#rainerants

If you look this film up (especially on YouTube) you’ll pretty much find a few trailers, a review here and there & the specific fact that Pedro Pascal is in it. Yeah, no kidding, THAT Pedro Pascal. He only has a few lines and is in one scene, so don’t get too excited. He’s real young too, and decked out in goth attire (though not as adorable as Robin Lord Taylor in The Melancholy Fantastic, a film I need to finish).

I find this lack of attention to be a complete shame. The movie is fun and interesting.

If I were to boil it down for a simplistic pitch, I’d call it basically ‘The Fly but for Spiders’ / ‘Spider-Man version of Brightburn’ (a darker take on a well known superhero concept). Or perhaps a light cross between the two.

The movie stars Devon Gummersall as Quentin Kemmer, a security guard at a high-tech biochem lab who, after a break in and the tragic death of his partner, gets injected with an unknown substance that will hopefully grant him superpowers based off spiders. This train of thought coming from the fact that he’s a big comic fan (specifically the movie’s own version of Spider-Man ‘The Arachnid Avenger’ - oh, and his dog’s name is Thor by the way). He has the hots for his apartment complex neighbour, Stephanie (Amelia Heinle), a nurse, who very much reminds me of an other-world Denise Richards. Stephanie is a nice lady who can stand up for herself and him against some street trash who often loiter outside their building. Their romance is sweet and personally I wanted them to make it through everything.

Now, considering I brought up The Fly before, I don’t think their relationship is as emotionally driven or memorable as the one between Seth Brundle & Veronica Quaife, but for an essentially made-for-tv movie, I think they did pretty good.

Dan Aykroyd is also in the movie as well. He plays a grizzled cop named Jack Grillo, who’s been copping (hah) some sh!t from some of his peers because of an incident involving the death of his own partner, which still has him shaken. Theresa Russell plays his alcoholic and entirely-too-flirty-with-other-men wife, Trixie, who’s all but having it off with another officer (an officer that is the main source of ire for Grillo - or, in the words of Marty McFly “he’s an asshole!”). Theresa Russell also made an appearance in Spider-Man 3 as the Sandman’s wife, so there’s that weird little connection.

Oh and John Cho is here also. Another young face. He plays the owner of a comic shop and is Quentin’s only other real friend.

The movie follows Quentin as he undergoes his metamorphosis.

At first he tries to go the Spider-Man route by going after nasty people and saving Stephanie from being assaulted. He sets up a hidden security camera outside his apartment door and even starts sleeping on a hammock, mimicking spider/superhero behaviour. His senses become heightened and hell, he shoots webbing (not out of his hands/wrists though). But he also begins to get hungry and go through physical changes and his story slowly devolves into fighting with his nature and his humanity.

As previously stated, really none of the concepts in this movie are particularly new. You’ve seen it from The Fly (man is turned into big-ass humanoid insect and loses himself to it) to even Brightburn (what if Superman was evil and his gifts actually had a sinister nature to them?). Basic stuff when it comes to inverted Superhero stories.

However…

The way the movie itself goes about things is what makes it interesting, at least to me. It holds a 4.3/10 on IMDB and I don’t believe that’s entirely fair.

Horror, sci-fi, superhero flick with a dash of action and a mandatory splash of romance. With a little bit of cop stuff thrown in for good measure.

Now, I don’t know about you, but that sounds like an awesome time to me. Right up my alley.

The way the movie opens and how the music is initially orchestrated makes it feel very much like early Spider-Man comics. Kinda cheesy, very light and fantastic. And that’s how Quentin himself goes about everything at first. It’s only when he begins to change and the spider within him starts to emerge that the character and movie follow suit with its tone. Like everything becomes a tad pricklier as events goes on.

I won’t spoil the whole thing, not yet. I’m planning on making a video about it at some point (once I get my YouTube Channel up and running - please go and follow me, I’ve only got my early editing videos up right now, but I really would appreciate it, especially for what I’ve got coming up!). I’ll only go over general things for the moment.

Dan Aykroyd is really good in this. It’s a serious role for him, and he carries it so well. There are times when he has to get emotional and he performs it really well. You feel for him, especially when he’s interacting with his wife who has severely fallen out of love with him (to put it lightly), but he hasn’t given up on her yet. You kinda just wanna give him a big hug and tell him to drop her, cause she’s holding him back and he can do better. He plays the grizzled cop who isn’t seen as top notch anymore convincingly too. He carries a unique authority with him but there are elements of vulnerability when he lets his guard down behind closed doors. Honestly, Dan Aykroyd as an actor would not be the first person I would think of for a role like this off the top of my head, but he truly does excel here. Especially when he could’ve coasted and probably would’ve been fine. Not like this movie is something terribly high end.

Then it comes down the the main character, Quentin. The actor, Devon Gummersall, does an absolutely terrific job here. Before this, I hadn’t seen him in or known about him from anything else. He was in the show ‘My So-Called Life’, which I’d never heard of and has appeared in film and tv here and there, but, from what I can tell, nothing major. This is one if his, I believe, few starring roles and he really does do a magnificent job.

You believe him as this nice, kinda shy, very soft person who just wants to make a difference and gather up the nerve to ask out the chick down the hall who he’s been crushing on.

The movie starts with him getting ready for work, feeding his dog, chatting with the local homeless drunk and talking with Stephanie. He gets embarrassed when she does much of the biting back at the resident hoodlums who harass them and walks off on her (admittedly kind of a ‘really dude?’ moment). He feels like he doesn’t have any power or ability to truly fight back. And when his partner is killed during the break in at their work, he is completely devastated as he was quite close with the man. In an almost daze he walks into a destroyed lab that he and his partner had surveyed earlier (musing on the spider experiments), and lets himself get injected with the unknown stuff that the scientists had been pumping from one spider to another.

Not a great plan, typically.

Dude doesn’t know if that stuff would just completely melt his insides or give him a super-disease or what.

But, either way, the transformation is a slow one and, jumping ahead here, when we finally do get the physical parts, they’re pretty goddamn incredible.

I honestly wish there was more of them. They come in close to the third act and he doesn’t go full-spider until the last maybe fifteen minutes.

I wanted more. But hey, that’s just me.

The Fly doesn’t have a complete monster spectacle until the last ten minutes and that was pretty friggin’ awesome. But, I think the reason why I wish there was more in Earth vs The Spider, is because the transformation isn’t physical for the longest time here. Unlike The Fly. Not saying that’s a detriment. But I would’ve loved for the Stan Winston team to have flaunted their fantastic practical work a little more.

You see corpses in here too, emaciated like the fluids have been sucked out - they somewhat resemble mummies. This was cool and I definitely wanted more of it. Hell, a character even shoots himself to avoid this fate (being eaten). But we never see Quentin feed. We only ever see the aftermath. Personally, I would’ve LOVED seeing Quentin completely lost to his new and terrifying nature, feasting on helpless victims. I’m a sucker for monsters, what can I say?

The use of CGI, like I briefly mentioned at the start, is a little off, but thankfully applied sparingly.

As an example; there’s a moment when four Chelicerae (fangs, jaws, pincers - according to Wikipedia) forcibly grow out of his mouth. He’s looking in the mirror when this happens and we see it head-on in a really weird and fast CG effect. When we next see him, the actor has two practical appendages attached to his mouth (moving too). I’m happy they don’t rely on the CG. They employ it only when necessary.

All throughout the movie, Quentin makes you feel sad for him and even root for him much of the time. Sometimes you have to give him an eye roll or two, but for the most part, you’re on his side. And it is sorta heartbreaking when he starts to change (his behaviour, namely).

One criticism of Brightburn is that the personality change in the main character comes a little too swiftly, and there’s not enough transition.

I don’t believe that’s necessarily the case for Earth vs The Spider.

It’s not nearly as emotional or, for lack of a better term, deep as The Fly, but Quentin does start off as such a sweet person who’s just that little bit frustrated with life and his role in it. He’s innocent.

Even during his transformation, you can tell he’s fighting it and is frightened. He sends his dog to Stephanie at one point because he doesn’t want the little guy hurt.

There’s even a point where he asks out loud (to no one in particular) for someone to stop him. He’s hungry, he’s changing. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone but he’s slowly losing himself to his new nature. He hangs on to his humanity for as long as he can, but that doesn’t stop him from webbing people up and killing others.

On a somewhat lesser note, I feel like this guy could really thrive in the general Monster Fandom. Especially Monster Fkers. He starts out as a really sweet and bright-eyed guy, only to turn into a viscous creature who is tormented by his own self. His character is perfect for sympathy but also the thrill of fright.

Or maybe that’s just me.

[Wouldn’t completely classify myself as a Monster Fker, but I try not to discriminate either. Far as I’m concerned, enjoy what you enjoy - just don’t force it on others or bring others down because you don’t agree - so long as nobody’s getting hurt everything’s cool.]

((And if you’re into more submissive men like I am, that little moment in the movie when he’s lying down on his bed worried for Stephanie who’s trying to get into his apartment and his shirt is open so you can see he’s actually got chest hair and isn’t waxed…does certain things to you -just setting aside the fact that his stomach is mutating and pulsating and doing weird sh!t (lookin’ like a baby alien got lost) ~ or maybe you’re into that, I don’t know-))

Anyway, on another side note, been thinking of writing something for him.

Actually, been thinking of writing stuff for a ton of characters. I started out my internet interaction days writing FanFiction (no, I’m not going to direct anyone to it, I’d prefer to live in my preteen-to-teen shame by myself so that I don’t die early of embarrassment).

And I always enjoyed it, writing I mean, but I’ve been wanting to try my hand at actual reader inserts for the longest time.

My tastes in fictional men have tended to fall towards the severely underrated kind. So much so that there’s either nothing or very little for them out there (the movies or the characters).

I actually wrote a Duane Bradley from Basket Case reader insert little over a year ago. That’s another guy who doesn’t get nearly as much love as he probably should. It’s probably really clunky, but if anyone wants to read it, definitely let me know.

But yeah, anyway, back to Quentin.

I feel his character would do well in the monster loving community.

Doesn’t hurt also that the actor is pretty easy on the eyes too.

I personally did my Ace (Grey?) thing where I didn’t notice how cute he was until I started to like the character more (after watching the movie for the third time).

I’ve reached this point where the movie won’t leave my head and I’ve begun casually looking through the actor’s filmography to see if there’s anything else that piques my interest.

But yeah, anyway, I think that’s the majority of what I wanted to get out here.

The movies pretty damn good and I highly recommend you track it down.

I have the same need to bring this film to people’s attention as I do for Dead & Breakfast (2004) (that’s another fun flick).

So I will definitely end up making videos about both movies.

Hell, I might even do another breakdown post for Dead & Breakfast specifically just so I can get my core thoughts off my chest.

So, Earth vs The Spider (2001)…

What do you think about it?

Have you seen it?

Do you want to?

By all means, let’s discuss.