Earth vs. the Spider (2001) — Triskaidekafiles

EARTH VS. THE SPIDER

WRITERS: Screenplay by Cary Solomon & Chuck Konzelman and Max Enscoe & Annie deYoung

Story by Mark "Crash" McCreery and Cary Solomon & Chuck Konzelman

DIRECTOR: Scott Ziehl

STARRING: Dan Dan Aykroyd as Jack Grillo

Amelia Heinle as Stephanie Lewis

Devon Gummersall as Quentin Kemmer

John Cho as Han

QUICK CUT: A comic nerd gets to live out his wildest dreams, until they become a waking nightmare.

THE MORGUE

Quentin - A nerdy kid working as a security guard who just wants to do something with his life, and get the girl.

Stephanie - The girl in question. She’s caring, friendly, and your average love interest archetype.

Jack Grillo - A disgraced cop who lost a lot of respect amongst his peers when he didn’t dire on a criminal a year ago. His marriage is on the rocks, and he can’t close the current murder spree case troubling his city.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! This month has been a journey, from the atomic age, to the holographic age, and now I'm gonna finish things up with the age of superheoes. Kinda. Sorta. But not really. Back in the early part of the 21st Century, the Showtime channel decided to do some titular remakes of some classic horror flicks, starting with this one, Earth vs. the Spider. If you're enough of a fan of schlocky horror to be here, I'm sure you know the original, but forget everything you know! This movie has absolutely nothing in common with the previous movie's plot.

Also, just to point this out now, this movie beat the original Spider-Man movie by almost eight months.

The movie opens up as we meet our star, Quentin, as he's waking up, getting ready for his job as a security guard. He's your average guy, nothing too notable, has problems with money, work, women...if this guy had an aunt, you would have a lawsuit on your hands.

We do at least also learn that there is a killer ravaging the streets of New York, and I am sure this will be an important plot point throughout the movie.

He meets his next door neighbour whom he is sweet on, Stephanie, and he walks her out of the building. They run into a couple of guys who like to harass Stephanie, but turn their attentions to Quentin once he tells them to quit it.

That's when Steph chimes in, and shoos the bullies away, hurting Quentin's pride. So, he sulks off to be alone.

Quentin stops by the comic shop run by his friend, John Cho what are you doing in this movie?, and we learn about his favourite superhero, the Arachnid Avenger.

Legally Distinct Intellectual Property Man.

Finally, Q gets to work at a biochemical research lab, where he works with his not Uncle Ben, Nick. Their jobs as security guards are normally quiet, watching over the spider experiments, but not today. Today, a group of criminals break in looking to steal...you know, I don't remember, and it doesn't matter. This feels like it should be more of a plot point, something to come back to later, but it's not.

To try and cut to the chase here, the crooks make a mess, a few people end up dead including Nick, and while the cops are there trying to sort things out, Quentin hears about the experiments on the spiders giving them regenerative abilities and the like. So, he in his infinite lack of wisdom, decides to stick his arm in the path of the injector while no one is watching.

And with Nick's dying breath, Quentin learns...absolutely nothing, because this isn't that sort of story. This is not your daddy's Spider-Man.

We also briefly meet Detective Jack Grillo, who protects Quentin from the cop who lost his partner in the shoot out. And...Dan Aykroyd, what are YOU doing in this movie?? I actually get Cho, he's just starting his career.

Someone has to take the fall for the break in, and they blame Quentin for it. So he gets fired and F-Trooped of his badge, then sent home.

Quentin takes all this rather well, and spends the next day laying alone in his bathtub covered in ice, while his alarm goes off. Stephanie finds him in this state after being like that the whole day, and tries to get him out of his funk and nurse him back to health.

Aww no, did they take my kidneys again??

Stephanie sees where he injected himself and freaks out, thinking he's a junkie, and wants nothing to do with them. Oh, if only that's what it was, you'd probably be better off.

After more rest, Quentin wakes up with a voracious appetite for meat...AND JUSTICE! He gets dressed up all in black, and goes looking for crime to stop. I love how he just ASSUMES he now has super powers, and not like...debilitating cancer.

Quentin lurks around the local cop bar, and sees the detective who gave him shit, making out with Grillo's wife, and this is too many characters and too many connections for this movie. It feels wildly unnecessary, and takes focus away from things.

Also, we are now 30 minutes in, and have yet to see any spidery goodness.

The story you're about to hear is dumb, but the plot has been changed to protect the innocent.

Meanwhile, Stephanie is returning home, when she is jumped inside the apartment building. I'd ask how he got in, but this place is in a bad side of town.

She's assaulted by the Midtown Murderer, but it's a good thing her love interest is developing super strength, and shows up just in time to fling the guy through a wall.

Before anyone can arrive or recognise him, Quentin leaps out the window and climbs down the wall. Ah, good, the movie heard me.

Spider-Nerd, Spider-Nerd, killin' guys, haven't you heard?

So, they kept mentioning the Midtown Murderer, like he's gonna be some major plot, and then he's done and dusted in five seconds, a third of the way through the movie? Can they kill the big bad a third of the way in??

Quentin returns home, hears what happened, and knows he's a superhero now. And as a discount Spider-Man theme starts to play, he starts trying to figure out what all his powers are, and his mission will be.

While he does that, we follow Grillo home to mope to his wife that the murderer is dead, and he didn't do it, but at least that's over with. Oh, and he knows she's stepping out on him, but they'll work through it and who caaaaares you are not the main character.

Oh yeah, sure, this is fine, no need to see a doctor.

Quentin tries to get some sleep, but he starts hearing things. No no, he starts hearing EVERYTHING. And they try and link it to the spider ability of feeling the vibrations from its web, and that's a kinda neat gimmick.

Stephanie decides to put some stuff into storage, and while Quentin helps her, they run into the bullies again. And of course, now that he has powers, Q can take care of himself and scares them off. My, how the turns have tabled.

It’s little more than just grabbing them and being angry, but sometimes that’s all it takes to chase off a bully.

How did this movie, that came out first, have their MJ knockoff wear the exact same sweater as Kirsten Dunst?!

There's a brief scene in the comic store, where John Cho and Quentin watch a bit of the ORIGINAL Earth vs. the Spider, and where does this fall on the rule of "don't show me good movies in your bad movie?"

Later, Quentin wakes up, dangling from the ceiling, thanks to a spinneret that has developed in the middle of his chest.

This is taking the mechanical vs. organic webshooters to a whole new ew level.

He tests his new power out, eventually moving up to a moving target, and webs his dog. As he starts freeing his pet, Quentin starts feeling hungry. He rushes out of the apartment to look for someone else to eat, because he doesn't want to eat his pet.

Quentin runs across some hinky shit going down in a bodega, and flips some guy over a display of beer bottles. The woman that was being attacked freaks out, because that guy was her boyfriend, and Q misread the situation.

She won't accept that Quentin thought he was trying to save her, doesn't see him as a hero, and just a murderer, and runs away.

Quentin webs her up before she can escape, and as he approaches her, one of his hands morphs into a claw. Who knows what he was going to do to her, because that's when the cops show up, chasing Quentin off.

The cop, the same one that's been giving Quentin a hard time all movie long, was the one to show up to the scene of the crime, so Q sees a means to solve two problems at once, and takes the cop away to eat.

Grillo shows up on the crime scene, and they find the boyfriend's corpse, all desiccated, and someone says it's like someone sucked the life right out of him. Oh, something sucked all right.

Meanwhile, Q's transformation continues, as he returns home, just in time for a pair of mandibles to grow out of his face.

I’ve done it, I have found Spiders Georg.

Stephanie hears him screaming in pain, and bangs on the door to Quentin's apartment to try and help. Q does his best Darkman impression and tells her to go away.

Fortunately, Quentin wakes up the next morning with his face back in arguably handsome territory, and convinced he can control this. Spoilers: He cannot.

But it doesn't take long for the hunger to take over again, and he freaks out. Dude, have a Snickers. You're not yourself when you haven't eaten.

It's a good thing the movie has setup a pair of easily hateable bullies that Quentin has had several encounters with, that he can now eat and we won't feel bad about.

The movie hasn't had Grillo show up to drag the plot to a halt, and he somehow has pieced things together with Quentin as a suspect. There's...really no basis for this, outside of "hunch that leads him to a few clues".

As his transformation quickens, Quentin's quest leads him to his comic loving friend. They chat about comics and how to stop him, and Han decides there is only one way; his one weakness is his heart.

Grillo pokes around a bit more, and stumbles upon where Quentin has been storing his victims, down in the basement of the apartment complex.

His wife shows up, trying to find Officer Williams, and she gets attacked by Quentin. Grillo chases Spider-Boy away, and sees to his wife. She ends up dying from the attack.

Spider-Quentin shows up and kidnaps Stephanie, webbing her up, as the rest of his legs all grow out of his back.

Grillo follows Stephanie's screams to the roof, and we get a brief confrontation, with Quentin telling the cop that the only way to stop him, is if Grillo kills him. Making it sound like a threat, but having it also be very literal, because he WANTS to die, works really well.

And to keep a long story from getting any longer, Grillo doesn't want to do it, until Quentin attacks the girl, finally getting that sweet, sweet release of death.

It's also worth noting there's a subplot of how Grillo was disgraced a year ago, when he drew his weapon, but was unable to take the shot. So, I guess that's a resolved character arc?

Oh, and the movie ends with Han hocking his latest statue, a limited edition of the Quentin Arachnid. He proudly boasts it's a friend of his. Dude. Vulture much??

Truly, it was bullets that killed the beast.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: Pretty good, it has a very “set” looking quality to it, but what’re ya gonna do?

Audio: It sounds fine. All in all, an average movie.

Sound Bite: “Fine! AND I’M KEEPING YOU DOG!”

Body Count: Not much to say here. A few bodies, and most of them are in a quick scene right from the start.

1 through 4 - 15:30 minutes in, and there's a shootout that leaves two cops, a robber, and the rent a cop dead.

5 - Quentin kills the Midtown Murderer

6 - Random abusive boyfriend gets drained by Quentin

7 and 8 - The bullies get eaten

9 - Grillo's wife Trixie is killed

10 - Grillo kills the spider monster.

Best Corpse: None of them are really much to say anything about, so I guess Quentin’s death is the best. it has resonance at least. And the monster makeup is damned good.

Blood Type - D+: No real blood here at all, which is just one of the things holding this movie back. Any points here are, again, for the creature effects.

Sex Appeal: Nope. Now, if this had been made for Cinemax…

Drink Up!: Every time Quentin has a transformative moment.

Movie Review: I liked this well enough. It’s very early 2000s direct to cable, in all that entails. It has a cheap look to it, it feels made on the fly (sorry), but despite the flaws…the story isn’t that bad, it just has too much going on. Too many plots pull away from Quentin’s storyline, when his struggles should be the focus. No one cares about Grill’s marital issues. If you want us to care about that, and his disgrace, make him MORE of a character, maybe make him a mentor to Quentin, something. It feels like there’s two or three movies all competing here. Which brings me to my next point, I jokingly keep coming at the movie as a superhero movie, and that is NOT the way you want to take this in, because things fall apart. But the movie itself leans into the idea so much, that it’s hard not to do so. And so many of the movie’s plot points undercut being a superhero movie, or vice versa. Trying to do a superhero movie in a horror vein is something that should be tried more, but this movie is never sure what it wants to be, and it ends up never quite being either. It plays everything too safe. The acting is good though, the core ideas are solid, it just never figures out where it’s going until the very end, and I wish they had built towards that a bit more. Three out of five mandibles.

Entertainment Value: Most of the fun here is noticing how Spider-Man it wants to be, without actually being Spider-Man. Or, let’s be honest here, The Fly remake. There is some good camp to be had though, and once again, the effects work is great for this sort of thing, and almost worth seeing on that basis alone. But with its lack of focus and a wandering plot, it never really has much going on that gets too entertaining. My biggest problem with a movie called “Earth vs. the Spider” is that it really ends up being “this one particular guy vs. the spider” Two out of five webbed up puppies.