In this, the spookiest of seasons, we’ve been blessed by the gods of schlock horror, who I assume look exactly like Joe Bob Briggs and Darcy. They have delivered onto us one of the finest gifts we could receive. Crawlers, an 80-minute creature feature full of bugs, blood, and eyeballs.

We could lower ourselves to answer questions like “is it good,” “is it well-written,” or even “had anyone involved in the movie ever been on the internet before?”. Round these parts, though, we don’t look gift horses in the mouth. In this world of bloated, overly self-serious horror that pushes the limits of an acceptable runtime far too often, getting the kind of quick picture made for drive-ins is a rarity worth delighting in. 

Much like January’s Primate, which only concerned itself with how scary you could make a chimpanzee, Crawlers doesn’t have lofty aims. It simply asks: what if, like, a lot of spiders wanted to murder you?

Spanish director Ángel Gómez Hernández and writer Jayson Rothwell have created a world of cartoonish characters and improbable circumstances that are a whole lot of fun to watch even if they never actually make sense. Aspiring musician and building super Serena (Matilda Lutz) goes around the building, attempting to fix what she can. Her boss refuses to call in the pros. Her tenants? Ungrateful at best. Unpleasant but in that average kind of way.

Then everything goes haywire. Serena discovers one of the tenants has mysteriously died. Before the building can even come up with a theory, they’re put on lockdown by the government trying to stop the spread of whatever killed the poor guy. Serena quickly learns this was no virus. Rather, it’s thousands of mutant killer spiders. Now the tenants have to figure out a way to stay alive before the creepy crawlies get them.

The film’s simple, explicit parameters allow it to fly by at a clip. There’s very little bogging down the action, even if it’s hard not to wish better actors were portraying it. The opening sequence alone is not for the squeamish, with hundreds of baby spiders bursting out of a man’s back. It only ramps up from there. There’s flesh to peel and eyeballs to pop out. Plenty of imagery to get the real arachnophobes feeling itchy.

In between the gore and gross-outs, we get some flimsy character development. It’s not really enough to make you feel much of anything about anyone. Luckily, Lutz has just enough natural charm to make you at least hope for the best. Melina Matthews as Lady Lash, a saucy dominatrix, steals the show, though. Both get true standout moments of absurdity that will have you absolutely cackling.

That said, the film’s flaws are abundant and obvious. At one point, Serena whispers to herself, “This is my moment!” to the audience’s raised eyebrow asking, “Is it???”. What moment is she referring to? Who knows? The script surely doesn’t. Another tenant, a live-streaming artist, has an entire schtick that feels like something out of an early aughts DCOM.

The effects range from passable to good, but the only real complaint is how difficult it was to tell when any real spiders were actually on set. There’s such a CGI sheen to everything, the practical effects seemed to disappear in a way that didn’t serve the film. You want those little fuckers to feel tangible, like they’re going to crawl right under your seat. The CGI makes them seem like make-believe, diminishing the scare factor.

But I maintain, this is not the picture to concern yourself with these things. This is a picture to load up on popcorn and candy and squeal and laugh like it’s a damn slumber party. Approaching it without a whiff of sincerity will yield you one of your silliest nights of the year.

Crawlers is creeping all over multiplexes starting October 16.

Crawlers Trailer: