Arachnophobes Beware: ‘Crawlers’ Delivers Considerable Eight-Legged Terror

Crawlers, the latest creepy-crawly horror show from filmmaker Ángel Gómez Hernández, (Don’t Listen, which I loved), opens with a threat. There are 3 million spiders for every human being; they’re present in 100% of homes, and there’s likely one next to you right now. It’s a cheap ploy, but an effective one, though it also belies the surprising artistry of Crawlers. Killer spiders, especially in the digital horror era, are often budgeted. The subgenre is primarily DTV, unpolished, and frustratingly coy with the main attraction. Crawlers opens with a low blow, but Hernández’s creature feature regularly raises the bar, elevating itself above most creature feature schlock.

I’m an arachnophobe. The kind who can’t sleep if I see a spider. The kind who reasonably thinks burning my house down is a better alternative than living with the probable threat that there might be a spider lurking nearby. I hate them. Yes, I know they’re important, but I’m irrational, and I’m happy to concede that. Hernández and writer Jayson Rothwell wanted me to suffer, and suffer I did (in the most complimentary of terms).

Matilda Lutz (Revenge) stars as Serena, a building manager in a once-luxurious, now borderline decrepit apartment building. The veneer of luxury remains, but lights flicker, pipes leak, and residents regularly complain that the building is falling apart around them. Does it make sense that the idiosyncratic residents (artists, BDSM escorts, Angry Businessman in Boxers) take all their frustrations out on Serena, abusing her at every (and I mean every) turn? No, not really. The same goes for Serena’s broad brushstroke motivation—she wants to be a singer, have her “moment,” but it doesn’t seem likely to happen. Until, of course, the killer spiders move in.

That venomous infestation is largely digital, though the special effects team works wonders with their squishy carcasses and the many, many bubbling pustules their bites inflict upon victims. So, while it lacks the tactility of such classics as and , the body count and practical gore make up for the swarms of computer-generated arachnids.