Spiders II: Breeding Ground (2001) User Reviews

Eight legged nonsense, part deux

[capkronos · 4/10 · 3 January 2006]

Fair, watchable sequel takes place entirely at sea. Some pirates invade a pleasure ship and beat, tie up and abduct the people on board before blowing up the ship. The next day, a young couple; blonde photographer Alexandra (Stephanie Niznik) and her dimpled Golden Boy husband Jason (Greg Cromer), stumble onto the debris, find a corpse and then end up in the middle of a bad storm that sinks their boat. Jason is mildly injured, but they're picked up by another cargo vessel headed for New Guinea. On board is a seemingly hospitable captain (Daniel Quinn) who has the hots for Alex, a ranting doctor (Richard "Bull" Moll), who looks them over and calls them "perfect specimens" and a bunch of rough-looking Russian crew members, who turn out to be the pirates from the beginning. Jason begins snooping around the ship and realizes something bad is going on when he uncovers a cooler full of frozen cadavers. But the antibiotics he has been given for his injured neck are actually drugs to incapacitate him so he can be used to incubate a spider. Other victims are kept in incubation chambers until the implanted eggs hatch. It's up to Alex to fend off the bad guys, elude the mutant spiders (which are eventually set free when the power is turned off) and find the antidote for her husband.

Though Alex is a little annoyingly slow to catch on at first, it is her character and the spirited performance by Niznik in the role that make this movie at least tolerable. She's a tiny blonde, but she's tough; responding to an aggressive sexual come-on by beating the crap out of the guy, kicking crotches, taking down two burly pirates on an elevator and using a man-made blowtorch and spear to kill off the spiders, while dragging her injured hubby along for the ride. It may be Sigourney Weaver-lite in this context (right down to the tank top), but Niznik anchors the uneven film well through the finale. The other actors, especially bland, square-jawed Cromer and Moll, who seems to be playing the syringe-wielding mad doctor (who is looking to create a disease-free human race) strictly for camp value, don't fair near as well. I also can't explain why the spiders sound just like elephants, but what the hell. Special effects (again a mix of animatronics and CGI) are OK.

Bad writing, acting, and effects unite to kill Spider ll

[giammarcoken · 4/10 · 29 July 2001]

The biggest problem with this movie is its simplistic dialogue. One example is when the made scientist gloats "Spiders are carnivores. Did you know that?" It makes one wonder if the writers added that for the 3-year-olds who may be watching. It also lacks creativity and fails to create any suspense or scares. The actors also fail to generate any sense of urgency. Lines such as, "This is creepy" are spoken in the same tone you might use to say "We need milk." If the characters on screen are not afraid of their situation, why should the audience be scared? The spiders themselves never seem very real. There is no sense of scale or consistency. (One spider chasing the heroine seems to change size constantly--almost as if the animator couldn't get it quite right) They have a trumpeting roar that sounds suspiciously like an elephant and which detracts from any realism they may have had. (When was the last time you heard a spider say anything?) If you can see it for free, give it a try. But don't waste your money on this film.

Beyond all levels of entertainment

[Mikew3001 · 4/10 · 11 October 2005]

OK, there are some mad scientists entering a ship and forcing the crew and some more good scientists to experiment with spiders until they become large, blown-up rubber monsters running amok and diminishing the crew one by one until the final showdown.

What could have been a horror classic in 1931 and a trash pearl in 1961 is just a joke in 2001. You wonder how producers can do such a movie in this decade... I really like all kind of trash movies like this, but the story is to thin, the acting just wooden, with only non-screaming heroine Stephanie Niznik showing some acting abilities and sex appeal, and a really dull direction.

The worst of this movie with the great title "Spiders 2" (where have been the first spiders?) is the lack of special effect. While it's rather easy to produce great special effect with today's computer technology, you can see very special effects that where found somewhere beyond the sea probably... a stupidly looking rubber spider that has already been fighting against your Action Man figures back in the seventies, enlarged and dubbed over some ocean pictures... nonsense explosions, unrealistic and really stupid stunts, and smaller or bigger plastic spiders being dragged and pushed all around the burning ship.

You wonder if the actors and crew were on dope all the time, or if they had great fun and a big laugh doing this picture... this could be a logical explanation for this baddie that otherwise has no real reason to exist, except if you're looking for another cheap movie for a retro trash film night with your friends a some cans of lager beer, next to, let's say, Van Damme's "The Order" and "Maura's Sexual Fantasies"... in fact, all these three movies were running on German TV last weekend. Have fun!

Starts good, then gets a little tame

[Katatonia · 22 October 2002]

This movie starts out good, almost like a suspense/mystery more than a horror movie. Richard Moll is great as the demented ship doctor. After the first half of the movie it starts to go downhill somewhat. The story gets predictable and the spider special effects are not too great. The majority of the CGI effects look fake and outdated, and some of the spiders are obviously tarantulas in miniature environments. But, a fairly decent sequel offering which is better than most...

Going down with all hands and hairy legs on board...

[Coventry · 2/10 · 18 June 2006]

The first "Spiders" is one of my guiltiest guilty pleasures in the horror genre, simply because that movie is just too stupid NOT to enjoy! It had grotesque special effects, featured every single cliché of the freshly revived creature-feature sub genre and it never took itself too seriously, which resulted in a fairly entertaining & campy flick. Part two regretfully is the complete opposite of all that. It tries to be scary and original, which is a pretty bad approach if you're dealing with mutated spiders that look as gigantic as a house! Despite the remotely promising opening sequences (featuring an authentic pirate attack!) and a lot of gory killings near the end, "Spiders 2" is also a very boring film and that's really unforgivable for a post-2000 horror production. The sail boat of a young couple sinks during a storm but they're rescued by a huge cargo ship. The exclusively male crew members are insufferably friendly even though it's more than obvious that they're naughty villains, especially the annoying captain of the ship and the stereotypical mad doctor with the white beard. It takes another tedious half hour before it's confirmed that the cargo ship actually is a floating research lab where the sinister scientist feeds human bodies to over-sized tarantulas. The ramshackle old cargo ship forms an interesting location, but crap-director Sam Firstenberg nearly isn't talented enough to make full use of it. The CGI-effects are atrocious, as are the acting performances and it's really pathetic to see how everyone involved in this Nu-Image production takes this thing so damn seriously.

This is By Far the Worst Movie I have ever seen in my life

[crusader_79 · 1/10 · 17 December 2004]

I have seen a lot of bad movies in my life but i just watched this on Pay Per View and it was bad. The story had holes everywhere. All of a sudden the spiders move very very very slowly then it later on can run really really fast. The writing was terrible. It had lines in it that were not necessary at all. That acting was of very poor quality. HOW DO THESE PEOPLE GET WORK!?!?!?! It burns me to see the people who wake up one morning and decide they want to be actors without having any training whatsoever. The guy has a spider in his gut and he says just leave me here. Or he says No I'll be okay. The giant spider at the end I have some questions about. HOW IN THE BLOODY HELL DID IT GET SO BIG?!?!?! And if it was that big how did it manage to get to the top deck? Secondly when they say that they are digesting their first meal........Spiders digest on the outside. They don't digest on the inside. If it were possible I would give this movie a -10 rating and the writer should be shot. And the director should be shot for considering making this movie.

Actually, Not So Bad. Finally A Decent Creature Movie On Sci-Fi!

[battyman1 · 5/10 · 28 January 2008]

Maybe it was because I just got finished trying to watch "BloodMonkey", which was SO horrible that it inspired me to set up an IMDb account and contribute a review.

Maybe it was because I was then trying to write my review for "BloodMonkey" while watching "Spiders II" and wasn't paying _real_ close attention. I guess I missed the worst of the plot holes, like _why_ the Mad Doctor was growing all those giant spiders, or _why_ he had to feed them people, rather than something somewhat easier to get, like, say, sheep or cattle. This was still far better than BloodMonkey's "let's just go hiking out in the forest, where the Professor knows about (but has completely underestimated) some giant-brained monkeys!"

Maybe it was just the quality contrast between "BloodMonkey" and "Spiders II", but this strikes me as the best Sci-Fi Creature Feature that I can readily pull out of my memory (I mean, just _none_ stand out as even decent). Admittedly it was _far_ short of great, and it started out a bit slow after the first (action) scene, and the effects (particularly the sinking of the protagonists' boat) were on the cheap side (After their boat sank, I honestly do not believe that they actually shot Niznik & Kromer in actual water. It looked like they added the water in postproduction). But giant spiders with sharp, pointy teeth can be convincingly scary without having to be really perfect. Except that they made a lotta growling and bellowing noise (another reviewer compared this to elephants). Spiders don't make noise, do they? Neither do people, when they get a pair of giant spider's fangs stuck through both of their lungs. I did NOT, however, find myself shouting at characters for making unbelievably stupid mistakes with the worst possible timing, which is how I would invite violent assault if I were to attempt to watch, for example, "BloodMonkey" in a public theater.

In fairness, I had Stephanie Niznik mistaken for Milla Jovovitch throughout. Go ahead, shoot me, but I've never watched either of them much. They're both pretty easy on the eyes. Water sticks to neither of them, unfortunately, which is a shame. I recall Milla going swimming in "Resident Evil" and thinking we were gonna be in for a potentially great wet little-red-dress sequence. Alas, no. They hadda dry her off to continue filming. I was getting my hopes up for something similar when Niznik stripped to her tank top. I mean, there's water dripping from the upper deck everywhere, it's only a matter of time before she gets soaked. No, sorry, can't go there, even if the movie _does_ have an R rating. On Sci-Fi, of course, they had to cut all sex, nudity, and language, derating this movie to PG. Too bad. There was a shower scene which could have really fried, but more likely didn't, anyway. I'd go rent it, but I'll bet it wasn't that big of a deal.

Practically all of the action is concentrated into the last half-hour (make that 20 minutes without commercial breaks), ramping up just before and pretty much 'officially beginning' with the aforementioned mild stripdown. It took 'Alexandra' an amazingly long time to realize that her husband was _right_, there _was_ something seriously fishy going on onboard the boat that had rescued them. Hubby had been trying to tell her this for about two days, but she'd ignored his concerns until he disappeared. It finally came together for her only when the Captain locked her into his cabin with him, a nice dinner, and a bottle of wine. It's from there out that Stephanie Niznik (and, in fairness, the script) makes this movie as good as it is. Reminiscent of Milla in "Resident Evil" and Sigourney Weaver's multiple "Alien*" performances, she's scared but fairly cool (if not quite as frosty as Ripley), quick, and determined. She forcibly denies the horny captain's advance, kneeing him (and a few sailors, as well) in the groin, and generally does a fine job once the fighting starts, using whatever weapon is at hand, improvising when there's none, and never ever indulging in 'screaming just for the sake of it'. She _never_ gives up (even when faced with going _back_ inside, a la Ripley, to fetch a vaccine and save Hubby's life), and is sharp enough to be the only character in the movie who doesn't let a spider sneak up upon them. The bottom line is that she manages to save not only her own ass, but her husband's as well. She tallied up an excellent accounting for any action heroine, except when she tried to interrogate the Mad Doctor by pressing a gun to his forehead (instead of shooting out a kneecap at range), which was her only serious mistake. It didn't quite cost her, though, 'cuz a spider snuck up behind the Doctor just in time! Gratuitous? Of course, but amusing anyway, particularly because they only did it _once_. Every other win, she had to _earn_.

The final scene, which was probably a reprise of the finale of the first "Spiders" movie, seemed forced and out of place.

I can't leave out the pair of spiders on the deck which were indulging in a tug-of-war over one of the sailors. It's entertaining little details like that which lift decency up over crap, and "Spiders II" has almost enough of them, while also easing up on the futile screams.

I'd be maybe tempted to give it more than 5 stars, but come on, we're talking about a late-night Sci-Fi Creature Feature here, which can't possibly count as more than a "B" grade movie at best. The Filthy Critic might even give it three fingers, if he saw it uncut, and was feeling generous, and liked Stephanie. It would depend on the shower scene.

Ummmm..... not the best movie :)

[Nilsosmar · 2/10 · 26 August 2007]

let's see now... Spiders 2... ummm.... the special effects are just silly..... the dialogue is wooden, weird, and hard to take seriously... the mad scientist acts and talks and looks like a Saturday morning cartoon character... the story has lots of plot and logic loopholes, verging on the ridiculous....

the story is predictable and is very very very slow moving -- we can all see where it's going, so why can't the characters?

actually you could save this movie by taking out virtually all of the dialogue -- not a word of it is necessary --- then taking out redundant and unnecessary scenes -- and bringing in a better cinematographer with more knowledge about dramatic lighting. It would work okay as a silent movie, about ten or fifteen minutes long.

COULD be worse

[joelroussel · 2/10 · 21 February 2004]

It could rain... Actually, I bought this DVD from a deep southern Spain retail store and spent 1.5 € for it. Not bad at all if you think of the many uses you can get out of it, either you decide to play it or not. It can work as a valuable Frisbee, shooting plate, glass stand or whatever you can imagine. In case you decide to give it a chance on your player, you can still enjoy the soundtrack (no reviewer seemed to mention it, but it's quite OK if you watch it with your eyes wide shut and try to figure out what a good film director could have done with it). Besides, it allowed me to practice my English, as the Spanish subtitles were not bad, simply... worse. That is in my opinion what it's worth. So I definitely will continue thinking it COULD be worse.

Don't even bother with this one...

[paul_haakonsen · 3/10 · 24 April 2019]

Now, granted the 2000 "Spider" movie was campy in its own right, but still proved to be an entertaining creature feature, then this 2001 sequel was just an atrocity that shouldn't have ever seen the light of day.

I mean, seriously, what were they thinking? The plot and storyline for "Spiders II: Breeding Ground" was so vague and thin that you couldn't even get a bowl of soup from it. It was one of the most pointless storylines in a sequel in a long time. Sure, the movie was from 2001, but still...

The special effects were atrocious in comparison to the prequel movie that was made just one year prior to the 2001 release "Spiders II: Breeding Ground". That was just abysmal to bear witness to. Most of the scenes with the spiders were just laughably fake to watch as the CGI was something taken out of a 1990s computer game. And when they opted to put ordinary real tarantulas on model ships, that just tipped the iceberg and it all crumbled into idiotic means of trying to make special effects.

The characters in the movie were adequate, although suffering from being very generic, especially the scientist/doctor character, played by Richard Moll.

I believe this time in 2019 actually marks my third time of watching "Spiders II: Breeding Ground" since it was initially released back in 2001. And it will probably be my last time as well, because it is nowhere near as fun and entertaining and the 2000 "Spiders" movie, not even by a long shot.

"Spiders II: Breeding Ground" suffered from being a sequel, but was dealt the killing blow by its horrible storyline and plot. It was just unfathomably stupid and ridiculous. A word of advice, stay well clear of this 2001 sequel if you enjoyed the 2000 "Spiders" movie, trust me.

Greatest Sequel Ever Made

[swifty77 · 2/10 · 21 June 2016]

Am I ready to tell you about the greatest sequel of all time? Yes, yes I am. OK, maybe I exaggerate a little. Because it was a terrible movie. But I preferred it to the first one. Let's start with the bits I liked: the concept was better than the first one. Yep, that's about all I liked. The idea of shoving a load of spiders on a boat is better than the whole NASA space thing they had going on in the original movie. And that's one problem I have here. The sequel about giant spiders actually doesn't really link to its predecessor about other giant spiders. I guess this is just a universe where if science experiments go wrong, the result is giant spiders. Chemistry must be an optional subject at school then...poor kids.

Other bad things: - 'Logan'. The whole subplot of the name of the boat not being discovered because it's bad for Captain Badguy is so stupid considering our protagonists must have seen the name of it PAINTED IN BIG BLACK BOLD LETTERS ON THE SIDE AS THEY FRIGGIN' SAILED TOWARDS IT - There is no spider action until the last half hour. (Although there are a lot more than the first film which kinda makes up for it) - Speaking of the spiders, why the f*** do they make elephant noises? Is it because they're really big and we associate really big animals with elephants? F*** knows. - The acting from the two leads is terrible. The main guy is literally so chill when he sees a spider erupt from a naked lady's stomach you can't help but wonder if he's seen this shizz in another life. Maybe he was a poor Chemistry student at school and this is everyday for him. - Luckily the co-pilot of this rescue helicopter keeps a sneaky lil' grenade in his lunchbox just in case he ever has to blow up a f***- off massive elephant spider. - What is that CGI? - What is that kissing? Like this is the most unbelievable married couple I've ever seen on screen. She had more chemistry with Captain Badguy than her own husband. - There is no 'Spiders 3'.

Original idea and some nice gore, but nothing else

[slayrrr666 · 8/10 · 1 May 2004]

`Spiders 2: Breeding Ground' is a much better film than most people would tend to say it was.

**SPOILERS**

Lost at sea, husband and wife Jason (Greg Cromer) and Alexandra (Stephanie Niznik) are rescued by Captain Bigelow (Daniel Quinn) aboard his ship. Finding the rat-infested ship good enough shelter till they return home, Alex and Jason find they are hits with the crew. Unbeknownst to them, Dr. Grabec, (Richard Moll) a disgraced scientist is on board. He thinks Jason is a perfect candidate for his next experiment. During dinner, he slips a pill into Jason's drink, making him become seriously ill. Since he is the only doctor on board, Grabec has an opportunity to give a giant spider a chance to impregnate Jason with special DNA to bear a genetic breed of spider. Over the next several days, Alex becomes concerned that Jason has started to act strange. Captain Bigelow simply dismisses her claims as he having a rare strand of a sea flu. As Jason becomes even stranger, Alex begins to suspect that Grabec has poisoned Jason. Trusting her instincts, she snoops around the ship and witnesses Grabec and a guard loosing control over a spider. She sneaks Jason out of the room and finally learns the truth about the experiment. By then, Grabec has lost all control over the spiders and they over-run the ship, killing off all the crew but Grabec. On the top level, Alex and Jason stop to relax a minute. Grabec appears and lays the entire extent of his plan before them. A spider takes him away, and Alex returns to the bowels of the ship to retrieve the vaccine needed to cure him. Finishing off several more spiders, they escape the ship and are rescued by the Coast Guard.

The Good News: The film is a pretty good film. It does have a few moments were it did drag a little, in terms of on-screen action, but it still holds your interest. The movie does have an undeniable point of genius: moving a monster movie out away from the land and keeping it solely on a ship. Despite the fact that the premise had been done months earlier in `Ghost Ship,' Spiders 2 now makes it a monster movie with a mad scientist doing secret experiments, placing it slightly reminiscent of the 50's monster movie category. This is certainly a refreshing move, considering the new plot lines in modern monster movies. There is also a surprising amount of gore in the movie, another refreshing change of pace. Despite the high gore, there are very killings on-screen, consisting of only Grabec, Bigelow, and two guards on board. More violence happens to the giant spiders than to the people. The film at first plays out like a mystery movie revolving around the origins of the strange Dr. Grabec and his experiments. Once the experiments have been found out, then it shifts gears and becomes a huge gore-fest. The film does attempt to wring in some suspense, as the one scene where Alex disembarks the elevator to find the entire doorway is covered in spider webs. Her slowly moving through the webs and into the lab is very suspenseful. The ending is not the complete surprise it should've been, as plot formula dictates the scene. The action scenes combating the spiders are easily the films' highlights.

The Bad News: The film has a low budget, resulting in the majority of the spider's scenes being computer generated. This makes the spiders look increasingly different in the same scene as they go from being a mechanical creature to being a CG created image and then back. It does distract from the overall look and feel, as the mechanical spiders do look convincing and menacing. Had they kept that look throughout the film, it would look ten times better and more expensive. On to the humans, who give simply dreadful performances. Moll is capable as the mad scientist, a role he seems to relish and yet feels a tad out of place. He has a reformed gangster look to him that makes him the perfect choice for mobster movies or heavy's, and while he way no have had scientist roles before, it oddly suites him. Niznik is a minor find in the action heroine role, but everyone else is awful. The ship's size does change frequently, as in certain parts it looks too small to carry the huge labs and spiders inside it, keeping in mind that the crew does need space to sleep and eat.

The Final Verdict: The slow beginning will deter some viewers, who claim that not enough is happening to warrant a complete viewing. Those that watch the whole thing will find a movie that has plenty of gore, a few clever scares, and many genius scenes throughout. Recommended to those who like seeing old ideas brought to new life in the present, as well as those who like old-school monster movies.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, and Brief Nudity.

Not at all bad

[kenhe · 7/10 · 28 September 2004]

I realize that this movie was made in Eastern Europe by a German company, and that the special effects were a little childish. But while the acting by the main players was excellent, even the actors playing the ship's crew tried their level best to turn in a good performance. The plot was just a little too contrived, but then this was a horror movie so I would expect to suspend my realism for a little while. In any event this movie was certainly worth seeing once, and the truth of the matter is that Stephanie Niznik was really believable, and took her role very seriously. Her husband was okay, but Richard Moll as the Doctor was just wonderful, even when he and Niznik played who's got the gun at the very end, it wasn't really as Abbot and Costello as it looked. Spiders 2 was definitely a good, scary movie which deserves more credit than it has been given.

Do NOT watch it!

[vlahov · 1/10 · 24 September 2005]

Since I am required to write minimum of 10 lines, and this garbage deserves not only a single one, I'll start with the following: 1. I voted AWFUL for this dreadful so called "movie".

2. Let me explain why these turkeys Mr. David Varod produces are shot mainly in my beautiful homeland, Bulgaria (just in BTW, for the illiterate people around - this country is IN EUROPE, based north to Greece and has absolutely nothing to do with Mexico and Uruguay) Some years ago, NU Image has invaded our country and started making crappy mostly direct-to-video releases. Why here? Because here they pay derisively low fees to the Bulgarian crew and to the Bulgarian actors (most of them distinguished ones) which are, in many ways, better than most of their American colleagues. Personally I am ashamed of that fact. The reason is, of course, the greediness of the Americans involved and their wish to get most, if not all of the profit. Actually it would't be so bad if only the production wasn't so filthy and pale. There hasn't been a good picture shot here for years. At present NU image is being sued here over the very questionably purchasing of our national cinema production centre called Boyana Films. No doubt about it there has been corruption, there has been deceit, there has been a lies in this recent purchase. The Bulgarian cinema is dead. Long live the Bulgarian cinema!

...and a bloke who looks like Gary Sinise

[Leigh L. · 22 October 2001]

Most of the people who've seen and slated Spiders 2 have obviously never seen Spiders 1, as the sequel is practically Citizen Kane in comparison. Most of the actors do a passable job (including Richard Moll - an actor I actually recognised, the last thing you expect from a film like this), and the director even throws in some halfhearted camera tricks - brilliantly stupid shots include the heroine diving through a bit of flimsy webbing in slo-mo as if it were a plate glass window.

However, any and all attempts to build up suspense totally disintegrate when the SFX are brought into play (some of the CG shots near the end are laugh-out-loud hilarious), and, unforgivably, it also suffers from Boring Spider Deaths. It also has absolutely no connection to the original, though I'm not sure whether that's a good or bad thing.

Still impossible to recommend as a good film, then, but it's definitely a cut above the original (if not quite as funny).

Very Lame

[theenoid · 1/10 · 19 October 2006]

Unless you are "brain-dead" and can't hold into account previous situations or statements, you will come to the conclusion that this movie wasn't thought out. In fact, it was played out as if it was filmed by a 6 year old. There are several errors and/or stupid planned out scenes. I'll just name a couple. They make it clear that it was an empty tanker just going around in circles, but when it sank it shows close to full number of containers sitting on the deck. Spiders that sound like elephants!? Umm, OK.. A HUGE spider, 1/4 th the size of the boat wasn't noticed until the ending. As the boat sank, nose first and rear last, yet the HUGE Spider now found an airtight container that was underwater, somehow managed to squeeze inside it and close the door. Just so that later the air inside it caused the container to rise to the surface right under the feet of the ones being rescued. Lame.

What???

[moviewiz-4 · 5/10 · 2 July 2001]

The opening scene is very promising, showing the giant eyes, antenna, backside and make myself glue to the seat. As i watched it, the show getting worse and worse. The story is not as challenging as it promise. Only final parts we can see all the climax of the movie where all the spiders coming out.

The effects should be change a little bit and story can be make longer and this movie will be very interesting.

what the he** is this

[dereksimms · 1/10 · 9 March 2006]

I have seen some stupid things before but this is the most god awful thing I saw. From a person who hates spiders this was pretty horrible. The acting was terrible and had no clue what to do. There is some things that were good like the first ten minutes when there was a fight seen on the boat which had nothing to do with the movie. One thing that really killed the movie was the director Sam Firstenberg. Probley the only thing he did right was have Shephaine Niznik which is why I even watch the movie. Why do you even have a movie with spiders that don't even show towards the end for gods sake. If you make a movie which has spiders at least put them in the movie. So friends don't waste your time Even if the Red Sox are losing to the Yankees don't watch this piece of crap.

Spiders on a Boat

[thesar-2 · 1/10 · 5 December 2010]

No one's arguing Richard Moll (Night Court) isn't set to win any awards, but when your budget is just big enough to afford roughly 5 spiders, you can only claim so many D-List "headliners" for your When Animals Attack sequels.

I promise, mostly to myself, that I won't spend too much time on this crud, but I watched this because I do love those When Animals Attack creature-features and I was attempting to recreate that Turkey Day feel of MST3k years past by watching this during the Thanksgiving weekend. Unfortunately, this was worse than bad. It contained as much air time for the spiders as Angelina Jolie did in Gone in 60 Seconds. (For those who don't know, I believe she spent more time for her posters, as the spider here, than her acting in that film.)

Pirates invade a ship, kidnapping idiots we don't care to know, and passerby boatists Jason (Cromer) and Alex (Niznik) investigate and then get stranded in the ocean via a storm. Picked up by another passing boat they're greeted and wined and dined. But, is there a catch?

Hell, yeah, it's for the viewers to wait another hour to realize they're part of some Dr. Grbac (Moll) experiment on spiders. It's basically a thirty-five cent version of Aliens but without any of the tension, excitement, acting, dialogue, originality, intrigue, character depth, special effects or budget. Make that: ten cents, then.

Don't waste your time. I can see where the actors actually tried to do something with nothing, but it's not even a movie to say: It's so bad, it's good and at least it's about spiders. Cuz, it ain't!

Side Note: I guess it was originally subtitled: "Breading Ground" until it hit video. Perhaps because they realize there is no "ground" actually in the film. Does it really matter? Would it sell further with…or without the added non-spider reference?

Spidumb

[Fraudzilla · 2/10 · 24 July 2023]

I relatively enjoyed Spiders. It wasn't a good movie as such, but it did find that perfect B-Movie tone that a lot of this type of film take a swing and a miss for. I'm genuinely not sure how they would manage the success of a Straight-To-DVD movie that would drop just as the rental market was beginning to die, but evidently it, or Nu Image's slew of 2000 creature features on the whole, dud enough business for them to warrant sequels.

This one follows Alex (Stephanie Niznik) and Jason (Greg Cromer) a young couple out sailing who encounter the burned out husk of a boat before being shipwrecked themselves due to a storm. They find salvation in the form of 'Mystery of the Seas' a giant cargo ship that stumbles upon them.

Led by the shifty Captain Bigelow (Daniel Quinn) the ship's crew includes the mysterious Dr Grbec (Richard Moll) and a skeleton crew of seamen. While treating a wound Jason has picked up, the good doctor insists on providing him with an antibiotic to avoid infection. While the crew are initially very helpful, they seem reluctant to let them attempt contact with the outside World. What are they shipping and what exactly is Dr Grbec upto?

Let's just clarify this right off the bat - this isn't any good. I mean the first one wasn't good, but it was fun and had the perfect tone to pull off its nonsense. This plays itself deadly straight and is miserable for it. It dwells far too much on the drama with very little actual spiders for a movie with Spiders in the title. There's a whole lot of 'suspense' surrounding the Logan, the shipwreck from the opening that anyone with half a brain can work out is the work of this crew within half a second. It does raise the bigger issue of how laughably bad the actual plan is. Are they genuinely just relying on randomly coming across ships to attack and kidnap the crew on? Come to think of it, who even are the company behind this nonsense? Where did they get the first giant spider? Wasn't there a way of somehow at least attempting to tie this to the original?

While characters in these movies aren't renowned for great intelligence, our heroine is hard to get behind due to her complete lack of any common sense. No matter how much Jason tries to convince her something is afoot, she's happy to go along with everything the Captain, whom she just met, has told her while dismissing her husband as going crazy. And this is while he's actually presenting her with entirely grounded questions like why are they going in circles? Carrying no cargo? Lying about the radio? He doesn't even touch on his recurring nightmare about a giant spider, though does question the mysterious, fresh, wound on his chest that she dismisses.

There isn't much acting to speak of. The leading pair aren't the worst I've ever seen but they aren't good enough to try carry this gutter level script to watchable status. Moll, who really should know better, is normally a great fun character actor but even he seems despondent to be part of this. Probably the pick of the bunch is Quinn, who isn't exactly a superstar but is capable of emoting and I think might be a lot better when armed with a solid script .

The effects...well the practical effects are cheesy but fun, the green screen and CGI abhorrent. This is very much at the cusp of cheap movies throwing themselves too headlong into bad CGI. While some of the bad CGI, of the giant spiders crawling over the boat, is quite hilarious, it's largely just eye rolling stuff.

Director Sam Firstenberg has actually made entertaining movies in the past, so I was really surprised to learn this tripe was shot by his hand. It really isn't any good, and as much as I knew going in that 'Spiders 2' wasn't going to be good, it could at least have had the grace to be good fun, which it doesn't. It's not the absolute worst Nu Image creature feature, it's probably better than either of the first 2 Shark Attacks, but it's a disappointing follow up to a fun original.

Why is this a sequel to Spiders?

[HorrorDisasterGuy-90617 · 2/10 · 1 July 2023]

I really don't know why this is a sequel to the first movie since it has little connection other than giant spiders. The story is really bad on how predictable it is and how obvious current events are. Most of the movie is just Jason, who is suspicious of the ship that they are picked up on and the crew of the ship trying to hide it from him and his wife. Also, there's barely any spider actions until much later in the movie. The movie itself is not that fun to watch because it drags on a little bit too long, and you can easily guess what happened next. Even the scientist motive is really generic and ridiculous. When it gets to the spider actions, it's somewhat enjoyable, but it either happens pretty quickly or drags on. Even the climax isn't that enjoyable.

what a waste of time

[jimsdoorsmt · 1/10 · 3 November 2010]

The plot was lame, the acting was horrible, except for Stephanie Neznik, who acts well and looks hot. It's hard to believe she's 43.

The special effects look like they came from a high school film class.

I was robbed of an hour and a half of my life, i'll never get back.

I can't believe I wasted my time after the first 20 minutes, but it's one of those films where you think "it'll get better, it has to, nothing could be this bad."

But, it doesn't, it just keeps sucking throughout the entire film.

The dialogue was ridiculous and sounded like it was written by some 6th graders.

Superb Horror Film But Something Much More

[dianerpessler-46164 · 10/10 · 18 July 2015]

A truly extraordinary science fiction/horror film that manages to be an intelligent depiction of perverted science as well as a unique tale of survival. From the very initial scenes, there is an overwhelming sense of terror as a couple stranded at sea are picked up by a mysterious freighter. Immediately treated by the ship's doctor, the couple immediately can tell there is something seriously wrong. The doctor is clearly mad and the experiments he's conducting are beyond all imagination. Richard Moll is stunning in the role of the doctor and it's one of his best roles in years. As the horror unfolds within the confines of a ship at sea, the claustrophobic environment is almost unendurable and the intensity of the thrills simply become too much to bear. This is a terrific film of this type and one of the finest Killer Spider motion pictures ever made.

Fun little low budget creature feature opus

[Bloodwank · 6/10 · 20 February 2011]

Spiders was an unexpected delight, especially coming from Nu Image, producers of the dire Octopus movies. Nobody could have expected a sequel to bottle the same lightning, and Spiders 2 doesn't but it is still surprisingly fun stuff. It takes a serious minded approach to its shenanigans and even opts for a first half of mystery and paranoia before going for the straightforward creature feature route, an approach which is generally interesting if not entirely successful. The story centres on Alexandra and Jason, lost at sea after investigating an abandoned boat when a storm hits. They get picked up by a cargo ship wherein everybody seems friendly enough, but Jason has his suspicions and fair play to the guy, there are strange goings on afoot. The trouble with going down the suspense alleyway is that the film pretty much gives itself away with the title, and for anyone who couldn't guess the general impetus of the film an early scene shows it off. This means that for all the mystery we know what's going to happen and so instead of being caught in the same mystery as the protagonists we basically watch them play catch-up. Luckily the actors are up to the task of sustaining interest, Greg Cromer showing mounting fear and bewilderment as Jason, Stephanie Niznik sympathetic as the at first stolid and sceptical but ultimately tough and heroic Alexandra, while the best show is put on by a glowering, happily hammy Richard Moll as the nefarious Dr. Grbac. The crew are generally well realised as well, a salty, shifty bunch led by the able Daniel Quinn as their ostensible nice guy leader. The perfomers keep things ticking until the film explodes and fortunately things are worth the wait. A couple of rather nasty gore scenes satisfy the meaner urges, and when the CGI spiders get clustering their rampage is rather good fun, daft but lively. Director Sam Firstenberg is something of a low budget action regular and he handles things with a certain chintzy flair, conjuring excitement out of unpromising effects and the cramped location. Its a shame the film doesn't get moving earlier though, leaving the big excitement to the final half hour may work in a big budget film where the makers can really go wild but here I think some more sustained action would have been better. Also, the writing has its share of blips, gaps and contrivances that wouldn't usually bother me a whit, were it not for the serious minded approach. Still, by and large I liked this one, its pretty sound as its genre goes, has a few gnarly moments and some engaging craziness. Check it out if it sounds like your cup of tea is my advice.

The worst giant spider movie you will ever see.

[poolandrews · 20 August 2002]

During the opening sequence a guy drops a dead body in to a cage containing a giant spider. Straight after that we cut to a yacht full of teenagers in the middle of the ocean(!) as they play cards they are hi-jacked by guys in black with guns and all the girls are taken prisoner, the guys with guns then blow the yacht up with a grenade burning all the men left inside. Cut to next day and our two main characters Jason and Alexander find this yacht and stop to have a look and decide they will report it and theres nothing else they can do. Unfortunately for us and them they get caught out by a big storm and end up overboard. Luckily for them a large cargo ship turns up and saves them. But this cargo ship is not what it seems. I dont think I need to tell you the rest as you should be able to guess quite easily. I hate this film and you will too. I cant think of one good thing to say about it. The story is very slow to get going, the actors are annoying, and as for the effects they are some of the worst I have ever seen including awful computer effects, rubbish spider puppets and the film makers even have the nerve to put a normal sized spider on a model/toy boat to try to convince you that a huge spider is crawling over this cargo ship. It is never explained how the spiders grow to such large proportions or the reason why there is a cargo ship full of the things. I would have thought the director and screenwriter might have at least tried to come up with some sort of explanation, but no they couldnt be bothered. I think this movies script was written on the back of a postage stamp. Dont say I didnt Warn you. See the much better original spiders instead.