October 1, 2023
College dropout Vin Spencer believes that living rough on the streets of New York City has taught him everything there is to know about the shadowy corners and countless secrets within the city that never sleeps, until the night he stumbles across a horribly scarred, hammer-wielding man doing battle with a spider the size of a pit bull in the park. The man, Reynolds, explains that the city secretly abounds with enormous arachnids, which prey primarily upon unhoused people, and that he's made it his life's mission to track them down and wipe them out, nest by nest. Vin is shaken but ultimately inspired to join Reynolds's nightly hunts through abandoned buildings and crumbling tenements. Before long, their crusade causes them to cross paths with Parks and Recreation officer Dani Dominguez and her boss, whose determination to accumulate political power at any cost threatens to derail Vin and Reynolds's campaign just as they discover the secret lair of the largest, most ravenous spider of them all. VERDICT Foxe's (Dark X-Men) scripting emphasizes thrills and chills over exposition without shortchanging character development in this exhilaratingly pulpy horror thriller.
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