Director: Kiah Roache-Turner
Year: 2024
Country: Australia
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
Living in a cramped apartment, a teenager and her broken family trying to blend together with their new relationships find themselves under attack by what was initially thought to be a pet spider only to discover it’s actually a ravenous alien being and must try to stop it before it takes over.
Review:
Overall, this was a decidedly decent if somewhat underwhelming creature feature. Among the positives here is the genuinely chilling atmosphere of the setup as the location allows this one to play nicely with the imagery of the concurrent phobia surrounding the situation. Knowing full well the idea of the massive, mutated spider is a creepy one, this one takes on the rampaging spider in the darkened hallways and ducts of an apartment complex trapped in with a raging snowstorm, this one creates a nice bit of fun in the last act when it goes for some rather solid confrontations with the creature. As there’s plenty of fantastic stalking scenes offering the massive creature stalking residents throughout the complex emerging out of the shadows to spin massive deadly webbing, inject them with deadly venom, or other debilitating antics that provide plenty of fun and chills. With the practical effects-driven sequences letting this have some great kills due to this section of the film, it makes for a lot to like and lifts this up the most.
That said, this one is somewhat flawed and problematic. One of the main issues here is the immensely underwhelming first half where the entire first half here is spent on nothing interesting with all the focus on their strained family dynamic. The issues at play here with the daughter trying to bond with the new stepfather and failing, the husband and wife trying to raise a mixed family in a cramped, falling-apart apartment, and the bizarre cast of characters living in the building with them creates a wholly effective starting point but just goes on way too long to the point the storylines border on cliche. The well-meaning stepfather who can’t do anything right, the moody teenager who does things to endanger others but doesn’t care because her attraction outweighs common sense, and kooky dialog for the sake of kooky dialogue keep this so sluggish and bland it’s hard to stay invested here. Given that the spider hardly ever appears and doesn’t do much of anything until the final half makes this stand out even more, and the whole effect manages to stand out enough here to hold this down.
Overview: **.5/5
A wholly missed opportunity of a creature feature, this one has enough to be worthwhile as long as you’re mindful of the issues present which might be quite detrimental to some re than others. Those who appreciate the genre and approach or are fans of the creative crew and not bothered by the issues here will have the most to like while those who are turned off by the flaws with this one should heed caution here.
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