Eight Legged Freaks 2002

Glenn Lovell, San Jose Mercury News: Good for a quick adrenaline surge -- until the next horror fix comes along. Read more

Reilly Capps, Boston Globe: As green-guts monster movies go, it's a beaut. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: Eight Legged Freaks limps along, spinning not a silken web but an extremely derivative, tattered one not likely to snare anybody's interest. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: [I]ts marginally amusing, but I'm giving it thumbs down. Read more

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: However many screaming teenagers it produces at the multiplexes, Eight Legged Freaks isn't good or funny enough to reinvigorate the style. It can't even maintain its own initial zing. Read more

Elvis Mitchell, New York Times: Eight-Legged Freaks runs out of gas scarily fast -- its one-joke premise lends itself more to a short than a feature. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Not scary enough to work as a straight-up horror flick and nowhere near funny enough to be a passable spoof. Read more

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Read more

Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle: Freaks is yet another case of plot and characters playing second fiddles to an orchestra of visuals. Read more

Denver Post: The '50s camp classics may have used models with strings leading them toward their prey, but Eight Legged Freaks forgoes the suspense and goes straight for the killjoy. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Like many of the worst pop-referential parodies of the post-Scream era, this one stalls on laughs once the big joke has been established. Read more

Ray Conlogue, Globe and Mail: Eight Legged Freaks falls flat as a spoof. Read more

Tom Maurstad, Dallas Morning News: Think of it as The Rocky Horror Picture Show with giant spiders instead of cross-dressing aliens. Read more

Hazel-Dawn Dumpert, L.A. Weekly: It's the filmmakers' post-camp comprehension of what made old-time B movies good-bad that makes Eight Legged Freaks a perfectly entertaining summer diversion. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: If all of Eight Legged Freaks was as entertaining as the final hour, I would have no problem giving it an unqualified recommendation. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Eight Legged Freaks is clever and funny, is amused by its special effects, and leaves you feeling like you've seen a movie instead of an endless trailer. Read more

Charles Taylor, Salon.com: A hyphen isn't the only thing missing from Eight Legged Freaks. Wit and imagination have joined that AWOL punctuation mark, perhaps in the same place where socks go when they vanish from your dryer. Read more

Jonathan Curiel, San Francisco Chronicle: Because Eight Legged Freaks is partly an homage to Them, Tarantula and other low- budget B-movie thrillers of the 1950s and '60s, the movie is a silly (but not sophomoric) romp through horror and hellish conditions. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: Yesterday's junk sporting today's polish. Read more

Time Out: Read more

Mike D'Angelo, Time Out: Too silly to be frightening, too stolid to be funny, it projects the same lazy affability as its nominal star, David Arquette. Read more

Mike Clark, USA Today: Neither as scary-funny as Tremors nor demented-funny as Starship Troopers, the movie isn't tough to take as long as you've paid a matinee price. Read more

Dennis Harvey, Variety: Originality ain't on the menu, but there's never a dull moment in the giant spider invasion comic chiller. Read more

Dennis Lim, Village Voice: Despite nifty F/X, first-time director Ellory Elkayem's staging is altogether devoid of variation. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: Classic '50s monster stuff. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: This is a poster movie, a mediocre tribute to films like Them! Read more