Arachnophobia is a 1990 American horror comedy film directed by Frank Marshall in his directorial debut from a screenplay by Don Jakoby and Wesley Strick.

In a Venezuelan tepui, British entomologist James Atherton captures two members of an aggressive, newly discovered species of spider of prehistoric origin.

A fertile male of the same species bites bedridden American nature photographer Jerry Manley, who has a severe seizure from the venom and dies.

The crow falls dead outside the barn of Ross Jennings, a family physician who has moved from San Francisco to take over the practice of the retiring town doctor.

The domestic spider produces hundreds of infertile, drone offspring with their father's lethal bite, and they leave the nest after consuming their mother.

Another arachnid kills high school football player Todd Miller just after Ross conducted a routine team checkup, earning him the nickname of "Dr. Death".

Knowing that Metcalf was bitten by a spider and an iota of an unknown toxin was detected in his body, he suspects that the town may be infested by deadly arachnids.

Atherton joins Ross, Chris, Milt, Sheriff Lloyd Parsons, and exterminator Delbert McClintock in Canaima, and they discover the spiders have a short lifespan due to their crossbreeding.

Chris gets the Jennings family out of their infested house, but Ross falls through the floor into his wine cellar: the spiders' second nest, guarded by both the queen and the general.

After he electrocutes the queen, Ross battles the general while he tries to burn the second egg sac (overcoming his fear of spiders by focusing on his need to stop them).

[6] Jamie Hyneman of MythBusters said in Popular Mechanics[7] that Arachnophobia was one of the first films on which he worked, and he often relied on simple magnets for effects.

The film used over 300 Avondale spiders from New Zealand, chosen for their large size, unusually social lifestyle, and harmlessness to humans; they were guided around the set by heat and cold.

[3] Writing for Newsweek, David Ansen compared the film to B movies "about the small town threatened by alien invaders", calling it well-made but "oddly unresonant".

The website's critical consensus reads, "Arachnophobia may not deliver genuine chills, but it's an affectionate, solidly built tribute to Hollywood's classic creature features.

[18] Researchers at the University of California, Riverside named a newly discovered worm species after Jeff Daniels' role in this movie.