Arachnophobia

Referring to the fear of spiders, Arachnophobia features a particularly deadly species of spider that manages to make its way from the Venezuelan rain forest to a small California town, thanks to the many oversights of entomologist Dr. James Atherton (Julian Sands).

Yuppie doctor Ross Jennings (Jeff Daniels), fed up with the dangers inherent in big-city living, has resettled in this town on the assumption that nothing untoward could ever happen here to himself and his family. Before long, however, Jennings is trying to make sense of a series of sudden deaths-and to figure out why each of the corpses has been drained of blood.

The audience, of course, knows that the culprits are those pesky South American spiders, which grow larger with each kill. To make matters worse, Jennings suffers from a profound case of arachnophobia.