Movie Review: Spiders 3D (2013)

Synopsis: A piece of a Cold War-era Soviet space station crashes in New York, coming to rest in the subway. The debris carries venomous spiders mutated with alien DNA that quickly spread and grow to monstrous proportions.

Who's in it? The movie stars William Hope, Shelly Varod, Sydney Sweeney, Patrick Muldoon and Christa Campbell.

Review: A spring snowstorm kept us indoors yesterday evening and since we were trying to stay warm on the couch, my wife and I found this movie. At first, I thought it was a 3D version of another movie entitled Spiders, which we saw some time ago. However, it turned out to be something different. Unfortunately, it also wasn't all that good either.

This movie ultimately had many of the pet peeves that bother me with most horror/monster films. First, the spiders are the part of an experiment that seemed like much more of a vanity project involving alien DNA than anything that could possibly have real scientific value, especially since it clearly wasn't a priority if it was simply abandoned in orbit.

That weak premise aside, why do movies always want the spiders to be gigantic? Large spiders are dumb, not scary. I'm sorry, I know it's just my opinion, but I stand by it. Regular-sized spiders that could easily crawl up your pant leg are much scarier. At minimum, that's the type of movie "monster" that will have me squirming in my seat. Ironically, I'm pretty sure I had this same complaint when we watched the other movie called Spiders as well, though I also remember liking that one.

Of course, the worst part of this movie was it was just dull. As I told my wife, for a movie about giant, deadly spiders from outer space, there sure seemed to be a lot more emphasis on government coverups and villainous soldiers/scientists. The spider kill count certainly seemed low compared to what it should have been given the quantity of venomous creatures. 

I guess maybe I should have expected that from a movie that incorrectly referred to spiders as "insects" and only gave them four eyes.

I will say this much, I haven't seen many Sydney Sweeney movies and based on her performance in this film, which was apparently her first, I can understand why people think she's talented. She might have been the only highlight from an otherwise bad movie, especially when she was in danger and calling for her parents to help. Other than that, I don't know if there is anything that made this movie worth taking the time to watch.

Final Opinion: It's a movie about giant spiders and there's nothing about it that sets it apart from other movies about giant spiders. That's about all I can say, other than many of those other movies are a lot better.

My Grade: D