I hate spiders and I loved Arachnophobia from 1990. So I was looking forward very much to watch this movie and, boy was it a frustrating watch!
First of all, I really liked the setting, a run-down suburban apartment block on the outskirts of Paris. There were some very tense and frightening scenes, a nice build-up from the beginning and great looking (most of the time anyway) spiders.
A bit into the first act we are then introduced to our main characters and they are a surprisingly annoying lot. Especially our "hero" who during the films course makes all kind of wrong or even disastrous decisions. The movie tries to make him someone who's a bit misled in life, but with a heart of gold, but in my pov it doesn't succeed. He only comes out like a whining child who knows that he is to blame for the infestation of spiders and still doesn't totally own up to it. And instead of acting, he does a lot of screaming.
The first act, although it has a nice start, is also a bit too sluggishly paced when we meet the people in the building. It gets borderline boring for a while until the pace picks up in the second act.
The second act is the best one when we follow the protagonists, who now understand the danger the spiders pose, in their attempt to escape the building and this section contains a lot of scary stuff and it's really well done. Some good edge-of-the-seat stuff really.
And in the third act the stupidity outdoes itself! They are fightning for their lives and are trying to get out, I get that, but why on earth struggle with the police (who are trying to help them) and in the end cause the death of an entire police-team just to escape themselves?
To sum it up, good scares for us who hate spiders, but the story and characters could have been much better developed.
First of all, I really liked the setting, a run-down suburban apartment block on the outskirts of Paris. There were some very tense and frightening scenes, a nice build-up from the beginning and great looking (most of the time anyway) spiders.
A bit into the first act we are then introduced to our main characters and they are a surprisingly annoying lot. Especially our "hero" who during the films course makes all kind of wrong or even disastrous decisions. The movie tries to make him someone who's a bit misled in life, but with a heart of gold, but in my pov it doesn't succeed. He only comes out like a whining child who knows that he is to blame for the infestation of spiders and still doesn't totally own up to it. And instead of acting, he does a lot of screaming.
The first act, although it has a nice start, is also a bit too sluggishly paced when we meet the people in the building. It gets borderline boring for a while until the pace picks up in the second act.
The second act is the best one when we follow the protagonists, who now understand the danger the spiders pose, in their attempt to escape the building and this section contains a lot of scary stuff and it's really well done. Some good edge-of-the-seat stuff really.
And in the third act the stupidity outdoes itself! They are fightning for their lives and are trying to get out, I get that, but why on earth struggle with the police (who are trying to help them) and in the end cause the death of an entire police-team just to escape themselves?
To sum it up, good scares for us who hate spiders, but the story and characters could have been much better developed.
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