Parents' Guide to Infested

There's a lot to admire about this creature horror movie. The characters feel real and organic in Infested, and the performances are noteworthy. With a patient build up that allows the viewer to firmly settle into the very believable lived-in world of Kaleb and his apartment complex, the thrills steadily increase as the spider threat grows and grows. Spiders get bigger and increase in number, and once they have clearly and completely infested Kaleb's apartment building, people start dying at a rapid pace. Claustrophobic set pieces, tense chase sequences (running from spiders), and brutal bursts of violence accentuate Kaleb's horrific predicament. And again, the performances deserve major credit, as they all convey a wonderfully genuine terror of being consumed by spiders.

The only drawbacks are minor, but with a limited budget some of these complaints are understandable. Nevertheless, some fans of the genre may want more from this feature: more spectacle, more gross-out body horror, more monster effects, or more of an explosive climax. It sometimes feels like Infested is holding back for some reason. In other words, this film is certainly okay for older teenagers, but if it had gone further (gore, violence, creepiness, terror, monster effects), it could have easily been more of a traditional horror experience. Still, with what it had to work with, it achieves a lot with little, and that's certainly something to shake a stick at.