town Murders were his case, and having someone else kill the perpetrator does not improve his current unpopularity among his fellow cops. Or, his unfaithful wife (played by Theresa Russell). Unfortunately, as Quentin's mutations increase, so does his appetite. And, he begins FEEDING on his (still less-than-sympathetic) targets!!! *This includes Mrs. Grillo's lover, Officer Williams. The same policeman who accused Quentin of not being a real cop. I could be wrong. But, it looked as if he was fondling that webbed-up Goth girl, while supposedly untangling her.*Unfortunately, after such a slow build-up, the show-down between Det. Grillo and Quentin is a little too rushed for my taste. We don't get shown if Grillo and his wife reconcile (assuming she merely fainted, instead of dying of fright, at the first sight of fully-mutated Quentin). Nor, do we see if Stephanie and Thor (Quentin's pet beagle) stay at, or move away from, the apartment building.All we see is a ceramic model of Arachnoid Quentin exhibited by his Amerasian friend, the comic-book dealer (supposedly as a tribute). And, as if that anti-climax weren't bad enough, there's the misleading title itself. THIS IS NOT A REMAKE OF THE B/W 1958 MOVIE! In fact, the only connection between the two is a TV clip of the latter. So, for those two reasons, I only give this a four-out-of-ten, rather than a halfway-decent five.

bob the moo Quentin Kemmer is a shy security guard at a bio-research lab. He can't stand up for himself, reads comics and is never going to get up the courage to ask out beautiful neighbour Stephanie. When a break-in to the labs see his partner and one cop dead, Quentin is blamed and fired. Emotionally a mess, Quentin injects himself with some serum in the lab before he goes – somehow believing it will make him strong and fearless. At first it all seems great – he is a hero who stops a famous criminal that has evaded the police – but gradually his gift starts become more of a curse.I have only seen one of the "creature features" before and it was awful, so I was a bit hesitant about coming back to the stable in case all their horses were cows. With Earth vs. the Spider things appeared to be good at the start; the comic book credits suggest a sense of fun that would come through the film and the plot clichés being put in place suggested that the series might have achieved the b-movie feel that it was aiming for. I suppose in one way it did achieve this though because it is derivative and cheap and clearly just put out as filler – which is pretty much what most b-movies were, we just tend to fondly remember some of the better ones. This is a pretty poor copy of The Fly; it tries to cover similar ground but by being so similar it only shows up how far short it falls in almost every way. The plot goes just where you expect it to and, without any real character or interest, Kemmer's transformation is totally physical and totally dull.Gummersall hardly helps this with a performance that involves just being quiet at the start and then just getting louder as more makeup is put on him. Aykroyd is a famous bit of support but he has little to do – likewise Russell. Heinle is OK but nothing happens around her to help her, meanwhile John Cho is just a curio find rather than being any good or funny.Overall this is a very basic film that will maybe appeal to teenagers surfing late night TV for some special effects. However it must be said that anyone looking for more should just go and rent The Fly which covers all the same ground but does it much, much better.

pikabot Me and my friend rented this movie in hopes that it would provide an hour's entertainment. And from the premise, this movie could have been good. Emphasis on could have been.Basic premise: Comic-book geek, working as a night-shift security guard at some sort of biotech lab sees his partner gunned down in front of him and impulsively injects himself with super-spider juice. he comes down with a fever, and when he recovers, he's got superpowers! yay, right? Wrong. his transformation into a spider continues progressing, and his behavior becomes more and more bestial. he considers himself a threat to everyone around him, and eventually winds up killing people. I don't know how it ended because I turned it off about 3/4 of the way into it.Frankly, it's amazing we lasted that long. We survived mostly by making fun of it relentlessly, but is really not much fun with this film as it lacks the outright ridiculousness of similarly poor movies such as Boa Vs. Python.The camera-work is poor, the acting is terrible, and the plot such a clichéd mess that even the old Captain America cartoons have trouble competing in terms of sheer lameness.if MST3K were still around, I'm sure they could make this comedic genius. Me, I just don't have the patience to sit through it.