ICE SPIDERS
starring: Patrick Muldoon, Vanessa Williams, Thomas Calabro, Stephen J. Cannell
directed by Tibor Takacs, Color, , 2007
Distributed by Regent Worldwide Sales
DVD Reviewed By: Ryan Lies


Ask most SF/horror fans and they'll tell ya: Sci-Fi Channel does NOT make good movies. They may have terrific titles and promising (albeit wacked-out) premises, but the final product general leaves viewers angry that they wasted their time.

I'll be honest, I haven't seen as many of these flicks as a lot of other people have, but the few I have seen certainly live up to that reputation. Although, when it comes down to it, they aren't any better or worse than plenty of other direct-to-video, CG-infested crap that sets on video-store shelves these days. You know what I'm talking about: all those movies shot on the cheap in remote South African locales, using never-WILL-have-a-name actors and rinky-dink, ColecoVision computer-FX; you know, the ones with titles like SHARK ATTACK 3, OCTOPUS, BOA VS. PYTHON, CRAYFISH TEROR ... flicks that sound like they should've been made during the 50's Atomic Age, but in actuality are WORSE than ANYTHING slapped together half a century ago.

Anyway, I don't even know if that paragraph above was structured properly, but that's how frazzled I am after sitting through the Sci-Fi Channel stinker ICE SPIDERS. What frazzles me the most is that no one ASKED me to watch it, no one put a gun to my crotch and said "Watch this visual fart or die!" Yet I did anyway. I mean, I actually rented it and put it in my DVD player, and then sat through the whole thing! I could've taken it out of my DVD player and returned it to Movie Gallery, and no one but me and the clerk that checked it out to me would've been the wiser. Certainly, I would never have even MENTIONED to my editor here at No-Fi "Magazine" that I had watched it (even though God knows I've waded through some thick seas of cinematic crap for that guy!)

Should I be embarrassed that things have actually gotten this far, then? That I ACTUALLY am admitting to watching it, AND I'm writing about it? Yes, I probably should. And am. But oh well, since we're all here, let's talk about the stubbed-toe-in-the-dark viewing experience that was ICE SPIDERS.

When I first grabbed this off the shelf and perused its box, I didn't have any idea it was a Sci-fi Channel movie. I simply noticed it was apparently about giant spiders in the show, which sounded like it might be kinda fun on a lonely Wednesday night. Then I noticed it was directed by Tibor Takacs. Now THAT got me. Mr. Takacs directed one of my all-time favorite horror movies in 1987, called THE GATE. Remember that one, with the geode, and the pit in the back yard, and the little demons? Hell yeah! It's a classic! It was also, technically, the first "real" horror movie I saw in a theater. So it holds a sentimental place in my heart.

Takacs directed only two other movies that I ever knew of after that: the kinda cool, but also kinda dorky I, MADMAN, and the inferior and forgettable GATE II. When I saw his name listed as director for ICE SPIDERS, I thought to myself, Damn, I guess I should check this out; I thought he'd died or something!

One other things caught my attention, and that was another familiar name that popped up during the opening credits: Brian Trenchard-Smith. He was listed as "creative consultant." Whatever that means. Anyway, that gave me a little bit of hope that this movie might be better than the average piece of direct-to-video junk. See, Trenchard-Smith made a little movie called TURKEY SHOOT, which I reviewed this past year in these very "pages." I absolutely love that movie, so you can imagine why might be sitting there thinking this is gonna be ok.

Well, it wasn't. It was just lame, limp, unoriginal, and boring. Takacs does nothing with the (admittedly) weak material other than stage it blandly, and let it unfold blandly across the screen. And whatever Trenchard-Smith offered to it is beyond me, as there is none of the bonkers ingenuity evident in TURKEY SHOOT on display here. This movie is about as generic as a movie can get.

Does it matter that a bunch of skiiers get attacked by a bunch of genetically-engineered spiders? Does it matter that military people and scientists bicker a lot, while a washed-up powder-pro named "Dash" tries to save the guests at the picturesque ski-lodge where he teaches bumbling idiots how to ski? Does it matter that everything in this movie unfolds exactly the way you expect it to, and wraps up exactly the way you expect to, because nothing here is any different than what you've seen in EVERY other movie like this ever made?

No. It doesn't matter. Because this movie was obviously made simply to fill black-space between commercials. And since it was made to air on a cable network, there shouldn't be any damn commercials in the first place! (but that's a rant for another time, so don't get me started). So that makes ICE SPIDERS just about useless. Sorry, I don't mean to be so caustic, but I can't help it. I know they're just trying to entertain me, but hell, I can dangle the antennae on my cell phone in front of my cats and let them bat at it if I'm that desperate for entertainment.


The spiders are extremely cartoony, and by that I mean they look terrible. Some of the spider attacks are kinda neat, and surprisingly gory, but nothing to write home about. The characters are Grade-A Clichˇ Stock, and the dialogue is of the "hurry up, move!" caliber. (That is when it isn't killing your brain-cells with myriad variations of "cool, dude," or "that sucks bigtime, dude.")

At one point, after the cartoon spiders have escaped, the army shows up at the Top-Secret Lab (that's just down the trail from the ski-lodge, of course) and they find a huge puddle of blood on the floor. The fidgety, smarmy scientist who is showing them around the building dismisses the puddle and tells the army there's nothing to worry about, that it's probably just a "short-circuited alarm system." Apparently one that bleeds when it goes out.

Yup, it's that kinda movie, but don't let me give you any impression that it's worth watching, despite it's sundry faults. It's just plain bad. Boring bad. You'll pop it out of your DVD player within the first half-horror, unless you're an idiot with no life like me. Just don't say I never tried to warn you.

Poor Tibor Takacs. One look at his filmography on IMDb shows that this is pretty much his bread and butter now. Sad to see a childhood hero sink so low. But hell, I guess he's making a living, right?

(Ryan Lies is a staffwriter for No-Fi "Magazine"
and loves to draw yellow spiders in the snow.)