Word: arachnophobia
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Director Frank Marshall's debut effort betrays his debt to the work of his mentor and fellow executive producer, Steven Spielberg, and in turn, Alfred Hitchcock. The basic premises of Arachnophobia invoke themes featured prominantly in many of Spielberg and Hitchcock's films...
...Arachnophobia...
What precludes Arachnophobia from such a forgettable fate is Marshall's subtle wit and artful direction of the talented cast...
...core, Arachnophobia is a film about the effects of an extraordinary phenomenon on a small American town. The theme is clearly reminiscent of Spielberg's Jaws, Close Encounters of a Third Kind, E.T., and even further back, of Hitchcock's The Birds. Like all those films, Arachnophobia tells this story primarily through the trials and tribulations of a single male character; Roy Schnieder in Jaws, Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters, and Rod Taylor in The Birds. Here that role is filled by Jeff Daniel, who plays Ross Jennings, an Ivy League-educated doctor who moves his family to little Canaima...
...Arachnophobia is given extra dimension by borrowing yet another technique made famous by Hitchcock. In Psycho and Rebecca, Hitchcock explored the results of placing psychologically-burdened characters under severe stress, forcing them to confront their worst fears. Jennings' extreme fear of spiders effectively establishes the link with the audience which makes the ensuing action tenable. Jennings' fear is believeble because, thanks to Marshall's careful direction, the character himself is so wholely believeable...