Spiders II: Breeding Ground (2001) Reviews

• Eight legged nonsense, part deux

  capkronos2006-01-03

  Fair, watchable sequel takes place entirely at sea. Some pirates invade a pleasure ship and beat, tie up and abduct the people on board before blowing up the ship. The next day, a young couple; blonde photographer Alexandra (Stephanie Niznik) and her dimpled Golden Boy husband Jason (Greg Cromer), stumble onto the debris, find a corpse and then end up in the middle of a bad storm that sinks their boat. Jason is mildly injured, but they're picked up by another cargo vessel headed for New Guinea. On board is a seemingly hospitable captain (Daniel Quinn) who has the hots for Alex, a ranting doctor (Richard "Bull" Moll), who looks them over and calls them "perfect specimens" and a bunch of rough-looking Russian crew members, who turn out to be the pirates from the beginning. Jason begins snooping around the ship and realizes something bad is going on when he uncovers a cooler full of frozen cadavers. But the antibiotics he has been given for his injured neck are actually drugs to incapacitate him so he can be used to incubate a spider. Other victims are kept in incubation chambers until the implanted eggs hatch. It's up to Alex to fend off the bad guys, elude the mutant spiders (which are eventually set free when the power is turned off) and find the antidote for her husband. Though Alex is a little annoyingly slow to catch on at first, it is her character and the spirited performance by Niznik in the role that make this movie at least tolerable. She's a tiny blonde, but she's tough; responding to an aggressive sexual come-on by beating the crap out of the guy, kicking crotches, taking down two burly pirates on an elevator and using a mad-made blowtorch and spear to kill off the spiders, while dragging her injured hubby along for the ride. It may be Sigourney Weaver-lite in this context (right down to the tank top), but Niznik anchors the uneven film well through the finale. The other actors, especially bland, square-jawed Cromer and Moll, who seems to be playing the syringe-wielding mad doctor (who is looking to create a disease-free human race) strictly for camp value, don't fair near as well. I also can't explain why the spiders sound just like elephants, but what the hell. Special effects (again a mix of animatronics and CGI) are OK.

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• Original idea and some nice gore, but nothing else

  slayrrr6662004-05-01

  `Spiders 2: Breeding Ground' is a much better film than most people would tend to say it was. **SPOILERS** Lost at sea, husband and wife Jason (Greg Cromer) and Alexandra (Stephanie Niznik) are rescued by Captain Bigelow (Daniel Quinn) aboard his ship. Finding the rat-infested ship good enough shelter till they return home, Alex and Jason find they are hits with the crew. Unbeknownst to them, Dr. Grabec, (Richard Moll) a disgraced scientist is on board. He thinks Jason is a perfect candidate for his next experiment. During dinner, he slips a pill into Jason's drink, making him become seriously ill. Since he is the only doctor on board, Grabec has an opportunity to give a giant spider a chance to impregnate Jason with special DNA to bear a genetic breed of spider. Over the next several days, Alex becomes concerned that Jason has started to act strange. Captain Bigelow simply dismisses her claims as he having a rare strand of a sea flu. As Jason becomes even stranger, Alex begins to suspect that Grabec has poisoned Jason. Trusting her instincts, she snoops around the ship and witnesses Grabec and a guard loosing control over a spider. She sneaks Jason out of the room and finally learns the truth about the experiment. By then, Grabec has lost all control over the spiders and they over-run the ship, killing off all the crew but Grabec. On the top level, Alex and Jason stop to relax a minute. Grabec appears and lays the entire extent of his plan before them. A spider takes him away, and Alex returns to the bowels of the ship to retrieve the vaccine needed to cure him. Finishing off several more spiders, they escape the ship and are rescued by the Coast Guard. The Good News: The film is a pretty good film. It does have a few moments were it did drag a little, in terms of on-screen action, but it still holds your interest. The movie does have an undeniable point of genius: moving a monster movie out away from the land and keeping it solely on a ship. Despite the fact that the premise had been done months earlier in `Ghost Ship,' Spiders 2 now makes it a monster movie with a mad scientist doing secret experiments, placing it slightly reminiscent of the 50's monster movie category. This is certainly a refreshing move, considering the new plot lines in modern monster movies. There is also a surprising amount of gore in the movie, another refreshing change of pace. Despite the high gore, there are very killings on-screen, consisting of only Grabec, Bigelow, and two guards on board. More violence happens to the giant spiders than to the people. The film at first plays out like a mystery movie revolving around the origins of the strange Dr. Grabec and his experiments. Once the experiments have been found out, then it shifts gears and becomes a huge gore-fest. The film does attempt to wring in some suspense, as the one scene where Alex disembarks the elevator to find the entire doorway is covered in spider webs. Her slowly moving through the webs and into the lab is very suspenseful. The ending is not the complete surprise it should've been, as plot formula dictates the scene. The action scenes combating the spiders are easily the films' highlights. The Bad News: The film has a low budget, resulting in the majority of the spider's scenes being computer generated. This makes the spiders look increasingly different in the same scene as they go from being a mechanical creature to being a CG created image and then back. It does distract from the overall look and feel, as the mechanical spiders do look convincing and menacing. Had they kept that look throughout the film, it would look ten times better and more expensive. On to the humans, who give simply dreadful performances. Moll is capable as the mad scientist, a role he seems to relish and yet feels a tad out of place. He has a reformed gangster look to him that makes him the perfect choice for mobster movies or heavy's, and while he way no have had scientist roles before, it oddly suites him. Niznik is a minor find in the action heroine role, but everyone else is awful. The ship's size does change frequently, as in certain parts it looks too small to carry the huge labs and spiders inside it, keeping in mind that the crew does need space to sleep and eat. The Final Verdict: The slow beginning will deter some viewers, who claim that not enough is happening to warrant a complete viewing. Those that watch the whole thing will find a movie that has plenty of gore, a few clever scares, and many genius scenes throughout. Recommended to those who like seeing old ideas brought to new life in the present, as well as those who like old-school monster movies. Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, and Brief Nudity.

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• Starts good, then gets a little tame

  Katatonia2002-10-22

  This movie starts out good, almost like a suspense/mystery more than a horror movie. Richard Moll is great as the demented ship doctor. After the first half of the movie it starts to go downhill somewhat. The story gets predictable and the spider special effects are not too great. The majority of the CGI effects look fake and outdated, and some of the spiders are obviously tarantulas in miniature environments. But, a fairly decent sequel offering which is better than most...

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• Fun little low budget creature feature opus

  Bloodwank2011-02-20

  Spiders was an unexpected delight, especially coming from Nu Image, producers of the dire Octopus movies. Nobody could have expected a sequel to bottle the same lightning, and Spiders 2 doesn't but it is still surprisingly fun stuff. It takes a serious minded approach to its shenanigans and even opts for a first half of mystery and paranoia before going for the straightforward creature feature route, an approach which is generally interesting if not entirely successful. The story centres on Alexandra and Jason, lost at sea after investigating an abandoned boat when a storm hits. They get picked up by a cargo ship wherein everybody seems friendly enough, but Jason has his suspicions and fair play to the guy, there are strange goings on afoot. The trouble with going down the suspense alleyway is that the film pretty much gives itself away with the title, and for anyone who couldn't guess the general impetus of the film an early scene shows it off. This means that for all the mystery we know what's going to happen and so instead of being caught in the same mystery as the protagonists we basically watch them play catch-up. Luckily the actors are up to the task of sustaining interest, Greg Cromer showing mounting fear and bewilderment as Jason, Stephanie Niznik sympathetic as the at first stolid and sceptical but ultimately tough and heroic Alexandra, while the best show is put on by a glowering, happily hammy Richard Moll as the nefarious Dr. Grbac. The crew are generally well realised as well, a salty, shifty bunch led by the able Daniel Quinn as their ostensible nice guy leader. The perfomers keep things ticking until the film explodes and fortunately things are worth the wait. A couple of rather nasty gore scenes satisfy the meaner urges, and when the CGI spiders get clustering their rampage is rather good fun, daft but lively. Director Sam Firstenberg is something of a low budget action regular and he handles things with a certain chintzy flair, conjuring excitement out of unpromising effects and the cramped location. Its a shame the film doesn't get moving earlier though, leaving the big excitement to the final half hour may work in a big budget film where the makers can really go wild but here I think some more sustained action would have been better. Also, the writing has its share of blips, gaps and contrivances that wouldn't usually bother me a whit, were it not for the serious minded approach. Still, by and large I liked this one, its pretty sound as its genre goes, has a few gnarly moments and some engaging craziness. Check it out if it sounds like your cup of tea is my advice.

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• Bad writing, acting, and effects unite to kill Spider ll

  giammarcoken2001-07-29

  The biggest problem with this movie is its simplistic dialogue. One example is when the made scientist gloats "Spiders are carnivores. Did you know that?" It makes one wonder if the writers added that for the 3-year-olds who may be watching. It also lacks creativity and fails to create any suspense or scares. The actors also fail to generate any sense of urgency. Lines such as, "This is creepy" are spoken in the same tone you might use to say "We need milk." If the characters on screen are not afraid of their situation, why should the audience be scared? The spiders themselves never seem very real. There is no sense of scale or consistency. (One spider chasing the heroine seems to change size constantly--almost as if the animator couldn't get it quite right) They have a trumpeting roar that sounds suspiciously like an elephant and which detracts from any realism they may have had. (When was the last time you heard a spider say anything?) If you can see it for free, give it a try. But don't waste your money on this film.

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