Arachnid

At least bad movies are still getting made.

Arachnid starts off with some CGI not fit for a video game these days. A stealth fighter encounters an alien ship sucking fish and dolphins out of the ocean near Guam. The stealth crashes into the ship, which destroys both craft resulting in the the worst fireball I've seen since the days of the Atari 2600. Cheap models would have been more convincing than this crap.
The human pilot manages to eject and lands on an island near the wreckage of the alien ship. He arrives just in time to see a giant spider (apparently a specimen on board the UFO) eat the alien pilot. Then it eats him.
Somewhere else, a female pilot lands her plane. Then we find out the point of the movie when she removes her flight suit and is wearing only an undersized and really tight tee-shirt and shorts underneath. The actress looks sort of like Lara Croft and her costume and hair style are also as similar to Croft's as possible.
The woman drives to a hospital where she sees a disfigured man being treated. The doctor, Leon, and his semi-sexy assistant, Susana, inform the pilot, Mercer, that she has been hired to fly an expedition to the sick man's island to find out what caused his condition.
At this point, Chris Potter walks in. Yep, Peter Cain from Kung Fu: The Legend Continues himself. I was simultaneously glad he's still getting work and saddened that it's in crap like this. Anyway, Potter leads a band of inept mercenaries who will provide security on the expedition.
The next day, we meet the rest of our cast. First up is Casper the Crazy Guy from Octopus. Here he's an entymologist specializing in arachnids. We also meet Toe Boy, the native guide, and his Fodder Friends. Lastly, there's Bear, the big black guy, and Dead Meat. Okay, Dead Meat isn't his name but it might as well be.
On the way to the island, Potter makes small talk with Mercer, who informs him she isn't interested in human contact of any kind. Then, the plane loses power once they get to the island. Now, I don't know how difficult it is to steer a plane that's lost power, but Mercer almost hits a rock and then nose-dives right into the beach. It just seems like she could have done a little better.
Susana thanks God that they're all right. Mercer replies, "God wasn't flying this plane. I was." Right, Mercer, Susana should have dropped to her hands and knees before you and kissed your feet instead of praising her chosen deity.
Casper runs off to collect a plastic spider sitting in a cotton web. That's quite a find! Dead Meat comes along just in time to save Casper from a larger-than-average spider. We don't know how big it was because it never appears in the same shot with our cast.
Dr. Leon insists they continue with the mission and let Toe Boy guide them to his village, then get rescued later. It's played up like he's an arrogant prick for wanting to do this. Yeah, what a jerk! Wanting to help the dying people on this island, like he came here to do!
While collecting their gear, Mercer posits that Susana got her degree by sleeping around (b***h). Susana, for lack of a better word, PWNs Mercer by detailing exactly how long she spent in the jungle classifying level III viruses and such. I like this part.
On the way to the village, someone offscreen flings some mulch on Dead Meat. We are informed that the mulch was, in fact, ticks. The ticks burrow under his skin. Casper doesn't know anything about ticks that do that. Mercer insults his intelligence (b***h) while Leon tries to buck him up. Then Mercer has the gall to accuse Leon of hurting Casper's feelings. What he said was a lot more supportive than what you said, Mercer!
Mercer wanders off by herself and falls into the pit of a giant trapdoor spider. Unfortunately, Potter comes by and saves her. Then the idiot REACHES INTO THE HOLE TO GET HER BOOT! Somebody throws a spider puppet at him but he doesn't notice.
They press on to the village, where everyone is dead (except for a dog). Dead Meat suddenly swells and the ticks burst from underneath his skin, just like that scene with Clint Howard in Ticks.
That night, Mercer has wandered off by herself again and encounters an arachnopedian (my word, not the movie's) -- a spider-snake. It kills one of the Fodder Friends and Toe Boy chops off its tail. The arachnopedian is the best part of the movie.
The next day, the group sets out for the plane. (How are they going to get it off the beach, throw it in reverse?) Bear and one of the Fodder Friends set out in a different direction (uh-oh). Casper wanders off (wandering off is a theme here) and gets captured by a giant spider. The others find him and put him out of his misery. Mercer objects to this. I guess she wanted him to suffer (b***h).
Meanwhile, Bear and the Fodder Friend are getting a little too friendly for comfort. Fortunately, a venom spitting spider attacks and kills the Fodder Friend.
Then the giant spider attacks the others! It spooges on Leon's face (don't ask) and chases the rest into an old bunker. They gripe about being low on ammo then waste dozens of round shooting through the roof at the spider. It then smashes through a window. Potter, maybe hoping for a way out of the movie, runs up to the spider and sticks his head in its mouth (no, really). Mercer shoots the spider and drives it off, forcing Potter to remain in the movie (b***h).
That night, the spider crawls through a hole in the ceiling and traps the trio in a safe room at the back of the bunker. Susana has had enough of this movie and runs outside, into the spider's maw. But first, since she's the sex bomb here, it has to probe her with its phallic stinger.
Potter bumps into a set of flipcards on the wall, knocking a card off and changing "07" to "37". I mention this because the director goes out of his way to show this to us. I guess it means something. Potter then finds a trapdoor leading to escape tunnels.
Outside, Mercer sees her long-lost brother (the stealth pilot from the beginning). I thougth he was going to be a duplicate made of spider silk, or a dream. The movie did me one better: he's a duplicate made of spider silk IN a dream.
The next day, Bear and Toe Boy team up with Mercer to bring the fight to the spider in its subterranean lair. This last scene is so dumb it takes away anything good the movie had accomplished to this point.
The spider has cocooned itself to molt. Spiders don't cocoon themselves to molt, they just shed their skins. Mercer climbs a rockface to take a look at it (stupid b***h). Instead of just shooting it from where he is, Mercer tells Bear to wait until she cuts it down (STUPID STUPID b***h). The spider hatches and goes right for Bear. No, kill Mercer! Toe Boy spears the spider and it chases him into a crevasse. Mercer runs away and the spider follows. Mercer trips (clumsy stupid stupid b***h) and the spider begins to cocoon her. Yay! Then the director forces Potter to come in and save her. Toe Boy shows up and blow darts the spider, which falls onto a stalagmite. Mercer picks up a medium-sized rock (yeah, that'll do a lot of good) but decides to let the spider suffer, just like Arnie did to the Predator in the exact same scene.
Mercer, Toe Boy, and Potter walk through the jungle, observed by a giant spider with a human head. At this point, I suppose the production ran out of money because the movie just stops.

Whew! Mercer is a lousy heroine. She accomplishes NOTHING aside form wandering off twice, being a stupid b***h, and getting people killed. Chris Potter looks poised to become the next Bo Svenson, an actor with modest success who finds himself forced into ever-worsening movies to pay the mortgage. Potter doesn't sleepwalk through his performance, like Svenson, nor does he quite give it the old college try, like Donald Pleasence. He's more like James Remar, delivering his lines as professionally as possible and moving on to the next paycheck.

Bottom line: same as the intro, at least bad movies are still getting made.