DVD review: Creepies (Video 2003)

Deadly spiders are accidentally unleashed from a top-secret military installation. Army specialists and Tanks are called in to exterminate the deadly predators, but the outbreak is worse than expected. Weapons of mass destruction have little or no effect on the venomous spiders. Civilians are strangled with spider webs and eaten alive. The Military in a desperate effort to eradicate the killer spiders, decide to demolish the entire city. Creepies is written by Eric Spudic and directed by Jeff Leroy. The acting is pretty bad but Í don´t watch these movies for price winning performances and don´t expect any. I watch them for the entertainment factor. The camerawork and editing is pretty good. Rapid pacing, there´s hardly a dull moment in it. There's gore throughout the film as people get eaten and ripped apart by the spiders. The spiders, well we get a combination of computer gendered fx, some made out of rubber, some made out of plastic, stuffed animals and so on. The cgi is pretty bad but entertaining and has a certain charm. As usual with Jeff Leroy flicks there is miniature buildings, military vehicles, matchbox cars, helicopters and the characters are armed with toyguns (that you can buy at Toys R Us). And yes, Jeff gets to blow up things in this flick also, there is big practical explosions galore as the the military tries to eradicate the spiders. There is no T & A in this.
This review is based upon the region 1 DVD release from Maverick Entertainment.
Rating: 4½ out of 7. I had a good time watching this. It´s yet another entertaining micro-budget feature flick from Jeff Leroy made with imagination, enthusiasm and love. Although I do prefer practical fx (I'm crazy 'bout miniatures) instead of cgi some of it is laugh out loud bad in Creepies, I realize that a flick on this scale would have been difficult or even perhaps impossible to pull off without resorting to cgi. If you´re a fan of low budget flicks and creature features this one is for you but mainstream film fans should stay far away.

/JL