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

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To celebrate high school graduation, four couples have concocted an utterly monstrous, mind-roasting plan: to spend the night in a furniture store. And not just any furniture store, but Fine Furniture downtown, whoa-ho! John (Sean Kanan, The Karate Kid Part III) even knows the ropes — because Dad owns the place — so it’s going to be totally bitchin’! On the agenda are beer, food and, of course, sex in the showroom beds.

Seeing the maze of mattresses and mannequins scattered across the joint’s multiple stories, Kim (Weekend Pass’ Annette Sinclair, a former Mrs. Bob Seger) suggests an epic, pre-dinner game of hide-and-go-seek. As the film’s title of Hide and Go Shriek confirms, that’s exactly what they do. The title also makes clear that some of the players aren’t going to live to see morning, because a killer is afoot.

The only movie ever directed by one Skip Schoolnik, the obscure Hide and Go Shriek arrived well after the ’80s slasher wave crested, but deserves wider awareness. That has zip to do with the acting, which is loud and bush-league, and everything to do with an ahead-of-its-time reveal I won’t spoil. Despite editing that saps any suspense, the film lands on the slasher genre’s comfort-food side. Giving it a big shove are the effects from Screaming Mad George (Beyond Re-Animator), with an elevator decapitation as a gruesome highlight, and the gratuitous nudity, including a rather hysterical sequence in which Judy (Donna Baltron, Bikini Squad) is so nervous about losing her virginity, yet launches into a striptease act so polished, her upper thighs have to smell like dirty dollar bills.

The idea of horny teens staying overnight in a department store had been done much better in 1986’s Chopping Mall, thanks to that Jim Wynorski pic’s satiric edge. By contrast, Shriek’s laughs are not intentional, what with these crazy kids’ $6 haircuts, Chinese fire drills and Bloom County T-shirts. —Rod Lott

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Nostalgia-amped superfans of Sid and Marty Krofft’s The Banana Splits Adventure Hour from the late 1960s and early ’70s — back when the phrase “Saturday morning” meant something — may be horrified to see what awaits under the innocuous title of The Banana Splits Movie: a honest-to-God slasher movie (and to complain about that is no better than the fanboys whining about girls being Ghostbusters). But in this ready-to-market age of IP revivals, reboots and reheats, it’s nice to see one that doesn’t just thumb its nose at the source material, but urinates on it, too.

In the direct-to-disc flick, the Krofft show exists (albeit under the name of Taft) in the real world of present. Speaking of present, it’s the birthday of young Harley (newcomer Finlay Wojtak-Hissong), a friendless boy who likes to wear butterfly wings while dancing along with his favorite show on TV, much to the dismay of his macho-asshole father (Steve Lund, TV’s Bitten). However, Mom (Dani Kind, TV’s Wynonna Earp) is so supportive that she’s scored the fam tickets to a live taping.

No one in the audience knows the episode being taped will be the last, as The Banana Splits has been axed — fresh news taken not so well by the animatronic foursome, thanks to a pre-curtain programming upgrade. Behind the scenes and at the post-show meet-and-greet, the Splits (Fleegle, Bingo, Drooper and Snorkel) take the frustration of unemployment out on everyone who deserves it, as dictated by slasher-movie rules, which director Danishka Esterhazy (Level 16) clearly delights in depicting — after all, it’s not every day you get to shoot a giant robot lion and dog respectively flambé a pushy parent’s face or saw an Instagram “influencer” in half.

But maybe it should be. Whatever possessed Warner Bros. to turn a beloved, kiddie-courting property into R-rated Grand Guignol … well, I’m for it. I’m guessing the runaway popularity of the Five Nights at Freddy’s video-game franchise among grade schoolers — now in high school with more rebellious taste — proved an unofficial factor. Yet from the start of the Krofft empire, the line between their creations and childrens’ therapy appointments has been drawn with the sharpest of washable markers, so it takes only one turn of the screw to reimagine the cute and cuddly as vile and violent. Essentially a two-location picture, The Banana Splits Movie looks flat and cheap, but self-parodic subversiveness and perversity work in its favor. —Rod Lott

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