The Science of Monsters

“A return to the spoofy scares of the ’50s drive-in movies,”³ Arachnophobia hit theaters in July of 1990. Starring Jeff Daniels as spider-phobic Dr. Ross Jennings and John Goodman as a goofy yet determined exterminator, Arachnophobia was a Disney produced picture with a sizable budget. In an interview with the Orlando Sentinel, Daniels explained the tone they were going for. “We don’t have chainsaws going through necks and blood spurting. It’s scary, but this is not The Attack of the Killer Spiders. We approached it as a comedy with a couple of thrills. We knew we had the thrills in there, so we worked hard to make sure the movie had a sense of humor about itself.” The humor, he said, “kind of relaxes the audience, so that we can come in and get them again.”⁴ So don’t let the Disney name and humorous bent fool you, the spiders in Arachnophobia play upon our shared fears of spiders’ “otherness.” The film starts in the Amazonian rainforest where enormous dead spiders are literally falling from towering trees. After an entomologist dies from a spider bite his body is sent back to his hometown in America. This concept of dying from a spider bite, particularly in the Amazon, is not fiction. A small arachnid called the wandering spider is considered one of the deadliest animals in the Amazon. If disturbed by humans it will bite. “The venom of the spider causes extreme pain and inflammation, as well as loss of muscle control which might lead to respiratory paralysis and death.”⁵ Before an antidote was created in 1998, fourteen people were killed by the wandering spiders’ bites. In Arachnophobia, one deadly spider, much larger than the real wandering spider, is mistakenly sealed in with the corpse of the entomologist, which becomes the catalyst to spiders running amok in the sleepy, idyllic town of Canaima, California.

In the film, the venomous spiders come from outside of the country, but it is vital to note that America is home to deadly spiders, too. A study of American spider bites between 1934 and 2014 concluded that two such species were to blame for nearly all spider-related human injury or death. These are Loxosceles reclusa (brown recluse) and Latrodectus mactans (black widow). “A brown recluse bite can take up to six weeks to heal, and in serious cases, patients can take months to recover from necrotic ulcers, fever and general malaise.” In the case of black widows:

Symptoms may include tender lymph nodes, muscle pain, nausea and abdominal rigidity with no tenderness. The degree of envenomation depends on several factors, including the amount of venom injected, size and species of spider, time of year, size and age of the victim and location of the bite. In patients with other underlying health issues, cardiovascular issues and even death may occur.⁶

Director Frank Marshall wrangled two real, non-American spider species to be used in the production. The spider who takes a ride in the casket from the Amazon needed to be as huge as possible, so a bird-eating tarantula was “cast” in the role. “Big Bob,” named after fellow director Robert Zemeckis, had a chest prosthetic attached as well as purple stripes painted to his back in order to appear even more exotic and menacing. The plot calls for this hitchhiking spider to mate with a domestic spider, which meant Arachnophobia needed an army of spiders to terrify both Dr. Jennings and the moviegoers. After a series of tests, including speed trials and a sort of “spider olympics” Marshall and his team chose three hundred Delena spiders to make their feature film debut. Delena spiders, or “Delena cancerides, the flat huntsman spider or social huntsman spider, is a large, brown huntsman spider native to Australia. It has been introduced to New Zealand, where it is sometimes known as the Avondale spider as they are commonly found in the suburb of Avondale, Auckland.”⁷ These thankfully harmless spiders were chosen because of their size, quick movements, and sinister look. Spiders of the same species were also employed by director Sam Raimi for the 2002 Spider-Man film starring Tobey Maguire.

How can a director possibly control three hundred spiders on a film shoot? It became clear that Marshall, or any Hollywood director, hires experts for such a monumental task. In the case of Arachnophobia, bug-wrangler Steven Kutcher was brought in to make certain filming went smoothly. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Kutcher shared several of his clever techniques to ensure that the temperamental eight-legged actors took their cues: