The Science of Monsters

Arachnids are phobic about Lemon Pledge (it gums up their feet). Kutcher was able to control some of their movements by spraying blotches of the stuff on the sets’ floors and walls. Also, spiders don’t like heat, so hair dryers blown through pinholes were effective prods. For more exact choreography, minuscule leashes were attached to their abdomens with wax. And in some extreme instances, tiny metal plates, controlled by electromagnets, were glued to their tummies. A technique, Kutcher assures, which causes them no harm.⁸

Although real spiders were used in the majority of the shots, rubber spiders had to be used when the script called for a spider’s death (no spiders were killed in the making of Arachnophobia). During the climax when Ross Jennings must defeat the vicious “Big Bob,” a mechanical fifteen-inch double had to be made. “He has to stalk Jeff Daniels; he has to stay in the right light, and if we waited for him to do that, we’d be here three or four months longer,” Marshall told the New York Times. “The main character had to become a creature, and no spider out there could give us the vicious, evil close-ups the script called for,” added visual effects supervisor David Sosalla. “The evilest ones, with real ugly looking faces, were too tiny.”⁹ This suggestion that the spider needs to become a creature and more, display humanistic traits of evil, is important to note. Is attributing negative human characteristics to animals what ultimately makes for an effective movie monster?

The tendency for us to typify animals as having similarly human emotions is one rooted in our childhoods. “Children are frequently exposed to anthropomorphic depictions of animals. The impact of anthropomorphism on children’s development of factual and biological knowledge about real animals has consequences for how we engage children in early learning about the natural world.”¹⁰ This is often in a positive light (especially in our view of household pets) and even in the depiction of the pleasant spider Charlotte in E. B. White’s novel Charlotte’s Web (1952). Charlotte is the heroine of the story, which is later adapted in animation (1973) and live action (2006) films. She is kind, patient, and saves Wilbur from slaughter. And her death is one of the more poignant deaths in children’s literature. If Charlotte’s cleverness and helpfulness can transform a simple barn spider into a heroine, then it stands to reason that the makers of Arachnophobia, and so many killer-spider films of its ilk, must portray spiders as having malevolent intentions. The spiders’ “legginess” might be what makes us cringe, but it is their sinister machinations of death and destruction that make a movie. Cujo, too, is anthropomorphized. Rather than characterized as an animal who is confused, unlucky, or a victim, he is seen as innocent. And at the turn of a bite, he is at once evil.

An important aspect of Arachnophobia is revealed in the title itself. Main character Dr. Ross Jennings is afflicted with arachnophobia. A fact known to his wife and children, as his wife, Molly (Harley Jane Kozak), usurps gender norms by being the spouse who dispatches a spider in their home. Ross explains that this phobia began in childhood when he was terrorized by a spider in his crib and was unable to move out of fear. This paralysis returns at the climax of the film when Ross is struck motionless as “Big Bob” walks on his body. In true movie fashion, Ross overcomes the paralysis and ultimately kills the creature and restores his family and town back to spider-less normalcy. This film, and the trope of deadly animals in general, got us thinking about phobias. How do they manifest physically? And is Ross Jennings’s temporary paralysis a realistic depiction of a phobic’s response?

Arachnophobia is the fear of spiders.

More than twenty-six million people in the world suffer from a phobia, an exaggerated or irrational fear which can be classified into one of three categories; simple phobias, social phobias, and panic attacks. Arachnophobia, along with intense fears of things like snakes, closed places, and even clowns falls under the simple phobia classification. As for the second category:

Social phobias are fears of being in situations where your activities can be watched and judged by others. The difference between having a social phobia and simply being shy is that shy people usually don’t try to avoid social situations. People with social phobias find excuses not to go to parties or out on dates. If asked to give a speech in class, they react as if they are facing a real physical threat.¹¹