Over the last 14 years, I’ve tried watching this movie at least 3 times. And each time I couldn’t finish it. First I didn’t like the lack of production values then I felt the acting was off until I finally gave up. A huge factor in all my attempts was my state of mind as I was often high and looking for something that was going to keep my attention. Something trashy but visually appealing and sleek. Well, I’m not high anymore so I thought I give this movie another chance and it fucking worked! It just goes to show you that your opinions about certain movies might change over time. After all, we’re all changing constantly.
Infestation is an indie horror comedy about an invasion of giant spiders and a group of survivors trying to, well, survive. This is a fun little movie with a big heart and an excellent script. It has a big working-class heart as our hero is just another guy working yet another menial desk job. And then the spiders invade and make everything worse. Or better, depending on how you look at it. The first half of the movie is full of hilarious exchanges between him and the rest of his party. In the second half, we focus more on the action sequences getting only a couple of witty remarks.
The special effects are surprisingly good for a production of this size. Each of the scenes involving spiders was well-coordinated and shot in such a way that you don’t feel that lack of high-quality CGI or practical effects. Just to be clear we’re not at the Syfy level here and this is not Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus. They also used this strange filter to make up for that fact and the results were, well, acceptable. I mean, this is not the best-looking movie but it’s short, fast, and funny. And if you happen to love movies featuring giant spiders, you’ll like it even more. After all, this is one of the rare ones along with the early 2000s classic Eight Legged Freaks.
Meet Cooper, your average young guy working a dead-end job at a telemarketing company. And he’s about to lose that job after a bad exchange with a potential customer. However, just as he’s about to leave the room a strong noise renders him and everybody else unconscious. Cooper wakes up a couple of days later and realizes that something is horribly wrong. All of his coworkers are in spiderweb cocoons and they ain’t moving. He manages to wake up a few of them and together they start their new lives in the new spider kingdom.
Infestation leans heavily into all the B movie genre tropes starting with the stereotypical characters. You’ve got your reluctant hero, kickass heroine, dumb but hot blond, and so forth. Even the story itself follows a familiar path we’ve seen in countless other movies. So, just relax and enjoy the ride. Mostly because it’s quite a smooth ride, without any major bumps. We transition from action to horror and then to comedy naturally and dare I say organically.
I’ve watched a lot of these creature features while I was working on all the Subversive Rabbit natural horror lists. So, I’ve seen a lot of these small but charming movies like GoatSucker or Dead Ant and others. Finally, if you’re looking for movies like Infestation, I suggest you check out the much more in-your-face trilogy Feast. Or better yet, the hilarious New Zealand horror comedy Black Sheep about bloodthirsty sheep attacking people.
Director: Kyle Rankin
Writer: Kyle Rankin
Cast: Christopher Marquette, Brooke Nevin, Wesley Thompson, Ray Wise, Kinsey Packard, E. Quincy Sloan
Fun Facts: Icon Films offered the director and writer of the movie, Kyle Rankin along with the lead actor Chris Marquette an opportunity to shoot two more movies. However, this never came to fruition, probably because Icon Films backed out. This is also the reason why the finale is so open-ended.
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IMDb Link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1020543/
