found drama

We (A. & I) are hanging out with a bunch of friends (maybe about three or four others). There’s some imbibing going on and we’re talking, talking, talking. The discussion is mostly about literature and film and seems to center around titles that are obscure but not necessarily esoteric. The conversation moves toward horror titles and our one friend asks if anyone else has seen: Return of the Spider…?

When no one has, he starts rummaging around the room looking for his VHS copy of the film. He immediately throws out several qualifiers. For example: “Yes, I know it’s a B-movie but…” And proceeds to describe how it was probably the scariest film that he’s seen and was remarkably intellectual in a “what if” sort of way.

The film’s premise is that the United States government has been conducting research on some kind of insect from Louisana bayous that ears spiders. The insect is some tough motherfucker of a bug and it seems resistant to all manner of poisons and pollutants, etc. It’s unclear from his description if the labs are conducting research in genetic engineering or some other controversial science. The end result though is that the organism or robot or nanotech critter or whatever it was that is based on this spider-eating insect and is designed to survive a nuclear holocaust for clean-up and vengeance purposes escapes and runs amok.

“No, really! It’s way better than it sounds!”

I ask if the Return… part of the title implies that this is a sequel. Apparently, it’s not but they did go on to make a prequel called Origin of the Spider which was decidedly terrible, according to our host.

Before he can pop in the film though we hear a bunch of commotion from outside and folks need to scramble to move their cars before they can be towed. I tried to create a diversion by pedaling this frozen bicycle back and forth in front of the path of the tow truck but the bicycle kept changing shape underneath me. And besides, it was frozen anyway.

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