Every once in a while my journey to the past
to watch every single Sci-Fi Original Movie ever made
surprises us. And by 'surprise' I mean I actually watch
a movie that didn't make me want to end my life.
Director David Wu's 'Webs' is that movie. A good
movie? Oh good heavens no, but entertaining one?
I'd have to say yes.
A crew of Chicago electricians are at some abandoned building
to shut down the power so it can be demolished. But in
the basement is a backroom that isn't on the blueprint.
What could it be? Well, it's a room with a mini-nuclear
reactor in it with a bunch of buttons. What our head
electrician with the long flowing locks, Dean (Richard Greico)
would his buddies to do in NOT press buttons or touch
stuff. They heard just the opposite. Next thing
you know a bright light erupts from the floor with Dean and
his colleague Junior (Jason Jones) transported to a Chicago
that's looking a little unfamiliar to them right now.
The streets are deserted, there are webs everywhere, but back
home their other two homies Ray (Richard Yearwood) and Sheldon
(Jeffrey Douglas) are feverishly looking for a solution.
Note that these two suck at solution searching.
Meanwhile in the other Chicago, Dean is dealing with Elena the
tough hottie (Kate Greenhouse) who is mesmerized by Dean's
flowing locks, like any normal woman would be, and lest we
forget Crane (David Nerman) the terminally pissed off dude who
hates Dean. I think it's the long flowing locks that are
setting him off.
Turns out that this world is inhabited
by mutated zombie creatures with giant claws, all caused when
some thirty years ago super smart Dr. Morelli (Colin Fox)
created a portal to a parallel universe. It's all
quantumly complicated and stuff, but his portal also
opened a portal to a monster world which
allowed a super smart, super evil giant spider queen to cross
over, essentially destroying this alternate planet
Earth. Doctor Morelli feels really bad about this.
But to his credit he has been looking for a solution for
saving this this alternate Earth he accidentally destroyed,
and lucky him an electrician with 'the mark' has showed
up. The Mark? A generic tattoo because alternate
Earth doesn't have tattoos. Somehow after hearing that
news, despite the killer spider zombies, alternate Earth isn't
looking so bad right now to the few survivors. Crazier
still is that his electrician buddies Ray and Sheldon have
come to save him. Ray tried to tell the authorities that
there is an alternate universe with giant spider mutant
zombies on it, but for some reason nobody believed him.
I don't want to say nothing about nothing, but I think it's
because he was a black guy.
The plan is for Dr. Fox to fix the situation, build a new time
warp or whatever the hell it is, and save the six or seven
people left alive on the planet earth before the Spider Queen
learns of the new time warp and makes it to our planet.
It's not looking good for our heroes and Ray the Black Guy is
dead set on taking a load of money back into our world through
the time warp. Not that I'm mad at Ray for wanting to
acquire a bunch of loot, because I'm totally down with that,
but since this is alternate earth that has been overrun with
spider zombies for thirty years, he might want to check whose
picture is on these dollar bills of this alternate
Earth. That's all I'm saying, Ray. Spider Zombie
mayhem shall ensue.
One of the more interesting things about 'Webs' is that it was
directed by David Wu, who is a somewhat noted and very busy
director and editor from Hong Kong, and thus his directing
this movie probably makes him the most seasoned director of a
Sci-Fi original ever. Now nobody is saying that Mr. Wu
is actually a good director, as many who have seen and decried
'The Bride with the White Hair 2' would exclaim, but he is
nonetheless seasoned. To that end I'd have to say that
it is David Wu's experience that pushed 'Webs' forward, busts
it through the total lunacy, wrangles a pretty a good
performance out Richard Greico… including tears… and makes
'Webs' quite the watchable waste of valuable time.
Of course the film is plenty stupid, but 'intelligence' and
'Sci-Fi Original' are mutually exclusive so we accept this
self-evident truth and move on. I mean if a shiny light
beams up from the floor, after punching buttons on a
mini-nuclear reactor no less, should any one jump into the
shiny light? Of course not. Which makes the next
the three guys that follow this dude into the shiny nuclear
light even stupider. My master electrician
brother-in-law was in the room while this movie was on, and
needless to say he was appalled at the 'skill' of these
'electricians' whose only electrical technique consisted of
tapping open wires against each other, which of course any
idiot with opposable thumbs could pull off. And of
course there's greedy ass Ray… alternate universe, broken leg,
spider zombies everywhere, and all Ray could see was the
abandoned cash that probably had Ted Kennedy's picture on
it. I'm surprised he didn't roll the dead spider zombies
for their abandoned wallets. Ray… I tell you.
No work of art by any means but fast moving nonsense that gets
the job done in a ludicrous and efficient matter. That
is 'Webs'.
