Spiders on a Plane
passenger: "What's happening?"
other passenger: "Giant fucking spiders!"
release year: 2024
genre: horror/comedy
viewing setting: home streaming 7/30/26
synopsis: Some idiots cause unusual and dangerous spiders to ship aboard a plane, so of course they escape and run wild.
impressions:
This was about what you'd expect from the title: everything necessary is brought together to have spiders of various sizes crawling through a large airliner killing people in ways that are both horrific and entertaining. There is plenty of spider violence and gore, although I need to mention that there wasn't much variety to the spiders - just swarms of small ones, a couple of slightly larger ones, and a single gigantic one. Another thing that (being somewhat of a plane expert) I couldn't help but notice: they were sloppy with the CGI plane effects, because they had the fuselage of a 747 plus the engine/pylon of a Russian jetliner on the outside...and the 3+3 seating of a small plane, a tiny cockpit, and a gigantic first-class cabin on the inside. It's like they didn't know their real-life planes and were thus inconsistent. As far as the spider attacks went, they used just about every trick in the book (spider descending toward open mouth, spider jumping out of toilet, spiders falling out of the overhead bin, and so on.) I was unable to track the body count due to unclear fates of some people and fast, shaky camera work.
Other things of note in this movie: no visible airport or facilities before the plane takes off...multiple people sick or hung over before takeoff...one spider smashing through the side of a wooden box to initiate the mayhem...a large number of weird or asshole passengers...random German signage inside the plane...a trip to the mile high club...an idiot who decides to mess with his contact lenses at the exact same time he's taking a shit in the lavatory...another guy who doesn't even blink when he finds the cargo hold filled with webs...the second pilot leaving the cockpit empty and locked...the contact lens idiot then locking himself in the lavatory...the spiders hissing like snakes...a really big spider opts to have its lunch in first class...sometimes-mediocre CGI for the spiders...a Russian scientist who everyone thinks is crazy...a battle/trip from the back of the plane to the front, with improvised weapons...the one girl calls her father to talk her through landing the plane...several people who have achieved the safety of the cockpit suddenly decide to leave it for no real reason...an epilogue showing one spider having survived.
acting: Nothing spectacular, but a surprising number of the actors and actresses did good jobs making their characters notable and entertaining.
final word: Low-end monster movie with plenty of action and humor - worth seeing.
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