My quick rating - 6.5/10. I am always a sucker for scary spider flix. I blame Arachnophobia although I do recall some made-for-TV movie (I think) that I saw when I was much younger. I think it was Kingdom of the Spiders which was my first spider horror flick. It would help this movie to have a main character that wasn't such an asshole. Kaleb (Théo Christine) is a collector of rare and exotic insects. Aside from being stupid, he is also quite irresponsible causing residents of the rundown French apartment building where they live to battle against an army of deadly, rapidly reproducing spiders. This whole setup and how the movie played out reminded me a lot of REC again which I just recently made mention to. This time the apartment building is sealed off due to spiders though instead of zombies. And not just a few spiders, there are LOTS of them and they multiply at breakneck speed. To add to the fear factor, not only are they reproducing quickly but they also get larger with every cycle. When you see the beginning and the spider that Kaleb buys from the shop, you will be lulled into a false sense of security believing that is the arachnids you will have to deal with. Think again. First-time director Sébastien Vanicek is clearly a student of the horror genre as his setups for the scares are so fluid and believable. They aren't just bass-induced jump scares but clever setups for the spiders to make their presence known at lightning speed to creep the hell out of you. The acting seemed serviceable for this type of movie but it was a bit too frantic screaming constantly which would most assuredly be a realistic reaction to this nightmare. The movie has to make any horror fans list especially if you are keen to those that feature our eight-legged friends. A bit of a side note since I was checking into other stuff Vanicek has done. I would already be looking foward to more of his work but then I saw this under upcoming: Untitled Evil Dead Spin-Off. 100% count me in!
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