Movie Review: In the Spider's Web (2007)

The movie stars Lance Henriksen, Emma Catherwood, Michael Smiley, Lisa Livingstone and Mike Rogers.

Our oldest daughter went to the homecoming game with a couple of her friends last night so, while we were waiting for her to get home, my wife and I looked for a movie to watch. I came across this film on one of our movie channels a couple weeks ago and thought it looked decent so we ended up picking it.

Unfortunately, while the movie started out OK, it turned out to be a pretty big disappointment overall.

Since it was a made-for-TV film, I decided to overlook the weak special effects and tried to judge it on the overall story line. But, even with doing that, I just couldn't find much about this movie that was really overly enjoyable.

I think part of my problem with this film was the confusing premise. It was pretty obvious the doctor (Henriksen) was up to no good. But, to be honest, when the movie was over, I was still a little unsure what he was trying to do. I think it had something to do with stealing organs. However, I just wasn't sure if he was trying to sell them, was using them for some sort of spider-related sacrifice or was trying to save his hideously deformed brother who, to be honest, really seemed like someone the writers decided to throw in at the last second.

Another thing I wasn't a fan of was the decision to give us absolutely no background on the hikers. Not only am I still curious why they decided to go hiking through a jungle in India (especially since none of them seemed like the wannabe survivalist type), it really made it hard to care if any of them lived or died. As I've said before, movies like this are only as good as the victims. These victims were kind of boring.

The movie's ending also could have used some help, mostly because it just seemed to drag on. It was as though the writers decided the film wasn't long enough and kept adding bits and pieces until it hit the desired length. In other words, it could have ended 15 minutes earlier and wouldn't have been any worse for wear.

The movie's premise was intriguing. But, the overall execution was lacking and, as a result of that, the film wasn't anything that was overly memorable. The spiders were somewhat creepy. However, the rest of the movie didn't do much to back that up.

My Grade: C