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My first foray into the giant spider movies of the 2020s is a Taiwanese effort called Abyssal Spider. The alternative title, if you watched the horribly subtitled version that I did, is Mad Spider Sea.
Not very encouraging, but I pressed on, sailing out into that mad spider sea with a degree of trepidation after being burned by a previous foreign language giant spider movie, Arachnicide (*Sharting intensifies*).
Abyssal Spider isn’t badly dubbed like Arachnicide, but as I already mentioned, it is badly subtitled. The incredibly literal Taiwanese-to-English translations make the dialogue sound clunkier than Robocop dancing the tango.
Also, you had to be a speed reader to get through them before they disappeared from the screen. I got the gist, but it took me out of the movie so I can’t really say how good it was. It’s better than Arachnicide, but that’s not saying much. It’s not bad enough for me to do my Abysmal Spider joke, which I had in the barrel.
Abyssal Spider introduces a new setting for our furious furry foes – the ocean! I was going to mock this concept but then I did some research. Did you know that sea spiders exist? There’s truly no escaping the bastards.
And here they are
Anyway, the giant spider in Abyssal Spider has a classic origin story: toxic waste has been dumped into the sea and caused it to mutate. The characters see this as mother nature fighting back. I like the idea of mother nature using pollution to level up her powers and exact her revenge on humanity.
Literal Subtitles Alert
Abyssal Spider begins with a search and rescue team coming to the aid of a ship transporting nuclear waste in a fierce storm. Shipping containers fall into the sea as the rescue team approaches in dinghies. Who did the risk assessment, Evel Knievel?
Anyway, at least one of them is aware of the danger because he utters this gem:
‘Pay attention to the safety.’
He probably said ‘watch out’ in Taiwanese but then literal subtitles happened.
We are introduced to the main character, Jie, who has a three-letter name. This is convenient for me because it’s easy to write (imagine if he was called Ostermeyer or something).
Jie attends the rescue even though his wife is in labour at the same time. Does that make him a good guy or a dick? I mean…there’s a weird intercut between the rescue and the hospital where she dies in childbirth while calling out his name, so…the latter?
The rescue team drags everyone off the ship except for the captain, who refuses to leave because he’s ‘too ashamed to live on’ (literal subtitle alert). Somehow the captain didn’t know about the nuclear waste they are carrying.
The person responsible is the only white guy in the entire movie, a generic Aryan who says:
‘We thought you knew about it.’
That line is spoken in English so I can’t even blame the subtitles.
Everybody Hates Jie
The captain wants to go down with his ship, which is a fine tradition and it’s great to see it alive and well in the 21st Century. Jie is determined to save him, but in doing so he puts others at risk. Does that make him a hero or a dick?
I mean…he argues with the rescue team’s captain about it, who then gets knocked off the ship by a falling mast and then dragged down into the briny depths by a giant aquatic spider, so…the latter?
The best we can say is that Jie has good intentions, but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters in life is what happens, not why. Write that down.
I was confused that the giant spider already existed, seeing as the toxic waste had only just been spilled. That stuff sure works fast! But it soon becomes apparent that this isn’t the first incident of its kind in these waters. Health and safety isn’t a top priority.
We cut to several years later where everyone hates Jie, including himself. He gets into fights over Mah-jongg, for fuck’s sake. He pays a prostitute but doesn’t touch her, which makes her cry.
Jie leaves his five-year old daughter home alone. Fishermen talk smack about him when he’s within earshot. Literal subtitle alert:
‘He was once a good young man, and now he becomes a shit.’
Where Is Your God Now?
Jie visits his father-in-law, Han (three letters again, excellent) and asks for a job on his fishing boat. Han throws a drink in his face. At least four other fishermen look like they want to kill him, including Jie’s former best friend Tai (another short name, I’m on a roll).
Tai was on the rescue crew and blames Jie for their captain’s death. The whole segment is bleak but it works in getting the viewers on Jie’s side. The man’s lost his wife and has to raise her killer alone, give him a break (ooh, that’s a dark one, sorry).
Han is a softie at heart because he gives Jie some money and a job. Unfortunately, that job involves sailing out into the mad spider sea. Now it’s Jie’s turn to suffer the unintended consequences of someone else’s good intentions.
L-R: Ding, Han, Tai and Jie
Before they set sail, Han prays for three things: good weather, safety for everyone, and fortune. What they get is a typhoon, giant spider related death for everyone, and no fortune. Where’s your God now?
After setting sail, they struggle to find fish, which is a problem when you’re a fisherman. One of the crewmen, Ding (four letters, still acceptable) has brought some ‘parcels’ on board and wants to moonlight with a little drug smuggling to make ends meet.
There’s an island he wants to detour to but Han refuses. Many of the crew support Ding and it looks like there might be a mutiny, but then they finally net some fish. And when I say fish, I mean giant spider.
Haha! Sucks to be you!
Dead Man Walking
During the initial attack, the spider bites one guy and then disappears below deck. Jie and Tai pursue it. Ding gives Tai a metal spike to kill Jie with. It looks like he’s going to do it but instead he pins a tarantula.
I’m not sure where the tarantula came from. A few of them pop up in the movie. I can only guess that they are linked to the big guy somehow, but how can that be when they’re not aquatic? Accuracy matters, guys.
Anyway, the giant spider jumps Tai. It possesses a hard crab-like exoskeleton and the practical effects are impressive. They use CGI for most of Abyssal Spider, and it is very good, but not as good as the puppet.
Jie and Tai fight off the spider but not before Tai is bitten (you know the drill by now – he’s a dead man walking). They shoot the spider with a flare gun and send it back to Davy Jones’ locker. It’s not dead, but it doesn’t show its face again for another half hour so they must have made it think twice.
In the interim period we get some characterisation, some plot, and plenty of in-fighting, mostly directed at Jie. The first guy who was bitten pukes up a load of black shit and dies. They bury him at sea, which is a fine tradition and it’s great to see it alive and well in the 21st Century.
Women
One sub-plot involves the ship’s engineer, Kong (as in King), bringing his niece onboard to work in the kitchen disguised as a boy. It’s not much of a disguise. She looks like a girl. It’s obvious. She could have worn a fake moustache at least. She hangs around with the crew before they launch and not one of them gets a whiff of pheromones.
It is regarded as unlucky to have a woman on board, which is a fine tradition and it’s great to see it alive and well in the 21st Century. But I think Kong has far more practical reasons for keeping his niece’s identity a secret from the half-a-dozen mutinous, cutthroat, misogynistic sex starved fishermen onboard.
“Does anyone smell fish?”
As if to prove that very point, they bring aboard a female shipwreck survivor and one of Ding’s henchmen immediately sexually assaults her. Jie intervenes, but they gang up on him.
Han breaks it up by slapping Jie (this guy just can’t catch a break). But it’s a smart move by Han because he knows he can’t stand up to Ding. By hitting Jie he spares him a worse fate at the hands of Ding’s henchmen (one of whom is called ‘Bald Head’ by the subtitles. I mean…he is).
The shipwreck survivor is Xiao Jing. That’s eight letters and two whole words – the streak is over. She asks to be taken to the same island that Ding wants to visit. Ding thinks she’s a drug dealer, but she might be bluffing to avoid being raped.
Mutiny
Xiao Jing realises that Kong’s niece is female (her name is Xiao Tu, just to confuse you) because women can sense these things. The guys only find out when her shirt gets torn and they notice her boobs.
Pictured: a “boy”
The spider pops up for a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ cameo and then we’re straight back to the internal squabbling (yay).
Ding locks Jie and Tai in a room to fight to the death, but Tai forgives him instead. The ship hits something and springs a leak. The room fills with water. Tai knows he is dying of the spider bite so he sacrifices himself to save Jie.
It’s a noble but stupid death – he lets Jie sit on his shoulders while he opens an escape hatch and drowns before Jie finishes the job. Even after Jie escapes, he could have reached down and pulled Tai out, but elects not to.
Jie attacks Ding (I hope you’re keeping up). Han intervenes and gets stabbed by a henchman. Bald Head then murders a Han loyalist. At this point I was getting tired of all the bickering.
WHERE’S THE SPIDER??!!
Ding Ding Ding
Jie, Han, Kong and the Xiao girls (sounds like a jazz band) lock themselves in the engine room below deck. At first the mutineers try to break in, and then they beg to be let in because…hallelujah, the Abyssal Spider is back! It’s like that time the Ultimate Warrior returned at WrestleMania 8!
The last half hour is pretty good, with wall-to-wall spider action interspersed with character development for Ding, of all people. He explains to Jie that he hates him because the captain of the rescue team who died in the prologue was his younger brother (Captain Ding – I guess the clues were there all along).
But how does Jie not already know this? Didn’t anyone think to give him the heads-up? They’ve got the same name, or is Ding Taiwanese for Smith?
It gets weirder. We get a flashback into Ding’s past where he goes for a job in marketing or something but overhears the interviewer saying he smells like fish. We then see someone slumped next to a car in a parking garage.
Presumably Ding didn’t get the job due to class discrimination and then killed the interviewer who disrespected him. I’m not sure what we’re supposed to take from this – that Ding is a badass killer? Or are we meant to sympathise with him?
I must also mention an earlier flashback where Ding visits the same prostitute that Jie made cry. She questions Ding’s masculinity and manipulates him into smuggling drugs, saying she’ll ‘go with him’ if he does.
Call me cynical, but I think she’s just after the money.
Look, one of us is going to have to back up
Final Showdown
Ding teams up with Jie and Han to fight the spider. Pretty much everyone else is dead, except for the Xiao girls. Kong gets bitten but still manages to kill Ding’s chief henchman. The henchman boasts that he’s going to kill Xiao Tu and Kong fucking loses it.
He stabs him multiple times while screaming ‘no one can hurt my family!’ like an absolute maniac. If Vin Diesel ever decides to kill himself off in the Fast & Furious franchise, that’s the exact death scene he needs.
Jie lures the spider into the fish store, which is a pit on deck. Jie and Ding get pulled in as well, but Han and the Xiao girls rescue them.
Credit to Han, he really is a good guy. Earlier on he let the mutineers into the engine room to save them from the spider when he didn’t need to, and he shows his true colours again by saving Ding. Top bloke.
Unfortunately, Han and Ding have been bitten, and are therefore doomed. They pour kerosene into the hold and burn the spider but it jumps out, on fire. Han and Ding team up for a double helping of ‘noble but stupid’ deaths.
They use the metal cover from the fish store to push the blazing spider into the sea…and then jump in after it. For no reason. It’s not like they fall overboard while evicting the spider, and it’s not like they have to finish it off. They deliberately step onto the rail and jump overboard.
Maybe it counts as a double suicide, seeing as they were going to die from the bite wounds anyway. Either way, Ding receives a redemption arc that he probably didn’t deserve but I still like it. It’s not what you expect from this type of movie.
The Moral Of The Story
Jie jumps in after them, the idiot, and ends up face-to-face with the spider underwater. The spider is still alive, but possibly dying, because we see it giving birth to many spiderlings (aw, cute). Sequel time!
Jie emerges from the sea and it’s daylight. How long was he under there? It was pitch dark when he jumped in. Once back onboard, Xiao Jing reveals that she is a reporter investigating the nuclear waste. It doesn’t really mean much, but at least she’s not a drug dealer.
At the end, Jie takes his daughter to the docks and sees the ghosts of his dead shipmates. Jie explains the moral of the story to his daughter, via the medium of godawful subtitles:
‘When dad think of your mom, when dad think of his teammates, I will be here.’
‘Why?’
‘Because this is really a huge sea.’
Now that’s a message we can all get behind.
Rating: 4 spider legs out of 8
The post Giant Spider Review: ABYSSAL SPIDER (2020) appeared first on Last Movie Outpost.
