Big Ass Spider!

(2013) ***

Exterminator extraordinaire Alex Mathis is asked to capture a large spider that popped out of a corpse in the morgue of a L.A. local hospital.  The spider chomped on the mortician’s neck before disappearing into the ductwork rendering a nasty gash.  Wise-cracking security guard, Jose Ramos, joins Alex in his search for the fat arachnid.  Crawling through the ductwork Alex has a run in with the leggy menace which seems to be growing exponentially.  No sooner does he declare it to be the largest spider he has ever seen than the Army shows up taking over the operation.  Major Braxton (Ray Wise, hooray!) tries his best to contain the growing disaster (no pun intended) but the big ass spider escapes from the hospital and is later caught on camera by amateur video.  With the story leaked the Army does its best to stop the large black widow.  Somehow Alex and Jose are given permission to help out and what ensues is a ridiculous 74 minute chase though L.A.

Big Ass Spider! is truth in advertising and it (sort of) delivers the goods.  Director Mike Mendez makes the most out of his small budget.  The FX range from middling to good and although the numerous one-liners don’t always work there is enough here to enjoy.  The chemistry between Alex and Jose works well with Jose stealing every scene he’s in.  I hate spiders more than I hate snakes (actually I hate them both equally) and as silly as this film is the idea of it still gave me the heebie-jeebies. 

I do believe we are witnessing the birth of a new horror genre and I’m not quite sure how I feel about it.  It seems to have originated with the SyFy channel which has been increasingly offering films like Sharkopolis and Sharknado.  Rather than “so-bad-it’s-good” these films say, “we-are-aware-that-this-is-bad-which-makes-it-good”.  They wink at the audience and want us to love them for being bad.  Is this a bad thing?  I suppose not, but somehow I feel manipulated.