Filmography

Starring

Delaney Steele, Kerianne Steele, Laney Simmons, Lauren Schmidt, Jameson Simmons

Synopsis

Loosely inspired by the 1990 Frank Marshall film Arachnophobia, Arachnophobia II marked Jameson Simmons's first major feature (his only previous production had been a short version of 'Little Red Riding Hood').

The film opens with Zelda Szalinski (Delaney Steele) picking up groceries in her local supermarket. While she is checking out, an article in the TV Guide before her sparks a flashback that explains how her dear husband, Wayne, an entymologist, was killed by poisonous spiders during field research in Venezuela. The remorse is palpable.

Returning home with Zelda, we meet her two daughters, Laney (Laney Simmons), and Keri (Kerianne Steele). When she retires to her bedroom, Zelda finds a large, hairy spider on the bed. Quickly, she swats it away, and then a realization dawns upon her. The spider reminds her of those her husband was researching.

Immediately she places a call to an exterminator, fearing for her life and those of her young daughters. Unfortunately, the exterminators are booked solid for three days. The girls will have to tough it out together until then. Zelda scrubs up for bed, and is confronted by another scary spider. Now, she realizes the true depth of her plight. She is being faced with infestation. She warns her girls to be on the lookout, then suggests they ready for bed also and meet her downstairs for television.

The girls carefully brush their teeth, then join their mother for an evening of TV viewing. Unfortunately, their show is interrupted by a special report, indicating that the same strain of spiders which killed Wayne Szalinski in the wilds of Venezuela are now alive and well in the town of Canaima, California, where the remaining Szalinskis reside. Depressed by the mention of her late husband, Zelda turns in early.

The next morning, as Zelda leaves for work, we can see that the house is now riddled with poisonous, fatal arachnids, lurking just out of sight of their human prey. The unsuspecting humans go on with their day. We follow Zelda to her office, and find that more spiders are there. Canaima is being overtaken by the eight-legged monsters.

At home that evening, Zelda prepares to bathe and go to sleep, kissing her girls goodnight first. Laney points out that her mother's necklace (an upside-down horseshoe) is a bad omen, but everyone just giggles at her foolish superstition.

After half an hour, the girls begin to wonder what is taking Zelda so long, and go to check on her, narrowly missing arachnid encounters on their way. Keri finds her mother dead in the tub, her leg bleeding from a spider bite. As Keri tries to alert Laney, the culprit sneaks away from the scene of the crime.

The girls pull their mother from the tub and attempt to call for help, but the spiders are upon them. Laney is bitten and killed in the hall, while Keri is taken down while trying to dial 911 Emergency.

Meanwhile, Annette Smythe (Lauren Schmidt), the friendly exterminator, has come to pay her call. However, when no one answers the door, she returns to her extermination vehicle to return to headquarters. However, we can see that the car is already overtaken by spiders. We fade to black on the screams of Annette's torutuous, painful death.

Production Notes

Needless to say, I was quite impressed with Frank Marshall's film Arachnophobia when it was released in the summer of 1990. I was fascinated by the idea of controlling the uncontrollable taking the spiders (the wild element of nature!) and crafting their performance into something I could use in the film. I watched hours of footage and read stacks of print about Steve Kutcher (Arachnophobia's insect wrangler) and how he guided the spiders through their performance in the film. I couldn't wait to do the same thing.

Capturing and containing the damn things was another story. I'm not exactly an arachnophobe, but who really wants the things crawling all over himself? That was for the actors to deal with. Try to imagine myself and actors Kerianne Steele and Laney Simmons running around the back yard with a small fishing net, snatching the spider from her web with the net and slamming it to the ground. Then we would jump back, rabidly swatting any stray web-strands from our shoulders and hair, and then slowly, carefully creep up on the net and hurriedly carry it to a waiting terrarium. As you can guess, production was pretty exciting from then on. (Fortunately Kerianne volunteered to be our "insect wrangler" which saved me plenty of grief.)

As with most of my movies, the prime order of production was dictated by scheduling. Actor Lauren Schmidt was not available while actors Kerianne and Delaney Steele were - and vice versa. Thus, it was necessary to kill or otherwise occupy the Steele's characters any time Lauren's character was on-screen. If you've seen the finished project, you're well aware that the production was laden with similar compromises.

It was an interesting production. It was a very early effort, though. The innocent youth of the film is evident in its setups. Few scenes are composed of more than one shot - in contrast to Fly By Night, in which I attempted to make greater use of coverage and editing to simulate a more "professional" look.

But, at its heart, it tells a story. Admittedly not a great story, certainly not an original story, not even a really interesting story. But it must be conceded that there is a story there. And we all need an opportunity to learn.

A hilarious collection of outtakes was compiled, and has since been lost. However, the fact of its existence allows me to make my point: that the production of a movie should be fun for everyone. We certainly had rough points, where this shot or that shot had to be completed and we had to bite the bullet and get through it keep in mind we were working with spiders! But on the whole it was an enjoyable experience just about every day. And I feel that should always be the point.

© onebee · all rights reserved