Arachnid

Imagine that Jurassic Park III was about spiders instead of prehistoric creatures, and you have it. Plots go round and round and come out in the same place. Like it's lunch time on the island and guess who's on the menu? The less important members of the cast.

Unlike Jurassic, the budget is constrained, although the effects are not entirely cheesy. Instead of a million spiders, crawling over the face of a victim, there's one. But it's massive.

The sci-fi element wouldn't have passed The X-Files quality control. A thing that looks like a flying casserole dish crash lands on an island in the middle of the ocean. There is a nuclear type explosion, followed by weird wobbly waves in the sky. When a US airforce jet investigating the phenomenon enters the wobbly waves, its electrics pack up and the pilot ejects. Once on the island, he discovers that something predatory is living there, something alien to the natural world.

The pilot's sister and some other brave fools fly a biplane over and start looking around. There is no attempt at characterisation. Even the hint of a possible love interest fizzles out.

How many ways can a human be caught in a web? Because the spider is the size of King Kong, it moves slowly and doesn't seem to mind being shot. Its face is nasty and when it cocoons a person, it's not a pretty sight.

Scary? Not enough. Unless the sight of a scientist having his paralysed legs eaten by baby spiders behind a screen of webbing puts you off your greens, there is nothing to lose sleep about.