Camel Spiders

12/18/2020

_**Beautiful desert locations, earnest cast, bad script**_ A captain and sergeant (Brian Krause and Melissa Brasselle) bringing home the body of their comrade from Afghanistan unwittingly unleash several camel spiders in the Southwest desert that terrorize the people. C. Thomas Howell plays the sheriff, but is unrecognizable. I’m an unabashed fan of Grade B creature features, but “Camel Spiders” (2011) is Exhibit A on how not to write a script. The movie starts with an action-packed sequence in Afghanistan (shot at Vasquez Rocks, just north of Los Angeles in the high country), but the filmmakers make the mistake of showing the oversized camel spiders right out of the gate, which destroys any sense of suspense. This isn’t helped by the cartoonish spider CGI. How did these creature