storm of falling stars lights up the night sky, firstly fascinating two exceptionally brain-damaged but curvaceous teens (Bevin McGraw and Alexxus Young) before frightening them when they learn they’re meteorites and not actual stars (equivalent in size to the sun). The two girls (“stupid little bitches!”) are handpicked students of lecherous Professor Jonathan Mugford (David Bunce), who has chartered a flight to Arizona to examine a rare, unusual, feathered theropod fossil. Also along for the ride are his personal assistant Chandra Weaver (Irene Joseph), a seemingly drug-addled young man named Deke (Dan Merriman), and experienced pilot Sean Pachowski (Rob Monkiewicz).

After the plane goes down in an explosive accident, this small cast of characters will eventually encounter a man-eating, arachnid-like monster. But before that, the two sexy pupils go out of their way to bathe one another, unconcerned about which of the other survivors happens to see their nakedness. In fact, they’re rather proud to show off the goods (Alexxus Young in particular), including to the elderly owner (James Aspden) of the rundown house they shelter in. And later, they get into a pillow fight that segues into sexual experimentation. “Have you ever done it with another girl?” “I don’t think so.”

Despite the shoddiness of the film’s construction, at least writer/director Brett Piper has the sense to mock many of his own budgetary and creative shortcomings. He plays up the bulk of the actions as jokes, as well as having the personas themselves spout goofy dialogue to draw attention to the silliness of the premise and character development. Extremely problematic, however, are the actual poor designs and construction, ranging from really obvious continuity errors to mediocre editing to Z-grade special effects; intentional humor can’t effectively complement genuinely deficient direction and storytelling and production values. “Saw off my leg and call me stumpy!”

As a result, rather than being able to appreciate moments of decent comic relief, audiences are predominantly tortured by pitiful acting, terrible scripting, inferior cinematography, generic music and sound effects, and all-around horrible filmmaking techniques. Clearly, the budget is on a microscopic scale (the cast contains no notable names), but the decision to write these roles to speak such atrocious, senseless lines drastically reduces any chance at tension or thrills. Once the oversized killer hell-spiders begin attacking, the visual effects aren’t sincere enough to counter the ridiculousness from before, even with intermittent sequences of blood and violence. Relying primarily on pieces of giant arachnid props alternated with claymation animation, the creature-feasting shots are simply too amateurish and frivolous to instill fear or awe – or even interest.

Nothing about “Arachnia” is original or engaging or memorable (it would be insulting to the disastrous pictures it resembles to make comparisons, though it certainly reminds at times of “Empire of the Ants,” “Crocodile 2: Death Swamp,” and “Arachnid”). As the chainsaw-wielding, shotgun-toting insectoid-battlers dwindle, the suspense doesn’t ratchet up; it’s all just a slow, bland, unstimulating crawl to a predictable climax (which draws obvious inspiration from “Aliens”) and drawn-out, nonsensical conclusion. “Oh that sucked!”

– Mike Massie