History Film / Arachnophobia

* Determinator: Even after being set ablaze, the General still makes one final attempt at delivering a fatal bite to Jennings. At this point he is doomed and is simply trying to protect his unhatched offspring.

* GonnaNeedMoreTrope: Once they discover the Queen's nest, Delbert realizes his homemade insecticide isn't going to be strong enough.

* GreenEyedMonster: Metcalf's own wife has him pegged when she suspects that the reason he's so hard on Ross is that he's jealous he's not only a younger doctor but also a better one as well. Though Metcalf won't say it, it does lend credit that there's more to his disdain towards Ross than simple professionalism.

* MuggingTheMonster: When the General arrives in town, a crow mistakenly believes the spider to be an easy snack and captures it. The General injects its venom into the crow, causing it to drop dead in mid-flight.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: The county coroner, Milt Briggs. While he's also skeptical about Ross' claims about the spiders, unlike Metcalf and Sheriff Parsons, he does not dismiss him entirely and gives the go ahead to give Metcalf an autopsy. When said autopsy DOES reveal that Metcalf was killed by an unknown poison, Briggs immediately allows Ross to exhume the bodies of the other victims to further prove his suspicions.

* SkepticNoLonger: Sheriff Parsons,Milt and Chris are all a little skeptical of Ross's claims at first. This attitude utterly vanishes when an examination of the three bodies turns up a spider bite on each corpse.
* SpidersAreScary: The film is about a group of hybridized spiders that invaded a California town and begin killing the inhabitants that live there.

* TooDumbToLive: [[spoiler:Atherton's the foremost spider expert in the country, and he's been extensively informed how dangerous the new breed of spiders are. He sees no problem however in investigating the huge spider's nest in Ross's barn all by himself, with no protection whatsoever. And then deliberately twanging the spider's web, apparently to get it to show its face. Predictably, he dies within minutes]].

* TheWorldsExpertOnGettingKilled: [[spoiler:Atherton, who knows all about the killer spiders goes down like a RedShirt. Perhaps a little more acceptable than most examples because he's a scientist, not a hunter, but he still wasn't very careful despite knowing how dangerous the spiders were.]]

* TheCityVsTheCountry: Ross and his family move into a small town. The townspeople immediately resent him for being from the city, mainly because Dr. Metcalf slanders him out of spite and uses the string of mysterious deaths to make him look like a quack.

* SuperOCD: Metcalf walks his treadmill (rather than around the neighborhood with his wife) because he must know ''exactly'' how far he's gone and ''exactly'' how long it took.

* SkepticNoLonger: Sheriff Parsons and Chris are a little skeptical of Ross's claims at first. This attitude utterly vanishes when an examination of the three bodies turns up a spider bite on each corpse.

* AllForNothing: Minor example with the much-prized bottle of Château Margaux. After making a RunningGag of keeping it safe at all costs (even having Ross refuse to toss it when he's flinging bottles at The General in a desperate attempt to keep it away from him), neither Ross nor his wife manage to sip a single drop before an earthquake in San Francisco makes them go check if their kids are safe... and then an aftershock spills most of it.

* AutopsySnackTime: A mortuary worker munches a sandwich while the crate containing the photographer's body is being opened, then sets it down on a worktable used for preparing bodies. Later on he has a bag of chips with him when Ross, the morgue and the scientist's assistant examine three bodies in search for spider bites.

* BigGood: Delbert's a unique variety. It's not every day a grubby, humble ''exterminator'' becomes a beacon of hope against the General and his spiders. A prime example is, when one of those spiders come on the scene, their theme plays. [[{{Symbolism}} However]], when Delbert sees one of these things, his theme overshadows it.
* BloodFromTheMouth: All victims of the killer spiders are characterized by having a stream of blood from one side of their mouth. This is [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Ross that, upon investigating [[spoiler: Margaret's]] death, he tells Metcalf that one 'does not bite their tongue off' from a mere heart attack.

** A RunningGag of the movie is Ross keeping his bottle of Château Margaux safe. He even spares it during his life and death battle with the General at the end. It manages to survive the entire movie... only to get it all spilled by a random earthquake after he moves back to San Francisco at the end of the movie.

* DramaticIrony: Jerry Manley's mother is quite distraught at burying her now-late son, and bemoans she didn't get to see him one last time. Unbeknownst to her, her precious son's body had been desicated by the General, reduced to an unsightly mummy. So even if she had seen her baby boy, well.... [[MortonsFork There was just no outcome where her son's death wouldn't be any less devastating.]]

* GreenEyedMonster: Metcalf's own wife has him pegged when she suspects that the reason he's so hard on Ross is because he's jealous he's not only a younger doctor, but also a better one as well. Though Metcalf won't say it, it does lend credit that there's more to his disdain towards Ross than simple professionalism.

* ItsAllAboutMe: Dr. Metcalf. He has Ross replace him when he decides, then goes back on this on the fly and neglects to tell Ross until after he and his family have bought a house, he and his wife quit their jobs, and bought an office. Metcalf then gets extremely pissed that Ross has the ''gall '' to set up another clinic, and begins slandering him and blaming the rash of recent deaths on his incompetence and prevents any attempt Ross makes to examine the bodies to discredit him. He also cares more about public opinion than actually doing his job.

** Also, Ross and the other are informed that they'll recognize the "nest" where the Queen and "general" are because it'll be dark, moist, and no matter how many thousands may be outside, there will be ''absolutely no spiders'' there because the Queen won't let potentially cannibalistic workers near her babies. Sure enough, [[spoiler: in the climax the house is overrun by spiders, but when Ross crashes through the floor into the wine cellar, not one of the spiders goes down after him.]]

* NeverTrustATrailer: The trailer used lighthearted music and put major focus on Delbert, making it look to be a lighthearted comedy. Turns out that while there are comedic scenes, the film is basically nightmare fuel (or considering the film is about spiders, would that be nightmare venom?)

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: The county coroner, Milt Briggs. While he's also skeptical about Ross' claims about the spiders, unlike Metcalf and Sheriff Parsons, he does not dismiss him entirely, and gives the go ahead to give Metcalf an autopsy. When said autopsy DOES reveal that Metcalf was killed by an unknown poison, Briggs immediately allows Ross to exhume the bodies of the other victims to further prove his suspicions.

A horror/comedy film released in 1990, ''Arachnophobia'' starred Creator/JeffDaniels, Creator/JohnGoodman, Creator/JulianSands, and Creator/PeterJason, written by Don Jakoby and Wesley Strick, and produced by Creator/KathleenKennedy and Richard Vane, with Creator/StevenSpielberg as executive producer. This was the first film directed by Frank Marshall. It was also the first film released under {{Creator/Disney}}'s [[Creator/HollywoodPictures Hollywood Pictures label]].

* NerdGlasses: Both Chris and Delbert were prominent spectacles.

** Lloyd when he finds a ((dead)) spider in a box of cereal he was eating.

* AwesomeMcCoolName: Delbert [=McClintock=].

* KillItWithFire: [[spoiler:Ross destroys the second spider nest by using a nail gun on The General after setting the latter on fire]].

** Sheriff Parsons leaves the Jennings’ barn to return to the mortuary, and is never seen again. [[spoiler:[[WordOfGod According to Stuart Pankin, Parsons’ actor,]] there was a DeletedScene of a spider biting Parsons while he’s driving back, causing him to crash his cruiser.]]

* CorruptHick: Downplayed by Sheriff Parsons, who mainly uses his authority to give people unjust parking tickets just to be an ass, but never abuses his power beyond that.

* LovableJock: Coach Beecher and his older children, who welcome Ross and his family, and help him out with fitting into the community and getting patients both before and after Margaret dies.

* SkepticNoLonger: Sheriff Parsons and Chris are a little skeptical of Ross's claims at first. This attitude utterly vanishes when an examination of the three bodies turns up a spider bite on all of them.

* SpiderSwarm: Played UpToEleven. The Venezuelan spider species presented in the film consists mostly of drones that lack sex organs, and they have a hive with a queen similarly to bees or ants. It is implied that if let to breed freely, the spiders would eventually give birth to a new queen capable of birthing fertile offspring, eventually leading to [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the whole world being overrun]] by the extremely aggressive and venomous strain of spiders.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: There's a jay-sized live ''bird'' ensnared in the oversized web that the photographer stumbles into in the jungle. He's too busy freaking out to notice, but for the audience, it's an early indication that these spiders won't be setting for puny bugs as victims.

* TheAmazon: The killer spiders come from an unexplored jungle in Venezuela.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: The county coroner, Milt Briggs. While he's also skeptical about Ross' claims about the spiders, unlike Metcalf and Sheriff Parsons, he does not dismiss him entirely, and gives the go ahead to give Metcalf an autopsy. When said autopsy DOES reveal that Metcalf was killed by an unknown poison, Briggs immediately gives allows Ross to exhume the bodies of the other victims to further prove his suspicions.

* MonstrousCannibalism: As with most spiders, these are said to eat their own. The only reason why the barn is devoid of any normal spiders is because the Queen eats any that go near.

* GreenEyedMonster: Metcalf's own wife has him pegged when she suspects that the reason he's so hard on Ross is because he's jealous he's not only a younger doctor, but also a better one as well. Though Metcalf won't say it, it does lend credit that there's more to his disdain towards Ross than simple proffessionalism.

A [[SlidingScaleOfComedyAndHorror thriller/comedy]] (or "thrillomedy") film released in 1990, ''Arachnophobia'' starred Creator/JeffDaniels, Creator/JohnGoodman, Creator/JulianSands, and Creator/PeterJason, written by Don Jakoby and Wesley Strick, and produced by Creator/KathleenKennedy and Richard Vane, with Creator/StevenSpielberg as executive producer. This was the first film directed by Frank Marshall. It was also the first film released under {{Creator/Disney}}'s [[Creator/HollywoodPictures Hollywood Pictures label]].

* BigGood: Delbert's a unique variety. It's not every exterminator that's a beacon of hope against the General and his spiders. A prime example is, when one of those spiders come on the scene, their theme plays. [[{{Symbolism}} However]], when Delbert sees one of these things, his theme overshadows it.