thesar-2
No one's arguing Richard Moll (Night Court) isn't set to win any awards, but when your budget is just big enough to afford roughly 5 spiders, you can only claim so many D-List "headliners" for your When Animals Attack sequels.I promise, mostly to myself, that I won't spend too much time on this crud, but I watched this because I do love those When Animals Attack creature-features and I was attempting to recreate that Turkey Day feel of MST3k years past by watching this during the Thanksgiving weekend. Unfortunately, this was worse than bad. It contained as much air time for the spiders as Angelina Jolie did in Gone in 60 Seconds. (For those who don't know, I believe she spent more time for her posters, as the spider here, than her acting in that film.)Pirates invade a ship, kidnapping idiots we don't care to know, and passerby boatists Jason (Cromer) and Alex (Niznik) investigate and then get stranded in the ocean via a storm. Picked up by another passing boat they're greeted and wined and dined. But, is there a catch?Hell, yeah, it's for the viewers to wait another hour to realize they're part of some Dr. Grbac (Moll) experiment on spiders. It's basically a thirty-five cent version of Aliens but without any of the tension, excitement, acting, dialogue, originality, intrigue, character depth, special effects or budget. Make that: ten cents, then.Don't waste your time. I can see where the actors actually tried to do something with nothing, but it's not even a movie to say: It's so bad, it's good and at least it's about spiders. Cuz, it ain't!Side Note: I guess it was originally subtitled: "Breading Ground" until it hit video. Perhaps because they realize there is no "ground" actually in the film. Does it really matter? Would it sell further with…or without the added non-spider reference?
battyman1
Maybe it was because I just got finished trying to watch "BloodMonkey", which was SO horrible that it inspired me to set up an IMDb account and contribute a review.Maybe it was because I was then trying to write my review for "BloodMonkey" while watching "Spiders II" and wasn't paying _real_ close attention. I guess I missed the worst of the plot holes, like _why_ the Mad Doctor was growing all those giant spiders, or _why_ he had to feed them people, rather than something somewhat easier to get, like, say, sheep or cattle. This was still far better than BloodMonkey's "let's just go hiking out in the forest, where the Professor knows about (but has completely underestimated) some giant-brained monkeys!" Maybe it was just the quality contrast between "BloodMonkey" and "Spiders II", but this strikes me as the best Sci-Fi Creature Feature that I can readily pull out of my memory (I mean, just _none_ stand out as even decent). Admittedly it was _far_ short of great, and it started out a bit slow after the first (action) scene, and the effects (particularly the sinking of the protagonists' boat) were on the cheap side (After their boat sank, I honestly do not believe that they actually shot Niznik & Kromer in actual water. It looked like they added the water in postproduction). But giant spiders with sharp, pointy teeth can be convincingly scary without having to be really perfect. Except that they made a lotta growling and bellowing noise (another reviewer compared this to elephants). Spiders don't make noise, do they? Neither do people, when they get a pair of giant spider's fangs stuck through both of their lungs. I did NOT, however, find myself shouting at characters for making unbelievably stupid mistakes with the worst possible timing, which is how I would invite violent assault if I were to attempt to watch, for example, "BloodMonkey" in a public theater.In fairness, I had Stephanie Niznik mistaken for Milla Jovovitch throughout. Go ahead, shoot me, but I've never watched either of them much. They're both pretty easy on the eyes. Water sticks to neither of them, unfortunately, which is a shame. I recall Milla going swimming in "Resident Evil" and thinking we were gonna be in for a potentially great wet little-red-dress sequence. Alas, no. They hadda dry her off to continue filming. I was getting my hopes up for something similar when Niznik stripped to her tank top. I mean, there's water dripping from the upper deck everywhere, it's only a matter of time before she gets soaked. No, sorry, can't go there, even if the movie _does_ have an R rating. On Sci-Fi, of course, they had to cut all sex, nudity, and language, derating this movie to PG. Too bad. There was a shower scene which could have really fried, but more likely didn't, anyway. I'd go rent it, but I'll bet it wasn't that big of a deal.Practically all of the action is concentrated into the last half-hour (make that 20 minutes without commercial breaks), ramping up just before and pretty much 'officially beginning' with the aforementioned mild stripdown. It took 'Alexandra' an amazingly long time to realize that her husband was _right_, there _was_ something seriously fishy going on onboard the boat that had rescued them. Hubby had been trying to tell her this for about two days, but she'd ignored his concerns until he disappeared. It finally came together for her only when the Captain locked her into his cabin with him, a nice dinner, and a bottle of wine. It's from there out that Stephanie Niznik (and, in fairness, the script) makes this movie as good as it is. Reminiscent of Milla in "Resident Evil" and Sigourney Weaver's multiple "Alien*" performances, she's scared but fairly cool (if not quite as frosty as Ripley), quick, and determined. She forcibly denies the horny captain's advance, kneeing him (and a few sailors, as well) in the groin, and generally does a fine job once the fighting starts, using whatever weapon is at hand, improvising when there's none, and never ever indulging in 'screaming just for the sake of it'. She _never_ gives up (even when faced with going _back_ inside, a la Ripley, to fetch a vaccine and save Hubby's life), and is sharp enough to be the only character in the movie who doesn't let a spider sneak up upon them. The bottom line is that she manages to save not only her own ass, but her husband's as well. She tallied up an excellent accounting for any action heroine, except when she tried to interrogate the Mad Doctor by pressing a gun to his forehead (instead of shooting out a kneecap at range), which was her only serious mistake. It didn't quite cost her, though, 'cuz a spider snuck up behind the Doctor just in time! Gratuitous? Of course, but amusing anyway, particularly because they only did it _once_. Every other win, she had to _earn_.The final scene, which was probably a reprise of the finale of the first "Spiders" movie, seemed forced and out of place.I can't leave out the pair of spiders on the deck which were indulging in a tug-of-war over one of the sailors. It's entertaining little details like that which lift decency up over crap, and "Spiders II" has almost enough of them, while also easing up on the futile screams.I'd be maybe tempted to give it more than 5 stars, but come on, we're talking about a late-night Sci-Fi Creature Feature here, which can't possibly count as more than a "B" grade movie at best. The Filthy Critic might even give it three fingers, if he saw it uncut, and was feeling generous, and liked Stephanie. It would depend on the shower scene.
capkronos
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.
