Arachnophobia is an excellent blend of horror, suspense and humor that doesn't get enough credit

I only watched this movie for the first time recently. I was under the impression it was some sort of slapstick comedy involving an arachnophobe played by Jeff Daniels hiring John Goodman to exterminate his house or something. I was pleasantly surprised. This was a real blast. It felt like it was trying to combine the tones of Gremlins and Jaws, and it succeeded quite admirably. There's some true terror and almost Hitchcockian suspense here and first time director Frank Marshall does a good job with the buildup, letting us get to know the town and characters before all hell breaks loose. Marshall also perfectly balances the horror with some humor brought in by John Goodman's exterminator character who helps alleviate the tension but not to the point where he turns the film into a full out comedyMarshall apparently wanted to recreate the feel of a "roller coaster" and this movie does a great job of that.Jeff Daniels is also a great everyman lead and he has great support from John Goodman and Julian Sands. This is basically a B movie with an A list budget and crew. How many horror movies, especially creature features, today would take the time and money to go and film a 15 minute prologue in Venezuela complete with sweeping helicopter shots?This movie did only OK business and has kind of been lost in the shuffle and not as remembered as the other Amblin catalog films at the time (movies like Poltergeist, Gremlins, The Goonies and of course huge movies like ET and Back to the Future) but I'd say this movie deserves to be just as fondly remembered as those films.There are have been talks of a remake of Arachnophobia but I'd say it won't be as good. Especially since they no doubt will use CGI spiders instead of the mix of real and animatronic ones this movie used and there is no doubt it won't look as good via /r/movies https://ift.tt/3AmpiOt