Spider In The Attic

I have a very dear friend of mine, and his name is Tony, also known as Ali Baba or Mr Montana ( depending on who you ask ). I do know that back in the early 90´s he had the nickname of Jason Donovan´s Wing Man, i am not sure what that means exactly. Either way, it does sound like he hit the jackpot. He is actually one of the few people who had the honor to see Swedish music artist Hans Martin, at a very unique show. I will confess that i am a bit jelaous of him, that he actually got to see this unique concert, at the same time i am happy for him. He is wonderful, in every possible way, except for one thing. He have a very odd book collection, and i have never seen anything like this in my 44 years of being alive ( so far, hopefully i will last another 40 ). If you go to the home of Tony, and enter his office, you will see a very big bookshelf with at least 120 books, and all of the books are about spiders. His fascination of spiders in books is quite incredible. He knows all the spider spieces in the entire world ( at least the ones that we do know exist ), and if you ask him questions about spiders, i guarantee that he can answer every single one of your questions. He even have a couple of tshirts with his favourite spider species, that he loves to wear, especially during Christmas holidays. So as you can see, if you love spiders, i guarantee you will love the office at Tony´s home, it is quite extrodinary. Since we are talking about spiders, i have seen quite a lot of films over the years where spiders are included. One of my personal favourites is the 2012 film known as Big Ass Spider from director Mike Mendez. This is a really fun horror comedy where a giant alien spider escapes from a military lab and attack the city of Los Angeles. Big Ass Spider is exactly my kind of B movie, where you have fun characters, a huge spider attacking, and fun dialogue as well. You should pick it up on DVD or Blu Ray, and i guarantee you will have a good time. Speaking of spiders, i have been curious to see a British independent film called Spider In The Attic, and i finally got a chance to watch it on VOD. This is from the same director Scott Jeffrey, who brought us The Curse Of Humpty Dumpty that i reviewed this autumn. Since i enjoy spider horror films, is this one better than i expected, or is Spider In The Attic just as predictable as the latest films of actor Damian Chapa?

Linda Bruxton ( Nicola Wright ) is in trouble. Unless she comes up with something different to her radio show, she might have to end the show for good. While looking for suggestions on criminal cases to talk about the radio show, her daughter Lucy Braxton ( Sarah Alexandra Marks ) tell her about the mystery of Dr. George Zizerman ( Chris Cordell ). Apparently, he was fired after they found out he was doing experients on animals, as he was fascinated by the nazis. Linda convince the radio show owners that she needs to do a report on this mysterious case, and they approve. With a group of people, they travel to the home of Dr. George to interview him, but find out he is dead. But he did not die naturally, it is all connected to the experiements that he did, in his house.

Spider In The Attic reminded me a little bit of the first Puppet Master film. Instead of puppets running around killing people, here we have spiders crawling around, bringing fear into people´s lives. Since we have seen a lot of different spider films released over the years, it is hard to make a film that does not borrow too many ideas from similar films. The one thing that makes Spider In The Attic stand out a little bit, is that this film takes place in the English countryside. And that is actually a good idea, since the traditional countryside is of course a perfect location for spiders, especially in an old English house´s attic. The plot itself is pretty simple, but actually have a surprising twist. The fact that these spiders were created by a scientist who created genetically enginered animals, is definetely different than the traditional spider films. We also find out that he was inspired by nazi research, wich makes this plot interesting. The idea that the main character Linda Buxton ( played by wonderful actress ) travelled to this house to save her radio show, is actually not a bad idea. If you want higher ratings on your radio show, you need something different, right? And i do like the attempt that they tried to capture their last attempt to save the show, before it is cancelled. Lead actress Nicola Wright ( who i enjoyed in the British independent horror film The Curse Of Humpty Dumpty ) deliver once more an acting performance that match well with her character. I don´t know what it is about her, but her screen presence feels natural. It feels like she can portrait all kinds of characters, and make them feel believable. The rest of the cast that´s actually with mostly women, all contribute something to their character. The best part of this film is to see the mystery surrounding this house, and what experiments really took place here. We don´t get a lot of answers unfortunately, but the small details that are revealed are interesting. The spiders may be CGI effects, but are quite fun to watch ( if you can accept that this film have a limited budget ). Spider In The Attic ( or Spider From The Attic, depending on where you look for the title ) is not a classic in spider horror films, and is not as good as The Curse Of Humpty Dumpty from a horror perspective, but i do think director Sott Jeffrey did make this film enjoyable for actually bringing in nazi experiements into the spider genre. If you enjoy independent animal horror films, i think you should give this film a chance. After all, if Tony loves spiders more than anything, i have a feeling you will as well, after seeing Spider In The Attic.

Rating: DDD