Sun, January 5, 2003

Loosely inspired by the 1990 Frank Marshall film Arachnophobia, Arachnophobia II marked Jameson Simmons's first major feature (his only previous production had been a short version of 'Little Red Riding Hood').

The film opens with Zelda Szalinski (Delaney Steele) picking up groceries in her local supermarket. While she is checking out, an article in the TV Guide before her sparks a flashback that explains how her dear husband, Wayne, an entymologist, was killed by poisonous spiders during field research in Venezuela. The remorse is palpable.

Returning home with Zelda, we meet her two daughters, Laney (Laney Simmons), and Keri (Kerianne Steele). When she retires to her bedroom, Zelda finds a large, hairy spider on the bed. Quickly, she swats it away, and then a realization dawns upon her. The spider reminds her of those her husband was researching.

Immediately she places a call to an exterminator, fearing for her life and those of her young daughters. Unfortunately, the exterminators are booked solid for three days. The girls will have to tough it out together until then. Zelda scrubs up for bed, and is confronted by another scary spider. Now, she realizes the true depth of her plight. She is being faced with infestation. She warns her girls to be on the lookout, then suggests they ready for bed also and meet her downstairs for television.

The girls carefully brush their teeth, then join their mother for an evening of TV viewing. Unfortunately, their show is interrupted by a special report, indicating that the same strain of spiders which killed Wayne Szalinski in the wilds of Venezuela are now alive and well in the town of Canaima, California, where the remaining Szalinskis reside. Depressed by the mention of her late husband, Zelda turns in early.

The next morning, as Zelda leaves for work, we can see that the house is now riddled with poisonous, fatal arachnids, lurking just out of sight of their human prey. The unsuspecting humans go on with their day. We follow Zelda to her office, and find that more spiders are there. Canaima is being overtaken by the eight-legged monsters.

At home that evening, Zelda prepares to bathe and go to sleep, kissing her girls goodnight first. Laney points out that her mother's necklace (an upside-down horseshoe) is a bad omen, but everyone just giggles at her foolish superstition.

After half an hour, the girls begin to wonder what is taking Zelda so long, and go to check on her, narrowly missing arachnid encounters on their way. Keri finds her mother dead in the tub, her leg bleeding from a spider bite. As Keri tries to alert Laney, the culprit sneaks away from the scene of the crime.

The girls pull their mother from the tub and attempt to call for help, but the spiders are upon them. Laney is bitten and killed in the hall, while Keri is taken down while trying to dial 911 Emergency.

Meanwhile, Annette Smythe (Lauren Schmidt), the friendly exterminator, has come to pay her call. However, when no one answers the door, she returns to her extermination vehicle to return to headquarters. However, we can see that the car is already overtaken by spiders. We fade to black on the screams of Annette's torutuous, painful death.

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