Camel Spiders (2011 TV Movie) User Reviews

Not as bad as I expected but that doesn't mean anything.

[poolandrews · 3/10 · 31 December 2011]

Camel Spiders starts in Afghanistan where some US soldiers are fighting enemy forces when a swarm of large Camel Spiders join the fight, a US soldier is killed in battle & one of the baby Camel Spiders crawls into his mouth. Captain Sturges (Brian Krause) & Private Reba (GiGi Erneta) are tasked with escorting the body back home, while driving through Arizona the truck they are driving is involved in an accident & the simple wooden coffin breaks open releasing dozens of Camel Spiders that crawl off into the desert. The Camel Spider grow to huge proportion's & multiply very quickly, soon a small town is overrun with the vicious flesh eating creatures that outnumber their human prey. Sturges, Reba & a small group of locals from a diner that came under attack manage to make it to an abandoned factory & barricade themselves inside but with hundreds of Camel Spiders outside trying to get in they have to work together to find a way to escape alive...

Co-written, executive produced & directed by Jim Wynorski under his regular Jay Andrews alias one has to say that I went into Camel Spiders expecting the absolute worst & while my expectations weren't exactly blown away Camel Spidres turned out a little better than I had predicted. Although Camel Spiders looks & feels like a SyFy Cahannel creature feature & will undoubtedly be shown on the channel it is in fact an independent production from Roger Corman's studio, generally I hate anything Wynorski does so the fact that Camel Spiders wasn't the worst film I've seen since I last watched one of his films came as somewhat of a surprise. The script is standard creature feature fare with little going for it, sure it starts off briskly enough with the title monsters making an appearance a few minutes into the film but there's absolutely no explanation as to why they are so big even if Camel Spiders are real creatures found in the deserts of the Middle East. Once the script hits the US & the town, which consists of one hotel & a café, comes under siege the film has my interest but once the various survivors reach the abandoned factory & hide there the film takes a nosedive & there's lots of boring exposition & the Camel Spiders themselves are a bit underused, they just don't seem to do much apart from crawl around & jump on people. Don't get me wrong, I didn't expect them to build a house or learn to drive a car but they feel wasted. The film has two main groups of survivors, the army people & the townsfolk from the café & some teenage kids from college stuck inside a house & the narrative shifts back & forth between them although both parties find themselves in exactly the same position so it's rather samey. The script also feels unfinished, we keep cutting to two more soldiers in a truck looking for Sturges but they just disappear until the end & then only seen standing in the background while we never find out what happens to the two girls in the red car. Utterly predictable, a bit boring & populated by dumb people (why does that kid wander off on her own despite her knowing that giant killer Spiders are infesting the place? Why do they not drive the truck right up to the factory at the end? Why park it a few hundred feet away from the door?) Camel Spiders is standard creature feature fare that isn't terrible but isn't exactly good either.

One thing that Camel Spidres has going for it is that the CGI computer effects are better than usual, sure they aren't brilliant but the Camel Spiders are reasonably detailed & move convincingly enough. They look quite cool too, they probably resemble Scorpions more than Spiders to be honest. The lack of blood or gore is disappointing, there's a bit of blood splatter as the Camel Spiders bite people but otherwise most SyFy Channel creature features have far more blood & gore than on show here. Not much to look at Camel Spiders is reasonably well made & is a virtual masterpiece compared to what Wynorski usually churns out.

With a supposed budget of $500,000 this was apparently shot in Feburary in 2010 but remained unreleased until late 2011, filmed in Indiana the low budget doesn't help but the makers did what they could with limited funds I suppose. The acting isn't great, Krause is alright as the hero while C. Thomas Howell really will appear in anything won't he?

Camel Spiders was better than I expected but that's no recommendation on it's own, Camel Spiders has better than usual CGI effects but a clichéd & empty story sink it. Passable by creature feature standards but only just, don't rush to watch it.

movie about killer spiders in the US .....

[rorylayden · 2/10 · 26 November 2011]

This movie should be avoided - the fact that people made some effort with such a terrible movie is really regrettable - don't compound that by watching it!

However if you are going to persist with it make sure you have something else to do at the same time.

The filming is poor, so much so that blood from the spiders splashes on the camera lens on occasion, the special effects - i.e. the spiders - are very poor and the acting is to be honest a waste of the actors' time. They will hopefully get better acting roles in the future.

For any prospective viewers, if you don't like the fun of looking at really poorly made movies, then maybe go for a walk ... just avoid the killer spiders!

It was so bad it was actually fun to watch...

[paul_haakonsen · 3/10 · 27 April 2012]

"Camel Spiders" was so bad it was actually worth watching just for the laughs. This movie has everything you could possibly want from a cheesy horror movie - bad CGI effects, laughable plot, incoherent story, unlimited ammunition, screaming spiders, bad acting, and much, much more.

The story in "Camel Spiders" is about soldiers in the desert somewhere in the Middle East, fighting someone, when a group of big spiders show up. A soldier is killed, and when shipped home, two fairly small spiders sneak into the box containing the corpse of the soldier. Then back in the US, the box is opened because of an accident, and spiders emerge to wreak havoc on the local residents.

Fairly average storyline that borrows heavily from "Arachnophobia" and "Eight Legged Freaks".

There were two spiders in the box, but suddenly there are hundreds of them in the area in the US, ranging from the size of a man's fist to a coffee table. How did they get to be that numerous and that big so fast? That incoherency in the story was just hilarious. Moving on though, while shooting at the marauding spiders, the people had endless amounts of ammo and never reloaded their weapons. And to make matters worse, most of the time people were not even shooting downward where the spiders were, but they were shooting in hip or chest level, that was just hilarious. And the camel spiders were constantly screaming. Yeah, sure, why not?

"Camel Spiders" was one of the worse spider movies that I have seen, right up there with the likes of "In the Spider's Web" and "Spiders 2". However, the movie is so stupid and cheesy that it is actually worth sitting through it, just to see what bad thing is waiting around the next corner. Just make sure you are sitting in an upright position while watching the movie, I was on a couch and I dozed off once or twice.

Really does scrape the bottom of the barrel

[TheLittleSongbird · 1/10 · 5 December 2011]

I am a person who juggles my many music commitments with some free time, which I use to watch movies and listen to music. Save a few tolerable ones, a lot of the SyFy movies are terrible. Camel Spiders is no exception, in fact it is one of SyFy's very worst.

As bad as Titanic II, Mega Piranha, 2010: Moby Dick, Battle of Los Angeles and Quantum Apocalypse are, and they are, awful even, Camel Spiders makes them award-worthy in comparison.

To begin criticising Camel Spiders would be difficult as there is so much wrong. Let's start with how the film is made, Camel Spiders is one of the cheapest looking of all the SyFy movies right down from the slapdash filming to the gimmicky way the gore and such is used.

Camel Spiders completely fails in the script and story too. The script contains some of the worst dialogue I've heard, it was all very forced and cliché-ridden. The story isn't engaging in the least, it was to me a silly premise anyway, but the story itself was bland and predictable with too much time wasted on some of the least interesting story ideas of the movie.

The characters I felt indifferent too, they are annoying and underdeveloped and the camel spiders of the title are not menacing at all and laughable in their design. The direction is sloppy, the soundtrack is forgettable, the sound effects sound distorted and are misplaced and the pace is inconsistent with both rushed and pedestrian moments. And need I mention how wooden across the board the acting was? Overall, a terrible movie and one of SyFy's bottom-of-the-barrel type movies. 0/10 Bethany Cox

US Army come home from Afganistan with the body of their dead comrade full of spiders which go crazy eating the population of a small town in the US.

[db3970 · 1/10 · 20 November 2011]

This actually makes Titanic 2 look like cinematic genius with Star Wars level special effects. Did not really get the last 1 minute of the movie, I actually thought the adverts had started rather then the film still playing. There are a few issues with aiming in the air to kill spiders on the floor. Also parts of the film are completely disregarded when the US Army come and save the day forgetting about the four other locations where the spiders are happily carrying on about their business. As an avid watcher of rubbish movies this is now my number one rubbish movie if I could have I would give it less then 1 I would. I cant believe that some of these actors had genuine careers prior to this movie or after it. I believe that I could direct the same quality of movie in my bathroom with a spider that comes up from the plughole.

Please read if you are considering watching this movie!!!!!

[mellowliving · 1/10 · 5 October 2012]

Why, why why why do you people keep making these movies? Who is stupid enough to fund these movies? The Syfi or however they spell the name now is well known to have the worst of the worst movies. But this, this movie takes the whole cake. Every single one of the actors in this movie are just, it just leaves me completely speechless about how bad they are. I normally don't write scathing reviews but I was compelled to write this after watching just 15 minutes of this below Z grade movie.

The concept that SF channel movies use are neither scary or intelligent or even entertaining. Camel spiders are the most venomous spiders in the world and that it will kill you almost instantly? Really? I mean really? Just how stupid was the person who came up with this story? Do you not know how to use the internet? Can you even read? Did your mom always tell you that you were special? That is all I'm gonna say on that matter.

The acting. Oh god the acting... I can say with 110% confidence and actuality that this is the worst acting I have ever seen in my entire life here on this planet. Oh, and the dialog. Who came up with the dialog??? Embarrassing... I will point out that the one young blonde chick is the worst actress I have ever seen. I take that back, I just cannot in good faith even call her an actress. Girl, you need to re-think your career and make some DRASTIC changes. I would suggest pornography as you are hot but then again that requires at least SOME acting.

I am a very nice person and rarely bash people in real life and in the internet. But watching just 15mins of this thing made me so freaking angry and filled me with hate that I just had to write this. I want to warn others that this movie will seriously anger you.

This 'movie' is just awful, 1/10 is too kind

[opetrie · 1/10 · 21 November 2011]

Tawlite sums it up nicely, I watched this the whole way through (not sure how) and I really wish I'd eaten a bowl of glass instead. On top of the criticism that's already been dished out I have a few more points. To start off with when the SUV hits the truck there's no damage to either vehicle, in fact there's only a small amount of smoke coming from the road. I also noted that when the Sheriff escorts the 'damaged truck' back to town there's no mention of the dead joy rider or his vehicle(possibly appears in a later scene parked at the café?). The 1970's army vehicle I'm pretty sure is used by 2 completely different pairs of troops. I'm really confused by the little girl who runs to find her dad...he's quite obviously with the group of 'heroes' outside but she runs downstairs anyway shouting his name. When she's unfortunately rescued I'm not sure why but the soldier runs with her to the back on the warehouse into a small shed with no glass and claims they're trapped...if she'd just turned around they'd been fine! Why does she drop her gun and carry the girl? It actually slows them down more. The ending is just terrible, high 5's all round for blowing up a warehouse...badly and then don't send in a team to wipe out any potential remaining spiders...just assume all is well. -10/10 for the CGI, choppers & jets are out of scale superbly, don't even think jets should fly as low as they did when blowing up a target but then I'm no expert. The spiders also change size dramatically from scene to scene and for some reason everyone loses signal partly through a phone call. Oh and tawlite, I also noticed the 'I got a photo of that spider back there', cue a professional dissection photo of a camel spider. Amazing encyclopedia on his phone, I want one just like that!

Anyway rant over, do not watch this abomination......ever!

One of the Worst Corman Films Yet

[gavin6942 · 3/10 · 1 March 2012]

Based on actual creatures that for years have tormented our armed forces in the Middle East, these creatures have now invaded the southwestern deserts of the United States. The Camel Spiders now freely hunt for prey, unafraid of any predator -- including man.

This film should have some redeeming value -- directed by B-legend Jim Wynorski, produced by legend Roger Corman, and starring my good friends Brian Krause ("Sleepwalkers") and Jon Mack... how can this go wrong? I do not know, but it did.

My biggest complaint about this film is that nothing in it is convincing. On top of the bad CGI spiders (which is to be expected from any Corman production these days), there is just no reason to believe the Middle East shots were in the Middle East. The Army uniforms do not look right, and it is not clear why they are wearing camouflage when not in combat.

The story is thin... giant camel spiders attack. When you shoot them, they die. There is no subtext, there is no intellectual theme here. Just a creature feature gone horribly awry.

Usual syfy formula

[tawlite · 20 November 2011]

Camel Spiders (another syfy offering) crosses all the boundaries of credibility and credulity. I don't think the creators of this movie even cared about detail and plot.

Starts off in Iraq, or the Arizona desert, who knows who cares, the writers obviously didn't! After a gun fight between the Americans and the enemy, an American soldier gets shot and dies, then the camel spiders come and drag off all the enemy fighters as it is about lunch time. The Americans don't see this at all, and are puzzled as to where the enemy have gone. They pack the dead soldier into a temporary coffin and three of the camel spiders hitchhike into the coffin. No scene change, same desert scene, and we see a sheriff chasing a joy rider, who then crashes into the Army truck carrying the coffin, and about dozen camel spiders crawl out of the coffin and into the desert, 10 minutes later entire Arizona desert swarming with thousands of camel spiders attacking anyone who happens to be in the area.

Students out and about with their professor get chased down by a giant camel spider, the giant spider jumps on the face of one of the students and chomps it off, others run and find an empty house, they break in but none can get a signal on their phones. One of the students says he took a photo of the camel spider that was chasing them, he shows them a stock photo of the camel spider chasing them, he shows them a picture on his phone of a camel spider posing flat on a black background, not a shot of it leaping through air, or munching on his mate's face, but actually a plate picture from a book!!!!!! So the kid says I can identify it through my phones encyclopaedia !!!!!!!! - Tahdah!! 1 second later he tells them it is a Camel spider native to Iraq!!!!!!!!!!!! From then on in, it gets much worse, you wonder is that possible and with this movie, yes it is not only possible but an unpleasant reality. Next follows half an hour of boring dialogue as several people from the local diner, Sheriff and Army crew hide out in a building and do various things like chat, flirt, sleep and play the harmonica, with occasional hysterics from a couple of irritating females, one who screams in clichés 'We're all going to die!!!' etc.

CGI is usual SyFy fodder. Acting dreadful. Dialogue: awful. Screech factor unbearable. Yawn factor high! A bad movie!

Worst Movie Ever

[mpff · 3/10 · 9 January 2012]

Iv never seen anything so poorly made in my life the story line was just a simple rip off of 8 legged freak really appalling as for the special effects you could tell it was all fake even the way they were shooting there guns in the air was really realistic(NOT) and the deaths were even better the way people died was really amusing cant believe they have made a DVD of this i would never recommend this film to anyone, if you want to watch a spider movie watch 8 legged freaks its better than this 99p movie if you do descide to watch this don't say i didn't warn you.

*Try and spot they guy who dies in the bathroom* lmao

Bad but at least it's still watchable.

[Boba_Fett1138 · 3/10 · 31 May 2012]

Well, what can I say. Every now and then I love to watch a silly and bad B-horror flick. And really, for the lovers of bad, cheap cinema, there is plenty to still enjoy in this movie!

And there is a big difference between a just plain bad movie and a movie that is being just so bad and silly that it actually becomes fun to watch. I feel that this for most part is being the case with "Camel Spiders" as well. No matter how bad and silly this movie gets at times, it still remains a pretty fun experience to watch.

Of course the story is totally stupid and doesn't make much sense but basically all of these sort of movies feature the same type of story anyway. It simply delivers exactly what you could and would expect from it, nothing more, nothing less. So really, if you are into these type of movies, by all means watch it and chances are you end up enjoying it, for what it is.

The characters are stupid but at least they aren't annoying (well, expect for the little girl perhaps but children always annoy me in these sort of movies), which really is a positive thing to say, for these sort of movies. Not that you ever feel involved with any of them. None of them are fleshed out and basically you already know how most of them are going to end up. At least if you are somewhat familiar already with these sort of movies.

No, this movie really doesn't hold any surprises and it progresses in an extremely formulaic way. But hey, that's how Roger Corman works and this certainly has its charm to it as well and make sure that these sort of movies are always still better to watch than those coming from other cheap working studios.

The special effects are some of the worst you are likely to see in a modern horror flick. It's also one of those movies that prefers to use CGI gore over practical effects. This is definitely something disappointing and it lets the movie look all the more fake and cheap.

Only watchable to those who can enjoy and appreciate a big, fat, cheap, silly, fake looking Corman flick.

3/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Big fun

[wildrebel2013 · 8/10 · 10 May 2015]

When you watch a film with a title like "Camel Spiders" and you know that Roger Corman produced it and Jim Wynorski directed it you know exactly what you get. This is a cheesy monster movie, much funnier than the typical SciFi movies so please don't take it much too serious and do not compare it to those zillion Dollar Blockbuster Movies.

The spiders look OK, but the CGI blood, well, that's just another story. There are a lot of familiar faces in it. Brian Krause and C. Thomas Howell once had a serious career, now they are regulars in films from the SciFi channel and they're doing a good job here. B-Movie hotties Jessica Cameron and Paula Labaredas have also some very good but much too short appearances.

Some funny thoughts on this film: Whenever the spiders attack people they all jump on the people's faces and: whatever happened to the girls who ran away after their guys were killed by the spiders ?

If you like cheesy Trash Movies as much as I do you will have a great time watching "Camel Spiders".

Regardless of budget, spiders are creepy!

[paul_facchini · 6/10 · 29 March 2012]

I had relatively low expectations going into this one (what do you expect with a $500k budget?!), so I'm happy to report I was pleasantly surprised to find a low-budget, fun, monster movie buried in this straight-to-DVD feature.

Granted, there are no groundbreaking special effects or acting, but the writing and story was not nearly as bad (i.e. boring) as some of the other current movies in this league. Paraphrasing, my favorite line: "If sarcasm worked as well as bullets on these bugs, I'd contact you first." My biggest complaint is with the bad CGI effects. Money should have been better spent on spider puppets and buckets of fake blood. The CGI looks like something 15-year-olds create for a YouTube video.

In the spirit of Tremors and Eight Legged Freaks, Camel Spiders should be remembered has one of the better low-budget, Sci-Fi Channel feature.

Poor old C

[neil-476 · 5/10 · 7 October 2013]

The three phases of C Thomas Howell's career are interesting - he started off as a promising juvenile lead. When that fizzled out, you would find him in steamy would-be erotic romps, usually with Joan Severance. And the third (and ongoing)phase finds him in a never-ending succession of truly ropy science fiction movies.

Camel Spiders is one such, also featuring Brian Krause and thus answers the question "What happens to actors from TV series when the series ends and they don't get another offer?". At one point, after someone suggests a creature is a spider, an expert suggests reprovingly that he should count the number of appendages. "Six" comes the shame-faced reply as the audience counts 8 legs and a pair of pincers.

This is poor.

Schlock

[azimuth361 · 1/10 · 16 August 2013]

So, I had mistakenly mixed a batch of Mio energy drink instead of just normal, I don't know, fruit punch or whatever. So, I was up all night. You know you've hit rock bottom when you're watching Syfy at 3:00 in the morning. But there I was, thinking to myself, "Self, I was in Iraq. I've seen lots of camel spiders. Let's give this movie a look." Oh my, where to begin? So many uniform deficiencies and tactical shortcomings, it drove this Army lifer crazy. There's a term called 'flagging' in which one Soldier points his weapon at another. I found myself saying, "Flag. Flag. Flag Flag. Flagflagflagflagflagflagfl.... Oh why am I bothering?" Staff Sergeant whatshernameasthoughitmatters' weapon has had the barrel removed in some shots, but not in others. Sometimes she sports mirrored sunglasses (Not authorized in uniform, by the way.) sometimes they're black aviators. In one shot, the crew didn't even care enough to position themselves so as not to appear in the reflection of her mirrored glasses.

Camel spiders aren't particularly aggressive. The mostly want to be left alone. The idea of them attacking is ludicrous.

The special effects were roughly on par with Tremors 3, that is, about what you could render with a processing power of a Zune.

The acting was elementary... in that it was about what you'd expect from elementary school students.

They didn't seem to bother constructing any sets, just used some abandoned buildings.

I sat through Birdemic. The un-rifftrax version of Birdemic. At least in that movie we got to see Whitney Moore in her underwear, a sight worth the cost of admission, let me tell you. We don't even get that in this movie.

The muzzle blasts were obviously added in post.

Well, enough of all this. This movie isn't even bad in a funny way in the manner of Birdemic. These people seemed to be actually aiming for high drama. Oh boy do they miss. This is a movie that you have on while you're doing something else... in another room.... wearing headphones.

OMG, Sooooo bad!!

[mnofan · 1/10 · 5 April 2015]

This movie is, perhaps, one of the worst movies I have ever watched. Starting from the bad CGI effects, all the way to the guns being marked with paint to show they are toys and not real, someone should have a little bit more expectations when making this farce. Had there been a smidgen of comedy in it, I might have enjoyed the movie even just a bit.

While the landscape was beautiful, someone forgot to mention to the producers of the show, that if your characters announce they are in Arizona, maybe the license plates of ALL the vehicles shouldn't say California, including the sheriff's car.

I almost felt sorry for some of the actors having to trying to portray anything resembling a real person, and can probably count on one hand the ones that actually did act. As a young actor, C. Thomas Howell had chops; now I know that he must only pick bad movies to make up his resume as he gets older; so sad.

I especially love the fact that the group of people hiding out in the basement, were actually above ground, as shown by the windows in the background. Or when people go into a room, with a broken window, and state they'll be safe there.

So many things were wrong, you could actually pick any scene from the movie and discover the ridiculousness of it all.

If you really, really love crappy movies or want noise in the background while you are doing something else, this movie is for you!

Weaker Monster Attack Film

[Michael_Elliott · 18 August 2018]

Camel Spiders (2011)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

U.S. soldiers fighting in the Middle East come across a strange form of camel spiders that are very large, very venomous and always willing to attack humans. They accidentally bring some back to Arizona and soon everyone is under attack.

CAMEL SPIDERS is a monster movie from Roger Corman and director Jim Wynorski but sadly the end results aren't nearly as good as one would have hoped. The film is basically what you'd expect from a SyFy movie as the budget is quite low, the story simple and the highlights are of course the giant spiders.

These type of monster movies really aren't anything new as you can go back to the 1950's where they were being produced around the clock. Of course, the big difference with these current ones are the fact that the monsters are now CGI. The effects here were obviously done without too much money and they look it but I must say that the cheapness of the spiders was a plus. I thought the scenes with them attacking were certainly the best thing going on in the picture and it's too bad that there wasn't more of it.

The biggest problem with this film are the characters. I just didn't care or like any of them and without anyone to like it just really made the film drag in spots. The boring characters also dragged the movie down whenever our killing spiders weren't around.

Camel spiders?

[seularts · 1/10 · 4 April 2012]

Camel spiders? What kind of a name is that, since they don't even look anything like a camel!? The movie is below bad and it's very unfortunate, because it had potential. The background, camera angels and soundtrack were very well made, but man did the story and characters blow the movie to bits and ashes. At one point I started wondering if this movie isn't insulting the viewer's intelligence!?

The basic story is this: a group of US soldiers shoot at some pathetic Middle Eastern guys and the spiders just pop in for a snack. US army doesn't see the spider and the other guys get eaten by them. And now the movie producer weak up our darkest fear: spiders getting in our mouths when we sleep or when we are dead. That's a horrible way to start a movie.

From this point on everything goes from bad to worse, people shoot horizontally and the bullets are pulled down by gravity and fall on the poorly CG generated spiders, characters use stupid dialog lines and this doesn't even resemble a comedy anymore, just a dumb movie with dumb American people (not that far-fetched from reality).

If terrorist would try to fight of the American infidels, they wouldn't need to; they could just stay at home and laugh, on their sofas, watching the news on TV about America being overpopulated by huge insects and all the dumb American people would do is just scream, run, fall and get eaten by spiders – which turns out to be the end of the movie.

In conclusion, spiders only love American dumb meat, because it's easy to catch as pray. I recommend you to skip this one and try to do something useful with 2 hours of your life.

"Are you scared?"... "That's classified information"...

[warehousereviews · 5/10 · 14 September 2020]

Camel spiders aren't camels or even spiders... But they are face biting, screechy little buggers!

As usual our ragtag cast of assorted cliches make all the dumbest decisions, but still make it out OK... (or do they...) The spider CGI was amazing, as real as you would want a giant spider, the dialogue was well written and the pacing was nonstop start to finish.

There were a few moments that make you want to facepalm, but that's only because you are invested in the great character growth.

Average but full of horror spider action......

[theromanempire-1 · 5/10 · 16 March 2021]

This movie although is average at best is worth your time if u are hungry to watch murderous spiders killing people. this movie delivers the goods from beginning to the end. u get to see a lot of action and u never get bored of the numerous spiders spreading havoc for nearly one hour and a half. the bad is the actors were not so good and the plot was non existed but who cares for those kind of films ? if u liked ice spiders....spiders 3-d.....lavalantula and the rest u can check this one too.

Beautiful desert locations, earnest cast, bad script

[Wuchakk · 3/10 · 18 December 2020]

A captain and sergeant (Brian Krause and Melissa Brasselle) bringing home the body of their comrade from Afghanistan unwittingly unleash several camel spiders in the Southwest desert that terrorize the people. C. Thomas Howell plays the sheriff, but is unrecognizable.

I'm an unabashed fan of Grade B creature features, but "Camel Spiders" (2011) is Exhibit A on how not to write a script. The movie starts with an action-packed sequence in Afghanistan (shot at Vasquez Rocks, just north of Los Angeles in the high country), but the filmmakers make the mistake of showing the oversized camel spiders right out of the gate, which destroys any sense of suspense. This isn't helped by the cartoonish spider CGI.

How did these creatures get so huge? In real life the largest species grows to about 5-6 inches, including legs (although a rare few might grow larger). They're nonvenomous, although their bite can be painful. Basically, they're relatively harmless to humans. So how did they get so malevolent and fatal? The flick never explains.

The story then switches to the American Southwest wherein the captain & sergeant are curiously delivering the corpse via an Army truck (from the Korean War era). If you blinked you would've thought they were still in Afghanistan. Needless to say, the creators should've made it clearer that they were now in the USA.

From there the story becomes somewhat entertaining for a Grade B monster flick with a dash of black humor. The desolate Lone Pine area locations are magnificent (located in south-central California, about an hour drive from the Nevada border, which I point out because the film looks like it was shot in Nevada). Meanwhile the cast gives their best effort, but the characters are underdeveloped and so you don't know them or much care about them.

Speaking of locations, the characters plainly say the events are taking place in Arizona, but the license plates all read 'California,' including the sheriff's car. Glaring mistakes like this don't make for good movies.

There are a couple good-looking females (e.g. Jessica Cameron as Ashley), but they don't make "Camel Spiders" worth seeing.

The film runs 1 hour, 19 minutes.

GRADE: D+/C-

"JUST TWO WORDS: BIG SPIDERS"

[nogodnomasters · 4/10 · 19 July 2018]

I enjoyed the opening credits of bright green coming at you while some action western music is playing. The opening scene has a lot of action. US forces are fighting against...Taliban? In Iraqistan or somewhere? One US soldier is killed. The enemy is carried off by BA spiders. The grasp of the spider causes one to shoot their guns aimlessly into the air instead of at the spider. A spider crawls into the mouth of the dead American soldier and makes it back to the US where through a number of plot continuity issues it is released into the Arizona desert. Do we really transport deceased soldiers in wooden crate boxes?

The spiders are about the size of a cat. No one steps on them or crushes them. They can outrun a human and leap 6 feet into the air. They are very aggressive and always attack people's head...or crotch in one case. There are a number of groups of people trapped by the spiders, who for some reason hunt humans as pack animals. The spiders appear to be CG as are the flames from the guns.

C. Thomas Howell plays the local sheriff and is not the main character. Brian Krause is the main character. The dialouge was unimaginative and boring as were the characters tossed at us.

Little girl: "Mom, are we going to die?" Mom: "No we're not going to die. We are going to be just fine. Little girl: "Well, then can you and daddy get back together?"

At one point we hear "Technically they are not spiders because they have six legs." If you count the legs: eight. The film reminded me of that old fashion Roger Corman over the top bad scenes. 4 stars is generous. Might work as a rental for the early tween.

No f-bombs, sex, or nudity. Mild swearing, teens making out, rear urination scene, occasional blood squirt.

Exceptionally enjoyable Sci-Fi Channel entry

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 9/10 · 24 September 2012]

When a soldier's body is shipped back to the US after being killed in the Middle East, a small town comes under siege of the vicious Camel Spiders hiding within his body and are forced to protect themselves from the ravenous creatures.

This was an absolutely amazing Sci-Fi Channel entry that really has hardly anything wrong with it but a lot to enjoy. Like most of the Sci-Fi channel efforts, the main attraction with this one being the high amount of action depicted here, which has a lot to do with how fun this is. The opening gets this one started nicely in a furious military gunfight in the desert as the soldiers fight off the others at the desert outcrops that turns into a massive spider ambush which they take to mean is the enemy retreating instead gets this going incredibly well with a fine firefight, and the rest of the movie is incredibly fun. It's got a lot of rather fun and exciting action scenes as the numerous creatures attack and are dispatched throughout the movie in typical fashion here mixing from quick bursts to extended pieces, from the ambush taking out the couples out in the middle of the desert to the spider's chasing victims through the woods into a remote farmhouse and a later diner ambush that's quite a lot of fun being the best of the encounters. As is expected, the longer encounters here are what make this one really fun as they manage to get out most of the positives in the film with the survival group stowed away inside the house where they come under attack while hiding out and are forced to deal with them entering the house and escaping.Finally, there's the industrial complex attack that stands as the centerpiece of the main finale showing them getting trapped inside and the different escapes running into the creatures resulting in some really fun cheesy firefights found all throughout the building leading to the big charge to get out finding them completely overrun by the spiders leading to more firefights barricading themselves away and letting the big firefight to get away giving this some really big explosive action, the result of all of this action keeping the pacing up rather nicely. Along with the numerous attacks comes a lot of blood and gore, and while still CGI the amount of damage done to the high body-count is rather nice, and with the real-world implications of the creatures and a few tense moments during the shootouts thrown into the mix, it's got a lot going for it that definitely works here. There really isn't too many flaws here with this one. As per normal, it's hard to take the CGI in this as anything but a total joke here, as not only do the spiders look fake but there's too many CGI bases for scenes that don't need to which should be quite normal and really doesn't damage the movie too much. This makes it a bit too cheesy to take seriously, but it's the only real issue here as there's more positives here to make this one a lot of fun.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and scenes of children in danger.

Fair of its kind.

[Hey_Sweden · 6/10 · 12 October 2018]

Desert dwelling predators known as camel spiders (which aren't actual spiders, for the unaware) have been making life interesting for American armed forces in the Middle East. Then the beasts take a page out of the "Arachnophobia" script and find a way to get to the American Southwest. There, they multiply like you'll never believe and make life really miserable for a variety of expendable Arizonans. An Army officer (Brian Krause) and small town Sheriff (C. Thomas Howell) lead assorted citizens in a fight against the animals.

A few elements combined to make 'Camel Spiders' above average for this sort of entertainment. First, the camel spiders aren't made so large that we have time to focus on just how tacky they look. Second, co-writer / director Jim Wynorski (utilizing his "Jay Andrews" pseudonym) does have an excellent sense of pace, keeping the action going (albeit with the required number of "peaks" and "valleys"). Next, some of the acting may be purely of the cheese ball variety, but there are a surprisingly reasonable number of engaging characters, enough to make up for the expected insufferable types whom we pray will meet a glorious demise. Finally, the movie isn't *entirely* driven by its special effects, showing some humanity as well as bodily destruction.

Granted, it's still hard not to grimace at the onslaught of typical CGI gore. That kind of thing always just takes one out of a movie. And the cheapness of the budget shows in that "Middle East" and U.S. locations are virtually indistinguishable from one another.

That doesn't mean that this is all that *good*, necessarily, but it's far from the worst of its kind.

Six out of 10.

It is one of those 'It is so-o-o bad that it is funny' flicks.

[ccunning-73587 · 2/10 · 25 April 2021]

It is one of those 'It is so-o-o bad that it is funny' flicks. The plot is completely preposterous. If the really bad CGI spiders were as deadly, bred as fast, & moved as fast as the movie preposed, mankind would not survive more than a couple of months. Brief synopsis: This extremely low budget film is loosely built around the concept of invasive species being brought back to the USA during a foreign war/conflict, the Afghan war in this case, (Like the Tiger Mosquito came back to the US during the Vietnam War) and terrorizes the Southwest Desert area. The dozen or so Camel Spiders become hundreds or thousands in no time and, as the different beginning & ending scenes reveal, they spread out over many hundreds of square miles in no time. The bad acting will probably stop this one from ever having a sequel, even though the closing scene leaves the door open for just that. I do not recommend that you spend 84 minutes of your life, which you not get back, watching this one...