Despite having such a silly title, Itsy Bitsy is one of the better spider movies of this millennium, because it actively avoids the three things that sink most of its peers: making the arachnid the size of skyscrapers, treating it like a comedy, or relying heavily on CGI. If only it had stuck the landing …
A prologue depicting a African tribe literally worshipping a spider demonstrates right away Micha Gallo isn’t wasting his feature directorial debut on Syfy-level schlock. That revered creepy crawler makes it way to America via a stolen jar and into the Midwestern home of an MS-stricken collector (Steel and Lace’s Bruce Davison, classing the place up), who pays handsomely for such fenced artifacts. Of course, he doesn’t know of the eight-legged freak awaiting within, so caveat emptor and all.
Nor does his live-in nurse, Kara (Elizabeth Roberts, Black Knight), a single mom who just moved there from New York with her two kids. The surly Jesse (Arman Darbo, a possible clone of Jonathan Taylor Thomas) is angry at his mother for the sudden upheaval, among other things, while little sis Cambria — apparently named after the font — has more important things on her mind to care: kitty cats and butterfly wings. However, Cambria (Chloe Perrin, The Diabolical) does take notice when a spider the size of a dog invades her bedroom at night!
That Gallo, an effects artist by trade, utilizes working models for the spider for a majority of the film is Itsy Bitsy’s greatest strength. As with the subgenre’s reigning kings — that’d be Kingdom of the Spiders and Arachnophobia, of course — the “realism” elicits a serious case of the shivers. Conversely, Itsy Bitsy’s greatest liability is the decision to go full family-drama mode in the climax. While one can appreciate Kara and clan having more than one dimension to their characters, allowing Roberts and Darbo to deliver true performances, the whiplashed shift from thrills to emotions ruins the vibe and derails the third act. —Rod Lott