Tomb

This week, I feel like writing about movies with robot spiders in them. So I will.

• The Lost Empire (1983) — You know you're in for a ridiculous movie when ninjas rob a jewelry store in the opening scene. The ninjas don't do anything particularly lethal or athletic; they just dangle a couple of throwing stars on strings, like yo-yos. When the cops show up, their bullets bounce right off of the dangling toys and kill all the good guys in the room.

Clearly, there's only one thing to do now. Send a bunch of huge-breasted women to a mysterious island in order to take group showers and engage in kung fu battles. That's what they do. It makes total sense when you see it in the movie. Sure, it sounds like utter, drooling nonsense, but that's just because you're hearing it out of context.

Like I said, a trio of bosomy Amazons trek to a distant island locale populated by kung fu experts and rich, decadent lunatics, determined to re-create the plot of Enter the Dragon. There is a mud-wrestling scene that is absolutely essential to the plot. Then, a huge tarantula enters one girl’s bedroom at night and has to be dealt with roughly. Once the spider is reduced to a pile of fizzing, sparking circuitry, the voluptuous heroine tosses her hair and snarls “I hate robot spiders!” After that, the movie just proceeds as normal, as if that whole robot spider thing never happened.

• Runaway (1984) — Multi-limbed robotic assassins scuttle up walls and crawl on ceilings before injecting their prey with a lethal dose of skin-melting acid. The aluminum beasties then self-destruct, leaving no evidence for the police to find. Cool as they are, these arachno-thugs are quickly overshadowed by Runaway's other high-tech death-dealer: a gun loaded with heat-seeking bullets that can chase a targeted victim around corners. With such premium sci-fi weaponry and high-profile stars (Tom Selleck, Gene Simmons), the people behind Michael Crichton's futuristic thriller thought for sure they had the biggest robotic shoot-’em-up of the year on their hands. Instead, the film was completely overshadowed by a low-budget killer-robot flick from a then-unknown director and star. Perhaps you've heard of it — it's called The Terminator.

• The Phantom Creeps (1939) — Sure, Bela Lugosi already has a huge grumpy-faced robot and a belt that renders him invisible, but his plan for world domination can only succeed through the use of tiny robot tarantulas that emit sleep gas!

• Minority Report (2002) — In the future, we will have grown accustomed to having tiny mechanical “spyders” invading our homes and scanning our retinas whenever they feel like it. We see an entire apartment block get scanned, and everybody keeps doing what they were doing, unconcerned by the momentary interruption to their TV shows, family squabbles and what have you. On the other hand, it's kind of a big deal for Tom Cruise, who is a fugitive from the law and must take drastic steps to elude the wispy little critters.

• The Calderons (2006) — This largely unseen TV pilot deals with an unemployed couple who receive government checks in return for looking after handicapped robots. Chuck Calderon (Dave Koenig) blames his unemployment on the new robotic plumber that's sweeping the nation — the “Toilet Spider.” This nifty little CGI creation resembles the spyders from Minority Report, except they have little toilet lids on their oval bodies, and they tend to crawl into household bathroom fixtures in order to fix clogs.

• An Evening with Kevin Smith (2002) — The Clerks writer-director goes the raconteur route, keeping various collegiate audiences spellbound with his hilarious anecdotes. One highlight is his account of writing a script for an unproduced Superman movie, in which Hollywood hairdresser-turned-producer Jon Peters insisted on several peculiar stipulations. For example, Peters didn't want to see Superman flying, or wearing the traditional red-and-blue suit. He also suggested that Superman should have a wise-cracking robot butler and that the Man of Steel should battle a giant spider.

Dumbfounded, Smith staggered out of the office, where one of Peters's co-workers asked “Did he mention the spider?” in a tone of weary dread. Apparently, the producer was obsessed with giant spiders and had been anxious to include one in a film for some time. After Smith's script was discarded, Peters made Wild Wild West (1999), which, sure enough, included a giant mechanical spider.

• Superman: Doomsday (2007) — Several elements from the unproduced Smith and Peters Superman project were resurrected for this animated feature, including the robot butler and the giant, mechanical spider. As an inside joke, Smith himself turns up (in animated form) to heckle the spider.