Arachnophobia

I try to experience new things, grow and learn from new experiences. I genuinely want to keep an open mind. There is a limit. Now let’s talk about B movies.

Hubby recently discovered I’d never watched Arachnophobia. Oddly, it has not once occurred to me to consider this a deficit in my pursuit of theatrical enlightenment. Let’s be honest, there are a lot of movies I haven’t seen. Titanic 2, for example. Does it really matter that I haven’t seen it? No. From talking to The Girl, I’m actually better off. I’ve seen such B movie classics as Rocky Horror Picture Show, Buckaroo Banzai, Sharknado, and Megashark vs Crocosaurus, and others that I’d rather forget like Airplane vs Volcano, Two-Headed Shark Attack, and Dracula 3000. Bit heavy on the sharks there, hmm.

Now some B movies just happen to be low budget and that’s all that really holds them in that category. For me it isn’t enough. A B movie isn’t all about budget anymore. Technically, Arachnophobia, isn’t a B movie. It had a big budget and was billed as a horror-comedy. Yeah. I’m going to shove it in the B movie category anyway because, while some movies are intentionally ridiculous and bad, some try for greatness and fail.

Regardless of how you want to categorize Arachnophobia, it’s ridiculous. Yet Hubby insists I watch it. I tried to explain that it’s not exactly an oversight that I haven’t seen it. “Tried” being the operative word there. Odd, usually I’m fairly articulate. I would have thought, after 22 years of marriage, that he’d be aware I’m not fond of spiders. Somehow, I’ve neglected to mention it to him. This is why women shouldn’t kill their own spiders, ladies. Apparently, men can only see women in two ways: we’re either terrified of the tiniest eight-legged arthropod, or we love them. It’s beyond weird.

Anyway, I did manage to watch it with him while The Girl was at school. Why? Because she falls into the ‘terrified of the tiniest eight-legged arthropod’ category of women. I haven’t convinced my “self-rescuing princess” (per her T-shirt) that she can rescue herself from a spider. Getting there.

So Hubby and I sat down to watch a movie designed to reducing me to a twitching mess. I had a roommate in college who couldn’t help herself from going to movies, then coming home and giving me a play-by-play of the entire storyline. I knew everything that was going to happen because this was one movie that I didn’t mind so much not bothering to go see myself. I knew the story wasn’t scary (to me) it was just going to get me on the startles. I really don’t like those. I anticipated, after this movie, walking around the house, staring at the floor with suspicion and looking for invisible spiders.

Note on the invisible spiders for those who haven’t read those older posts: every house has its own species of indoor spider. The variety that lives in this house is different than our previous house, to the glee of the children. Spiders in this house are only seen on the walls. (Clearly we have fewer here.) Let’s take a closer look at that sentence, shall we? It’s completely true, and yet misleading. Spiders in this house are only seen on the walls. That’s because they exactly match the carpet. I’m serious. If you go to whack one, and miss, and it falls – you will never find it. The spider becomes invisible. Except to cats, who occasionally can be found to seemingly stalk and play with air. It’s bizarre and unnerving. (The next house will have blue walls and floors. I want to see them coming.)

So I have invisible spiders and I just watched Arachnophobia, anyone see a problem? I now have images in my mind that spiders can hiss at you (who knew?), stalk you (I suspected this already), and can fling themselves the length of the room as if they could fly (as if rappelling down invisible lines wasn’t bad enough).  I may have to get back to you on how this new information impacts my view of spiders in my little corner of the world. The season for invisible spiders has largely passed, so I may be safe. Although I believe the rules of marriage give me the right to demand Hubby sit through a chic-flick with me now. I’m perusing the options.