Nice Arachnid
Colton West (Steve Guttenberg - Meet the Santas) was once a major action movie star but these days he is better known for making headlines for the wrong reasons, alongside some less than impressive creature features. But after California is hit by a series of earthquakes there is a bigger surprise in store when a mega eruption leads to not just human sized arachnids appearing from deep beneath the Earth's crust but these bad boys can spit fire as well. Whilst Colton does what any action movie star would do, grab his shotgun and hijack a tour bus to try and find his son, his wife, Olivia (Nia Peeples - Sub Zero), does some spider butt kicking herself.
If you thought the original "Sharknado" was made with its tongue firmly in cheek well "Lavalantula" was not just made with its tongue in its cheek but it is bursting out of the side. What do I mean? Well there is even a cameo from Ian Ziering as Fin Shepard who of course is to busy to help with a fire spitting spider issue as he has a shark problem going on. And unsurprisingly, with this being tongue in cheek, there are other cameos in this including some of Steve Guttenberg's "Police Academy" buddies with Michael Winslow, Marion Ramsey and Leslie Easterbrook all showing up in minor roles. But wait, with this being tongue in cheek all the intentional bad acting works and so this nonsense ends up fun, that enjoyably bad sort of fun.
Aside from the cameos we also get some self referential humour when it comes to action movies, old action stars and mutant creature features. Look it is all incredibly stupid as we watch Colton take on these fire spitting spiders but it is stupid which works, maybe not as well as the "Sharknado" movies but it still works. In fact at some point I will watch the sequel, yes for those who didn't know there is "2 Lava 2 Lantula!", I wonder when we will get a Sharknado vs Lavalantula battle.
What this all boils down to is that "Lavalantula" is some stupid fun made to be similar to "Sharknado" but with Steve Guttenberg and a few familiar faces battling fire spitting spiders. And whilst I can't stop telling you it is stupid it might just make you laugh.
