Review - Ice Spiders

Did I ever mention my spider phobia . . .

. . . well giant spiders should be even scarier. And in Ice Spiders, while the idea of the giant genetically mutated spiders was enough to make my skin crawl, the execution of the idea just didn’t work too well for me - at least not in the scares department.

So there’s this secret government military lab where giant spiders are being bred for their spider silk. They have genetically mutated the spiders so that they will grow larger even faster due to a little power boost given by Professor Marx (David Millbern) unbeknownst, of course, to his colleague Dr. April Summers (Vanessa Williams). A small team of special ops military types led by Thomas Calabro (who interestingly enough doesn’t seem to have a name in the film - I think they may have just called him captain - oh how far he has come from Melrose place . . .) is quite unsuccessful in containing this group of rogue and ravenous arachnids.

Thus the spiders make their way out into the world and eventually to a ski resort where Olympic hopefuls are training. Lucky for them, Olympic has been, Dash Dashiell (Patrick Muldoon) just so happens to be working at aforementioned ski resort. Not only was he almost on the Olympic team ions ago, but after a horrible skiing accident where he crushed his legs so badly that no team would want him, he was able to spend quite a few years as a Marine which helps out when you are attempting to not get eaten by giant mutated spiders.

The interesting thing in this film for me was when they were actually talking about the spiders. Although by my own admission I am an arachnaphobe, I am completely fascinated by the little buggers. There was a Black Widow, a jumping spider and I didn’t really know the names of the other spiders they used, but they were all quite colorful and of course each had their own particular personality.

While Ice Spiders wasn’t really scary in the true sense of the word, it was a completely entertaining flick. A little bad acting and a few plot holes, but all in all not bad for a SciFi Originals. A definite recommend for spider buffs or SciFi Originals buffs.

Directed by
Tibor Takács

Writing credits
(in alphabetical order)
Eric Miller

Cast (in credits order)
Patrick Muldoon ... Dash Dashiell
Vanessa Williams ... Dr. April Summers
Thomas Calabro
David Millbern ... Dr. Barnes
Noah Bastian ... Chad Brown
Carleigh King ... Brittany
Stephen J. Cannell ... Frank

rest of cast listed alphabetically:
K. Danor Gerald ... Ranger Rick
Charles Halford ... Coach Mike
Cory McMillan ... Perez
Christopher Robin Miller ... Bob
James C. Morris ... Joseph