Arachnophobia has been labeled a 90s classic in the eyes of horror fans. Not only does it have a perfect execution of spine-chilling horror, but it also manages to balance it with excellent comedy. Considering just how iconic the film was, many were concerned when it was announced that the film would be getting a remake.
However, since James Wan will be heading the project, their worries have been put at ease. The director has an impressive track record with horror, having been behind projects like The Conjuring series, The Nun films, Annabelle, and Saw.
Reminiscing back to the original movie, Jeff Daniels, who played the role of Dr. Ross Jennings, talked about his experience working on the original film.
Arachnophobia Could have Been a Lot Worse for Jeff Daniels
Jeff Daniels gave an interview with ScreenRant where he talked about what it was like for him to work on Frank Marshall and Steven Spielberg’s Arachnophobia. He started by answering the most asked question: Will he be a part of the remake? Unfortunately, the actor revealed that he had not been contacted about making any sort of appearance.
He then talked about the movie itself. As the name suggests, the stars of the film are a whole lot of spiders. Since the movie was made in 1990, all of the Arachne in the movie were very real. Many would expect the shooting to have been a nightmare for the cast. While that may have been true for some, it was not the case for Daniels.
“No one’s talked to me [about Wan’s remake], but I enjoyed doing it. I’m glad it was spiders and not snakes, I couldn’t have handled it, I’d still be in therapy if it was snakes.”
The actor revealed that he had no problem dealing with spiders. However, if the spiders had been replaced with snakes, he would not have been able to do it. He even joked that he would be needing therapy to this date with how traumatizing the experience would have been for him.
Jeff Daniels and His Co-Star—A Spider
Jeff Daniels then went on to talk about the last two weeks of filming on Arachnophobia. It would seem that this last second of filming was specifically left for the basement scenes in the film, where Dr. Ross Jennings is stuck with a huge spider. It would seem that the Arachne in the sequence was very real and made the actor deeply uncomfortable.
“All I remember is the last two weeks of that shoot, where we said goodbye to John Goodman, and everybody clapped, and then there were two weeks left of shooting with just me and that huge spider in the basement. My costar was that spider, as big as my hand that could rear up and hiss. They would put a rat in its cage on Friday to feed it, and then they would take out the tail on Monday.”
He talked about how big it was, being the size of his hand and needing a lot of caution. He seemed to have paid very close attention to the creature, as he had its eating habits memorized three decades later. Daniels revealed that the spider would get a rat for food before the weekend began, and by the time they came back, a tail would be all that was left of the rodent.
