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Camel Spiders opens during the Iraq War. At first, I thought the title was an anti-Arab slur, but no, camel spiders actually exist (at least, regular-sized ones do).
Camel Spiders are classed as Arachnids but aren’t true spiders for some reason (I don’t know – do I look like a taxonomist?). But I’m still counting them as giant spiders. They’ve literally got the word ‘spider’ in their name.
A couple of characters say the camel spiders have six legs, but I paused and counted, and it’s definitely eight. The special effects guys must have overruled the screenwriter after the movie had been shot. Good call.
I don’t think the makers of this movie are taxonomists either because they take a few liberties, not just with the spiders but the audience, too.
You see, most giant spider movies at least attempt to explain how their giant spiders came to be. This is because giant spiders don’t really exist (spoiler alert). The moviemakers need to sell us an origin story to make the whole enterprise semi-credible.
Usually, these monstrosities are aliens, lab creations or the result of some kind of accident (possibly involving radiation, toxic waste, or herbal steroids). But not this time. In Camel Spiders, the characters just act like these things exist in real life, and everyone already knows about them.
It’s a neat trick. Why bother coming up with an origin story when you can just gaslight the audience into doubting their own sense of reality?
Devils Of The Sand
In the opening scene, American soldiers are caught up in a gunfight with an Iraqi force in the desert. A platoon of camel spiders arrives, grabs the Iraqi,s and drag them off somewhere (to a cave, I bet).
The spiders vary in size. Some are as big as your hand, but the ‘yo momma’ ones are the size of a large dog (but not one you’d want to pet). I’d call them Stage 2, or plus-sized.
An Iraqi interpreter calls them ‘devils of the sand.’ The main character, Captain Sturges, replies with one of the best lines of the movie:
They were angels for us today.
He doesn’t question their existence; he doesn’t raise his eyebrows at spiders being able to carry off fully grown men (hey, these things exist, didn’t you know?). He just considers them allies in the war on terror.
A few camel spiders crawl into the mouth of a dead US soldier and hitch a ride back to America in his coffin. This plot point is stolen from Arachnophobia, but I’ll let it slide.
We then cut to Captain Sturges and a female Sergeant (Sgt Underwood) transporting the body and a consignment of M16s (these may come in handy later) through the desert. I thought we were still in Iraq until the American cop car showed up, blue lights blazing.
We’re now in the Arizona desert, which looks suspiciously similar to Iraq, almost as if they filmed it in the same place. C Thomas Howell’s sheriff is chasing a criminal who crashes his car into the army truck. The coffin falls out of the back, and the camel spiders escape!
It’s A Sin
One thing I like about Camel Spiders is that it cuts straight to the killings. In the very next scene, four teenagers park up in the desert to begin a hike, except they’ve got other things on their mind: drinking and sex!
One of the girls didn’t get the memo and thinks they are really going for a hike. She seems a little uptight, if I’m honest. She takes offence at being asked to carry a single blanket, and when the boys break out the Jack Daniels, she says ‘I know where this is going’ and leaves!
It turns out to be a smart move because ten seconds later, a camel spider bites off her boyfriend’s dick. A cluster of camel spiders then overruns the other couple just as they are about to get it on.
‘Cluster’ or ‘clutter’ are the official collective nouns for spiders. I don’t make this stuff up, you know. I am a professional.
Perhaps the uptight girl is simply a horror movie expert who rightly realised that the double sin factor of drinking and sex in an isolated place would almost certainly get them killed.
She couldn’t have known that the culprits would be camel spiders, but she knew something would get them.
Who had camel spiders?
Chest Freezer
The uptight girl returns to her car, but a camel spider hops in through the sunroof. She drives away, and we assume that her eight-legged passenger will jump out and cause her to crash. But it doesn’t happen.
She reaches a gas station and finds the two attendants wrapped up in a spider web in the most hilariously bad scene of the movie. It’s the only time the web is used in the entire movie. Barely a few wisps are draped over them, yet we are meant to believe they can’t move.
What’s with the foot?
The girl suddenly develops an unhealthy obsession with opening the gas station’s chest freezer. For no reason whatsoever, she walks slowly towards it and is about to open it before discovering the attendants.
After she sees them, she recoils in horror and OPENS THE CHEST FREEZER FOR SOME REASON.
A plethora of Camel Spiders jump out and kill her. ‘Plethora’ is not an official collective noun for spiders, but I thought I would try a new one out.
Anyway, how did the spiders get into the chest freezer? Did they hear her coming and hide? What was their plan for getting back out again if she didn’t open it? Everyone knows you can’t open those things from the inside. You’ll suffocate.
I thought it was strange that they showed the spider stowing away in the girl’s car and then did nothing with it. However, the movie later returns to the gas station for a random scene. A police officer arrives, looks in the girl’s car, and the goddamned spider leaps onto his face.
It’s brilliant – I legitimately jumped. Congratulations to the filmmakers for paying off that moment in an unexpected way. They played the long game on that one.
Side Quest
We then cut from the desert of Arizona to the lush green woodlands of…Arizona? I’m no expert on Arizonan geography, but it doesn’t look like the same state, even though it’s clearly meant to be nearby because of all the camel spiders.
A College professor and his students are looking for fossils along a riverbank and find a camel spider just chilling out, minding its own business. The Professor expresses surprise, not because of its size but because it is so far from its natural habitat (hey, these things exist, didn’t you know?).
Unfortunately, his knowledge of camel spiders doesn’t extend to knowing how mean they are, and it eats his face.
Here kitty kitty
For the rest of the movie, we occasionally cut back to the surviving students as they hide out in an empty country house, but there is no link to the main story in the desert.
It’s almost as if the running time was too short, so they filmed some extra scenes with another random group to pad it out. It’s so half-arsed that we don’t even get a proper ending to this side quest.
The last time we see them, they run to a ca,r but it won’t start. A guy opens the bonnet and guess what’s under there? That’s right, a camel spider. The two girls in the car scream but we never see them again. Saving it for the sequel, were you? That’s optimistic.
Main Quest
The movie’s main quest focuses on a group of people gathered initially in a roadside café. These include Captain Sturges and the Sheriff, but also two property developers looking to buy the café to build a freeway and an ‘Indian casino’ (they’re not Native American).
Also present are two pacifist hipster types who sneer at the locals and call them rednecks, hillbillies, GI Joe, Barbie, stupid, and ‘easily led,’ all in the space of 15 seconds, I timed it.
Then there’s the married couple and their teenage daughter. The wife hates her husband. I guess he cheate,d but they never make it clear. He asks what he can do, and she says ‘drop dead for a start.’ For a start? What’s he supposed to do after that?
Once the camel spiders show up, they forget their conflict for the rest of the movie. I suppose an existential threat like giant spiders will bring into sharp focus what is important in life…family.
You read that in Vin Diesel’s voice, didn’t you?
After the spiders arrive, Sergeant Underwood rescues the survivors in her truck with the consignment of M16s (these may come in handy later). The truck is damaged so they are forced to stop and hide out in a gypsum plant.
Harmonica Interlude
They debate how best to fight the spiders. One guy says ‘kill the queen?’ I have mentioned this overused trope before, where the lives of the smaller spiders are connected to a single ruling entity, usually a queen. If you kill the queen, all the others magically die somehow.
But they don’t use this shortcut in this movie. The pacifist douchebag says ‘spiders don’t have queens!’ Well, yeah, but even if they did, killing the queen wouldn’t kill the others.
It’s like the queen trope mentioned above actually exists in this universe, but the only reason it doesn’t apply is that they are fighting the wrong species.
Since they have no simple solution for dealing with the Camel Spiders, the Captain says, ‘Good thing we brought these,’ pointing to the crate of M16s. I knew they would come in handy!
We then get a little downtime and some attempt at character building, which I appreciate. One of the group plays the harmonica (Amazing Grace, but you knew that already).
The two diner owners decide to sell up and go to Hawaii, and when characters start making plans like that, you know they will end up as spider food. Two of the students in the side quest also start making plans. They recently got married, and they are going on their honeymoon to Italy. Or are they?
The Pacifist And The Waitress
My favourite of these ‘calm before the storm’ scenes is between the pacifist and a waitress. He says he’s a pacifist because ‘chicks dig it,’ which I doubt is true but by all means give it a shot.
The waitress aims her gun away from them, but he grabs the barrel and says ‘watch where you’re pointing that thing’ while actually pulling it towards his own chest. After he calls the Captain GI Joe again, she says:
If sarcasm worked better on these bugs than bullets, then you would be the first person I’d call.
She looks at him with disdain, but he takes it as a compliment, sincerely thanks he,r and looks into her eyes as if they’re sharing a moment! It’s a weirdly acted scene.
C Thomas Howell’s sheriff is underused and killed off early in the third act. As the most recognisable face in the movie, I didn’t expect that and appreciated the twist.
He kind of looked half dead anyway
The remaining characters make a break for a pick-up truck. Nobody tries to save the property developers when the camel spiders attack. I guess you reap what you sow.
The Final Showdown
The snarky pacifist, despite being a prime candidate for some spider-induced karma, survives. He experiences character growth when he asks for a gun and says, ‘I’m beginning to see the light.’ Giving up his anti-war principles and learning to kill like a real man is enough to save him. That’s a lesson for us all.
The teenage girl runs off on her own and gets the diner owner killed when he tries to rescue her (told you – no Hawaii for him).
Sergeant Underwood grabs the girl and shuts them in a room, but it has no glass in the windows. When the camel spiders jump through the empty window, the Sergeant throws the girl over her shoulder and carries her out as if she’s an invalid. She’s about fourteen, and she can run faster than you!
The army firebombs the gypsum plant just after the remaining characters escape. The movie freezes on Captain Sturges as he lights a cigar. Thunder rumbles in the background, but not literal thunder, more a foreboding premonition of things to come.
We then cut to a surprisingly effective epilogue at a drive-in theatre. A slasher movie is playing onscreen. It quickly becomes apparent that everyone sitting in their cars has been killed by camel spiders.
It is without doubt the best scene of the movie, so if you’re ever tempted to watch it, just skip the rest and start it at 1:20:30. The movie ends approximately one minute later.
I watch these things so you don’t have to, you know.
Rating: 2 spider legs out of 8
The post Giant Spider Movie Review: CAMEL SPIDERS (2011) appeared first on Last Movie Outpost.
