iTunes had a number of horror movies for 99 cent rental so I gave one called Itsy Bitsy a shot. It promised a giant spider movie and, yeah, it was a giant spider movie. I didn’t expect much from it and, hey, the movie delivered that much.
So Itsy Bitsy is the story of how you shouldn’t rob a South American tribe of a sacred ancestral jar because odds are it’ll break open and reveal the egg of their ancient spider god. Or, well, just a really big spider (think the side of a dog, not the size of an airplane so not a particularly impressive god… but still appreciably large for a spider). Anyhow, the giant spider spends an hour not doing anything except for lurking in bathtubs and in the attic where a nice family can’t see it but the audience can. It’s done mostly as a practical puppet effect and it looks pretty good… sometimes it’s CGI and moves in the dark so the effect works.
What doesn’t work is that there’s not much of a movie here. It’s not particularly bad or anything… it’s just that nothing much happens until the final thirty minutes. And some of the finale has decent creepy moments and one cool surprise. The conclusion – the mom vs. spider showdown – is kind of fun.
But there’s no real reason to bother with this unless its on cable and you want to watch a decent-ish creature feature. I’ve seen a lot shoddier giant spider movies.
Score: 70