A truly extraordinary science fiction/horror film that manages to be an intelligent depiction of perverted science as well as a unique tale of survival. From the very initial scenes, there is an overwhelming sense of terror as a couple stranded at sea are picked up by a mysterious freighter. Immediately treated by the ship's doctor, the couple immediately can tell there is something seriously wrong. The doctor is clearly mad and the experiments he's conducting are beyond all imagination. Richard Moll is stunning in the role of the doctor and it's one of his best roles in years. As the horror unfolds within the confines of a ship at sea, the claustrophobic environment is almost unendurable and the intensity of the thrills simply become too much to bear. This is a terrific film of this type and one of the finest Killer Spider motion pictures ever made.

Spiders was an unexpected delight, especially coming from Nu Image, producers of the dire Octopus movies. Nobody could have expected a sequel to bottle the same lightning, and Spiders 2 doesn't but it is still surprisingly fun stuff. It takes a serious minded approach to its shenanigans and even opts for a first half of mystery and paranoia before going for the straightforward creature feature route, an approach which is generally interesting if not entirely successful. The story centres on Alexandra and Jason, lost at sea after investigating an abandoned boat when a storm hits. They get picked up by a cargo ship wherein everybody seems friendly enough, but Jason has his suspicions and fair play to the guy, there are strange goings on afoot. The trouble with going down the suspense alleyway is that the film pretty much gives itself away with the title, and for anyone who couldn't guess the general impetus of the film an early scene shows it off. This means that for all the mystery we know what's going to happen and so instead of being caught in the same mystery as the protagonists we basically watch them play catch-up. Luckily the actors are up to the task of sustaining interest, Greg Cromer showing mounting fear and bewilderment as Jason, Stephanie Niznik sympathetic as the at first stolid and sceptical but ultimately tough and heroic Alexandra, while the best show is put on by a glowering, happily hammy Richard Moll as the nefarious Dr. Grbac. The crew are generally well realised as well, a salty, shifty bunch led by the able Daniel Quinn as their ostensible nice guy leader. The perfomers keep things ticking until the film explodes and fortunately things are worth the wait. A couple of rather nasty gore scenes satisfy the meaner urges, and when the CGI spiders get clustering their rampage is rather good fun, daft but lively. Director Sam Firstenberg is something of a low budget action regular and he handles things with a certain chintzy flair, conjuring excitement out of unpromising effects and the cramped location. Its a shame the film doesn't get moving earlier though, leaving the big excitement to the final half hour may work in a big budget film where the makers can really go wild but here I think some more sustained action would have been better. Also, the writing has its share of blips, gaps and contrivances that wouldn't usually bother me a whit, were it not for the serious minded approach. Still, by and large I liked this one, its pretty sound as its genre goes, has a few gnarly moments and some engaging craziness. Check it out if it sounds like your cup of tea is my advice.

No one's arguing Richard Moll (Night Court) isn't set to win any awards, but when your budget is just big enough to afford roughly 5 spiders, you can only claim so many D-List "headliners" for your When Animals Attack sequels.I promise, mostly to myself, that I won't spend too much time on this crud, but I watched this because I do love those When Animals Attack creature-features and I was attempting to recreate that Turkey Day feel of MST3k years past by watching this during the Thanksgiving weekend. Unfortunately, this was worse than bad. It contained as much air time for the spiders as Angelina Jolie did in Gone in 60 Seconds. (For those who don't know, I believe she spent more time for her posters, as the spider here, than her acting in that film.)Pirates invade a ship, kidnapping idiots we don't care to know, and passerby boatists Jason (Cromer) and Alex (Niznik) investigate and then get stranded in the ocean via a storm. Picked up by another passing boat they're greeted and wined and dined. But, is there a catch?Hell, yeah, it's for the viewers to wait another hour to realize they're part of some Dr. Grbac (Moll) experiment on spiders. It's basically a thirty-five cent version of Aliens but without any of the tension, excitement, acting, dialogue, originality, intrigue, character depth, special effects or budget. Make that: ten cents, then.Don't waste your time. I can see where the actors actually tried to do something with nothing, but it's not even a movie to say: It's so bad, it's good and at least it's about spiders. Cuz, it ain't!Side Note: I guess it was originally subtitled: "Breading Ground" until it hit video. Perhaps because they realize there is no "ground" actually in the film. Does it really matter? Would it sell further with…or without the added non-spider reference?

let's see now... Spiders 2... ummm.... the special effects are just silly..... the dialogue is wooden, weird, and hard to take seriously... the mad scientist acts and talks and looks like a Saturday morning cartoon character... the story has lots of plot and logic loopholes, verging on the ridiculous....the story is predictable and is very very very slow moving -- we can all see where it's going, so why can't the characters?actually you could save this movie by taking out virtually all of the dialogue -- not a word of it is necessary --- then taking out redundant and unnecessary scenes -- and bringing in a better cinematographer with more knowledge about dramatic lighting. It would work okay as a silent movie, about ten or fifteen minutes long.