I hadn’t seen Eight Legged Freaks since I rented after it first came out. I had forgotten how goofy it was. I found myself laughing regularly throughout the movie. Its also fun to see some of the younger cast members that became bigger after being in the movie.
Knowing that Ellory Elkayem was from Australia makes sense. It helps explain a lot since he directed the movie, cowrote the screenplay, and came up with the story. He cowrote the screenplay with Jesse Alexander and came up with the story with Randy Kornfield. It feels like a fun send up to the old giant insect movies, but with a more comedic spin. A lot of that comes from the cast.
David Arquette, Kari Wuhrer, Scott Terra, Doug E. Doug, Scarlett Johansson, Rick Overton, Leon Rippy, and Matt Czuchry make the movie as funny as it is. Its honestly pretty funny how big of a star Scarlett Johansson has become in the years since this came out. Matt Czuchry has also become a star, but its hard to compare his cast member.
The effects for the giant spiders looks dated, but they don’t look terrible. Whenever it comes to the CGI for movies from this time it certainly has aged poorly. The practical effects look great. There’s also some pretty impressive stunts throughout. The music from John Ottman is interesting. It has a western feel at moments, and it even takes cues from Indiana Jones music.
Eight Legged Freaks is a fun giant insect movie that feels very of its time. I decided to give it a rewatch since I saw that it was added to HBO Max. It does feel more like a movie from the 90s, though it coming out in the early 00s makes sense since there’s always some bleed over at the start of a new decade. I give Eight Legged Freaks 6.5 barrels of toxic waste out of 10.