Arachnophobia (dir. Frank Marshall, 1990)
Arachnophobia commits the unforgivable sin of making me sympathize with its baby boomer protagonist. Ross Jennings (Jeff Daniels) has uprooted his whole life to set up a medical practice in a small town in Northern California because the local doctor has decided to retire. He’s moved his family out of a slightly more affordable San Francisco, bought a house sight unseen like a madman, and then this ancient, bowtied piece of shit doctor decides that actually, no, he’s not going to stop working, leaving Jennings in a financial lurch that can only be solved by a deadly Venezuelan spider breeding wildly and wreaking havoc on the community.
Other than that, Arachnophobia is a lot of fun. It has a fantastic cast: Jeff Daniels as a doctor with a somewhat justifiable fear of spiders, John Goodman as a greasy exterminator, Julian Sands as an entomologist with a Julian Sandsesque haircut, and Roy Brocksmith of Total Recall fame as an affable coroner who actually does eat food on the job. The plot is nothing special, but everything has such a light and knowing touch that you don’t mind. And most importantly, the success of Arachnophobia meant that Frank Marshall would get to direct another effects driven film with a bigger budget: everyone’s favorite Laura Linney action movie, Congo.
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