WEBS

Four workers from a company responsible for electrical energy control enter an abandoned building where an electricity leak has been reported. They will discover that the cause of this leak comes from an old ruined laboratory that hides a portal to another dimension. The four workers will thus end up in a terrifying parallel dimension where humans seem to have been extinct for years to make way for fierce half-human half-spider creatures. «Webs» is an American film distributed in 2003 for the home video market only that has no reason to be remembered in the following years but that nevertheless stands out quite a bit from the classic bad products distributed always only for home commerce. The film, directed by a relatively unknown David Wu, relies on a particularly stupid and unbelievable story (it seems to have been conceived by a six-year-old child) but tries to camouflage its fundamental stupidity with several science fiction aspects. The screenplay, although very elementary, is rather complete, avoids creating particular «holes» and manages to involve the viewer from the first to the last minute. A demerit point of the film can be found in the disappointing cast populated by little-known or totally unknown actors who most of the time fail to perfectly embody their role; starting with the protagonist, played by a squalid Richard Grieco, who seems little suited to perform the role assigned to him but even less suited to act (he would have been much more suited to playing the assistant magician of Topo Gigio in a children's show); the only known face in the film is Kate Greenhouse who has already appeared in other genre films such as the recent «The Dark Hours». Moreover, the film employs an incredible recycling of actors, as the «monstrous» creatures are always played by the same five or six people who, although dead in the previous scene, return in the next to play new monsters simply by changing wigs. The digital effects, although used very rarely, appear a bit rough but overall appreciable as they manage to integrate quite well with the scenario. Disappointing is also the makeup and the gore-splatter level: the makeup seems definitely insufficient, especially regarding the aesthetic representation of the monsters, which are made absolutely ridiculous (horrible wigs, fake teeth, plastic claws and a bit of makeup under the eyes) managing to make comic everything that in reality should have inspired terror; as for the splatter level, the film can be considered almost totally exempt from «strong» scenes that would have easily fit in and would have surely improved the overall result. In conclusion, this «Webs» can be considered as a useless and low-quality product but that, if watched in a humorous way and without expecting anything serious, manages to surely entertain and amuse the viewer for an hour and twenty. Fun but easily negligible; it surely deserves half a point less.