Director Steven Spielberg is one of the greatest filmmakers in Hollywood history, and is among the most Oscar-nominated directors ever. Many of his films, like “Jaws,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and “E.T.,” have become all-time classics, unmissable movies whose influence on cinema is nearly incalculable. But beyond directing, Spielberg has been involved as a producer in quite a few unheralded gems, and one of them, the cult classic horror-comedy “Arachnophobia,” currently has a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes is now streaming for free on Tubi.
Released in 1990, “Arachnophobia” is directed not by Spielberg, but by Frank Marshall, co-founder of Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment and husband of Lucasfilm icon Kathleen Kennedy. The film is led by John Goodman (then a TV sitcom star on “Roseanne”), who appears alongside Jeff Daniels, Harley Jane Kozak, and Julian Sands. Daniels plays Ross Jennings, an ordinary husband and father who just so happens to suffer from a fear of spiders, and that’s a problem when a rare, deadly species of arachnid finds its way to his hometown and causes a public panic as they overtake their little burg. Goodman stars as the wild-eyed exterminator tasked with putting an end to the madness.
Part horror, part satire, “Arachnophobia” is more than a movie for those who don’t like creepy crawling critters — it’s an experience. It’s so frightening to some, in fact, that it quickly became one of many movies that sent audiences fleeing for the exits. And now you can watch it free of charge, safe in the knowledge that you can turn it off with the flick of a button.
Arachnophobia used real spiders, animatronics, and CGI
With Steven Spielberg producing, the directing reins were handed to first-time filmmaker Frank Marshall, who to that point had only been a second unit director. Marshall loved the mix of comedy and horror, and even had hopes of doing for spiders what Alfred Hitchcock did with birds in “The Birds.” But it also meant working with plenty of real spiders, because in 1990 — a few years before Spielberg opened audiences’ eyes to the wonders of computer-generated wizardry in “Jurassic Park” — Marshall was forced to use a mix of real arachnids, animatronics, and a wee bit of early CGI.
“I looked at where visual effects were back then and determined that they weren’t at a level that I could really have CGI spiders,” Marshall said in an interview with SyFy Wire in 2022. “There’s only one [CG] shot in the movie, and it’s a big wide shot that has spiders on the house. The solution to that was to have real spiders, as well as one or two animatronics for the big spider, ‘Big Bob.’ But the rest of the spiders, the little spiders, they were all real.”
Thankfully, Marshall wasn’t alone on the set to marshal the spiders in the film. He had the help of professional spider wranglers, including entomologist Steven R. Kutcher. With his help, they used hair dryers to coax spiders where they needed them and even used repellants like furniture polish that would prevent them from crawling into specific areas. Though frighteningly convincing in its technique, it’s likely that the rumored remake from James Wan will use a lot more CGI.