(1990)
Dir - Frank Marshall
Overall: GOOD
Harmless and lighthearted, (not to be confused with the pesky arachnids present in the film itself), Arachnophobia is a decent nature horror movie that knows not to take itself that seriously. Familiar elements such as city folk moving to the country and a small town besieged by "fill in the blank" do not go to any great lengths in setting themselves apart from dozens of others with the same chemical make-up. Yet the script by Don Jakoby and Wesley Strick sprinkles enough well-timed humor to make you forget the familiar enough premise. In his full-length debut, Frank Marshall, (who would follow this up with the much less deliberately funny Alive), shows adequate skill at playing with the common fear of spiders that most filmgoers have as he consistently teases them for maximum squeamish effect. While it is certainly kid friendly enough, there are still some ghastly deaths shown to make the threat seem plausible. Both John Goodman and Jeff Daniels are respectfully amusing, though the later incessantly talking to himself during the feverish finale does get slightly annoying. For a movie whose outcome is to be made pleasantly uncomfortable while making the viewer double or triple check their showers, slippers, or toilets, it does an adequate job.
(1993)
Dir - Robert Lieberman
Overall: GOOD
Based off of Travis Walton's alleged autobiographical book The Walton Experience, (one of the many documented UFO abductions that has been regularly regarded as a hoax for numerous reasons), Fire in the Sky still provides an ample enough premise for what is essentially a semi-horror movie. The film is highly admirable for its single, horrifying and inventive abduction scene which it builds towards for nearly the entire running time and it is indeed about as skin-crawling as such cinematic moments come. While everything before that is not necessarily a chore to sit though and the acting is strong all around, the script from frequent Star Trek: The Next Generation screenwriter Tracy Tormé leaves a couple of arcs unfulfilled. There are interesting characters present, but they all end up eventually getting abandoned and then once the show-stopping alien stuff finally happens, the movie chooses to have nowhere else to go and then quickly wraps itself up. Still, it is a compelling, be it sensationalized look at treating one of America's most famous abductee cases as if it where real while at the same time emphasizing the sort of lose/lose scenario that those who are stuck back on earth are left with when no one will believe them.
(1998)
Dir - Stefan Avalos/Lance Weiler
Overall: WOOF
Noteworthy as an early entry into the found footage sub-genre, The Last Broadcast was made for less than a thousand dollars which would be admirable if not for the fact that almost none of it works. As we are introduced to our detrimentally, charismatic-less narrator/director stand-in from the very first frame, things are off to a very bad start. His casting is so erroneous that the film never recovers, not that it does not continue to make further mistakes as it goes on. It is forgivable how shoddy the presentation is granted the teeny-tiny budget. Everyone looks like they are being interviewed in their living rooms and have the typical acting chops of your aunt or cousin that you asked very nicely to be in your movie. Yet writer/director/producer/actors Stefan Avalos and Lance Weiler do not offer nearly enough details with their story to reel one in. This would basically make for a highly forgettable Unsolved Mysteries episode, except we get Boring Man instead of Robert Stack as the host. The Last Broadcast gets by on its shortcomings up until the final few minutes which throws a laughably insulting twist at us for absolutely no reason. The movie is officially broken at this point and despite the filmmaker's best efforts, there is practically nothing left to appreciate.
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