Nothing gets under audiences' skin quite like a good insect movie. From the good (Arachnophobia) to the not-so-good (Stung), creepy crawly creature features are a great way to spook your viewers without paying an arm and a leg in animal wrangling. Still, it takes a special kind of insect movie to freak out an experienced horror lover like Matt Donato, which is why he was so taken by Infested, the new spider horror film now streaming on Shudder.
Written and directed by Sébastian Vanicek, Infested is a French horror film about a spider infestation in the Parisian suburbs. Kaleb, a loner with an affinity for exotic animals, is thrilled to wrangle a rare breed of spider from a local shop owner. But when the spider gets loose in Kaleb’s building, the body count quickly rises as spiderwebs pop up around every corner. If Kaleb and his sister are to stay alive, they’ll need to battle both spiders and the police to escape their building untouched.
In this short excerpt from the podcast, Matt Donato explains why Infested rises far above all the low-budget creature features released in a given year:
There's practical and digital. They both look good, and I can't really tell apart. Man, it just hits. It's all the quadrants I want in a horror movie, where it is thrilling, it is darkly comedic at points, the effects are great, and the kills make you squirm. It just hits them all.
The Infested episode of the Certified Forgotten podcast is now available to stream on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, or the podcast platform of your choice.
