The insect world is full of creepy specimens that humans would gladly cross the road to avoid, and when a spider horror movie arrives, the results are usually quite entertaining. For years, spiders and other insects have played a huge role in scaring the pants off of moviegoers, especially those with bug phobias. The best — and worst — thing about horror movie spiders and bugs is how these fictional creepy-crawlies display a range of body-horror-inducing features not present in nonfictional invertebrates. Seeing them in a terrifying role in a film is enough to keep people from sleeping soundly at night.
The introduction of spiders and insects in movies has been around for a long time. The entire plot of the classic 1950s sci-fi horror movieThem! is about giant bugs attacking a town. During that period, the advent of giant mutated bugs and other creatures roared to life after the atomic bomb in World War II, and they remained popular along with the more popular Godzilla franchise. In recent years, insect and spider horror movies have become more realistic, making them even more terrifying for regular audience members.
George A. Romero directed the anthology horror movie Creepshow with a screenplay by Stephen King. The last segment of the anthology was called “They’re Creeping Up on You” and it had a horrifying life-and-death battle with a never-ending swarm of cockroaches. E. G. Marshall (12 Angry Men) plays Upson Pratt, a cruel businessperson who has been dodging phone calls from a woman who blames him for her husband’s death. He also mocks those who work around him and laughs at a rival’s death by suicide.
All of that comes back to bite him, literally, when he starts to find more and more cockroaches in his penthouse. His fate seems well deserved, especially when even his panic room isn’t enough to save him from the onslaught. However, for anyone who has a fear of cockroaches, this might be a little too much as they are on display here. The episode even ends with a fun one-liner as a man calls and asks: “bugs got your tongue?” The anthology received a sequel and TV spinoff.
Amblin Entertainment put out this incredibly creepy comedy/horror film in 1990 to the chagrin and horror of arachnophobes the world over. The story takes place in a small Californian town which is set upon by a lethal species of Venezuelan tarantula that mates with a local house spider to create a super-deadly strain of horror movie spiders. These ultra-aggressive spiders begin killing the townsfolk in a variety of disturbing ways as they encroach on the surrounding area.
It’s up to an arachnophobic doctor, a brilliant scientist, and an overzealous pest control guy to save the day. One thing that makes this movie worth watching is the impressive cast. Jeff Daniels leads the way as the scientist, while John Goodman, Julian Sands, and Brian McNamara appear in the movie as well. On top of that, Steven Spielberg produced the film with Frank Marshall directing. While it was a box office disappointment, it still won Best Horror Film and Best Actor (Jeff Daniels) at the Saturn Awards.
While the 1958 original is a great choice for those who love a classic horror film, the 1986 remake of The Fly does it far better — provided you have a strong stomach. Jeff Goldblum plays Seth Brundle, a brilliant scientist whose DNA is inadvertently infused with a common housefly at the genetic level. As his fly DNA begins to take over, Brundle starts losing various body parts in several grotesque ways. As his physiology changes, his human side is crushed while the fly takes over, and the result is nothing short of horrifying.
It’s a classic that never gets old. The movie’s success should come as no surprise as David Cronenberg directs it and he’s a master of body horror movies. The Fly went on to win an Oscar for Best Makeup, with Chris Walas and Stephan Dupuis sharing the award for their practical effects work. Jeff Goldblum won the Saturn Award for Best Actor while the movie also won for its makeup effects and took home the prize for Best Horror Film.
By today’s standards, Them! is a tame and lighthearted watch, but for moviegoers in 1954, it must have been terrifying. It follows a similar pattern of 1950s horror films such as Godzilla,which capitalized on the nuclear scare to create gigantic monsters out of atomic testing. It’s also far ahead of its time in terms of effective scares, showcasing traumatized children, grisly death scenes, and claustrophobic, dark environments that help set a scary tone. Gordon Douglas, who previously made Our Gang movies, directs.
James Whitmore, who was only an Oscar away from an EGOT, starred in the movie as a military sergeant dealing with the giant ant invasion. The film also starred Edmund Gwenn (who played Kris Kringle in the original Miracle on 34th Street), James Arness (who played Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke), and had an early appearance by a very young Leonard Nimoy (Spock from Star Trek). Them! actually earned an Oscar nomination for special effects, losing to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
If the concept of a 100-foot-tall tarantula barreling through the countryside sounds frightening, that’s because it is. While the 1950s wasn’t the best decade for a movie based on such a premise, it did succeed with the giant bug movie, Tarantula, another horror film about a normal creature that mutates to a massive size due to exposure to nuclear material. The movie makes clever use of superimposed video on top of video to create the illusion of a gigantic tarantula, and the largely silhouetted body of the horror movie spider helps sell the ominous scares.
It has all the makings of a super-fun, creepy 1950s horror film that can actually be shared with the entire family. The movie was directed by Jack Arnold, who also directed the Universal Monster Movie The Creature From the Black Lagoon. The movie received critical praise when released, thanks to the effects and the acting. It was also mentioned in the opening song of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
George McCowan’s 1972 horror film Frogs didn’t score well with critics, but it is one of the creepiest bug-based horror films ever to hit the screen. The story revolves around a camera operator who finds himself on an island owned by the super-wealthy Crockett family, the patriarch of which has been using pesticides to kill the local fauna. Soon, the creatures on the island (led by an army of frogs) begin rebelling and killing the humans on the island.
The deaths are visceral and grisly, with everything from horror movie spiders to leeches and rattlesnakes having a go at the fleeing humans. This is a perfect example of the nature vs humans genre of horror movies, where mother nature makes people pay for destroying the land and planet they live on. In this case, a family who values wealth and greed over nature learns the hard way that when nature fights back, they have no chance at survival. Sam Elliott has an early role in this horror movie.
Mimic took an interesting, albeit familiar premise and tweaked it enough to stand apart. Mira Sorvino played Dr. Susan Tyler, an entomologist who creates a hybrid insect to deal with a strain of cockroaches spreading a deadly disease in Manhattan. Years later, she learns that her creation has evolved to the point where it can mimic a human and now poses an even larger threat to the world. Most audiences would find the concept of large mutated insects stalking humans through dimly lit corridors and tunnels to be an unnerving prospect.
Mimic does it well, and it still delivers the scares to this day. What makes this movie so great is the director behind the camera. Guillermo del Toro directed this killer insect movie in one of his early Hollywood releases. The film received positive critical reviews, and while Del Toro wasn’t completely happy with it, he released a director’s cut in 2011 that he said satisfied him. There were also two sequels to the movie, neither of which matched up to the original Del Toro release.
This comedy horror film starring David Arquette tried to capitalize on the high-energy laughs and scares of Arachnophobia, but on a larger scale. In Eight Legged Freaks, a collection of spiders grows to insanely large proportions after being exposed to toxic materials. The film is notable for showcasing a number of different horror movie spider species, all of which have their own distinct attack style.
From behemoth tarantulas to jumping spiders chasing after a pack of dirt-biking kids, there’s lots for arachnophobes to love and hate about the film. It manages to achieve an excellent balance between lighthearted comedy and genuine scares, as well as an early Scarlet Johansson appearance. The best thing about watching Eighe Legged Freaks is the knowledge that this movie is a love letter to the giant bug films of the 1950s and the post-World War II era horror flicks, and in that arena, it was a great success.
1950s monster movies took a detour from the nuclear warfare theme with The Deadly Mantis. In this story, a gigantic mantis is unearthed from millions of years of suspended animation in the polar ice caps to wreak havoc on Washington, D.C. The film takes one of the coolest insects in the animal kingdom and turns it into a relatively entertaining sci-fi horror film where yet another gigantic bug accosts screaming women through windows, shrugs off the military and provides audiences with a fun-filled Saturday afternoon romp.
The fun thing about this 1950s horror movie was that it tried something different by going prehistoric with the giant mantis. This put it alongside movies like King Kong and what Godzilla became in later years when it moved past the horrors of the atomic bomb attacks in World War II. The movie also gets credit for its practical effects, as the giant mantis was paper mache that was fitted with a hydraulic system that measured 200 feet by 40 feet. It remains a creative monster movie if nothing else.