With a remake on the way, we take a look at the PG-rated chills of the original Arachnophobia…

There arent, if you think about it, too many PG-rated horror movies.

There are plenty of family-rated movies that have moments of horror in them Toy Story 3for a start.

But an entire movie pretty much devoted to giving you the creeps, that everyone can see?

Thats very much the exception to a very firm rule.

Arachnophobia, then, did reasonably well at the box office, but not much more than that.

Expected to be a decent hit, it took just over $50 million at the US box office.

Yet in hindsight, its a positive it got that high.

That $50 million suddenly looks rather decent.

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Creepy Crawlies

But whats more important than that is how effectiveArachnophobiaremains.

Or com-orror, if you like.

In fact,Arachnophobias horror leanings are evident far beyond the spiders themselves.

Marshalls film finds the kind of American small town that many horror films have thrived on.

As it happens, Dr Jennings keeps getting things right, but nobody believes him.

And they die because of the spiders.

Which means its long past time we talk about Julian Sands.

There wasWarlock, for goodness sake!

The man who played Yves in CronenbergsNaked Lunch!

And what about his work inThe Killing Fields?

Yet you would be remiss to suggest he offers much aid to a very muddled motion picture.

But theres not getting away from it: he pitches his work inArachnophobiabadly.

His character is supposed to be a spider expert, to add gravitas to whats going to happen.

Hes supposed to be the wise one.

For instead, you cant help but sit there and wonder what the people they turned down were like.

Were the rest of the auditions cancelled?

Had Frank Marshall and his casting team been on the sauce?

Has someone just beaten Sands score atTetris?

And he shoots his horror scenes with real aplomb.

So, a couple sat eating popcorn together while watching television.

A football player sticking his helmet on.

Sitting down and relaxing at the end of a long day with a glass of milk.

It helps too that spiders as a foe are equally recognizable.

Only two of the spiders needed to be models, the rest were real.

you’ve got the option to tell.

Furthermore Marshall, as much as possible, keeps his spiders on the edge of the frame.

These are slow foes, zombie-like as they gradually hit their eventual target.

He shoots them low, he shoots them in silhouette, and he keeps calm.

You get no Michael Bay-esque slow-mo shots, or over the top explosions.

Marshall chooses to aim small, and hits his targets far more often as a result.

In fact, moments ofArachnophobiaare exceptionally funny, particularly when John Goodman mosies on in from some other film.

Hes blatantly useless for the most part, becoming useful almost only by accident.

Need to capture a spider alive?

Hes not your man, with his giant clodhoppers squelching a little critter into oblivion instead.

Marshall at one stage shoots him as if hes an action hero too.

On a cinema screen, this was contained in one frame.

But again, Marshall knows his horror.

The End

The only point inArachnophobiawhere it all just starts to become something else is the ending.

Jeff Daniels has a fine line in looking petrified, incidentally.

Its a surprise he never got an invite toJurassic Park.

How haunting you find it depends on your feelings towards eight legged creatures, but it certainly stands up.

Id still pay to see a Delbert spin-off movie, too.

Maybe Delbert: Origins could yet be on the cards…