Spiders Are Scary

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"I hate spiders more than I hate rain."

—Garfield, from this 1982 strip.

Nothing in the history of the entire world is more feared and hated than the spider. Nothing deserves it more, either.

—Cracked.com summarizing their views on the creatures.

We've all Seen It a Million Times, some people are scared of spiders. Whenever they see a spider, they will become scared, either screaming in horror, or trying to swat the spider with a rolled-up newspaper.

Essentially, this trope is when spiders are portrayed as being scary monsters in different forms of media. Sometimes, they can be giant monsters in horror movies, while they can be normal-sized, yet still retain the scariness that they are thought to have.

They're often portrayed as extremely venomous, capable of killing or incapacitating humans. This happens occasionally in Real Life and near constantly in fiction. In fictionland, the sight of a creeping spider is comparable to that of an approaching cobra or tiger.

In reality, while there are indeed a number of deadly spiders on Earth, most of them are more likely to be found in relatively "remote" or exotic regions, such as Australia or Brazil. In America, the most notorious deadly spiders are the black widow and the brown recluse, and the very name will have an air of death and apprehension. In reality, both of these spiders are extremely docile, and their bites are rarely serious - most fatalities are children or people with weak immune systems. Tarantulas despite their looks and reputation have fairly harmless venoms (even if they can inject a lot), and most species are not aggressive, though there are exceptions -- species with bad temper or venom that causes pain for weeks or cramps all over the body for up to a month. Aggressive or moody individuals of usually docile species were observed (in captivity), too.

In lieu of either of these spiders, however, the spider most likely to be used to inspire fear and revulsion is one of a wide variety of tarantula species. Despite being relatively harmless to humans, their size and appearance is a grade of Nightmare Fuel all by themselves. Even when a spider really is dangerous to humans—such as the Sydney funnel web or Brazilian wandering spider—they won't aggressively attack people under normal circumstances (see Animal Assassin for more information).

In reality, more people are killed each year by champagne corks or falling vending machines than spiders.[1] A rather unimpressive record compared to, say, bears, crocodiles, venomous snakes, or even canines. However, those animals all have two eyes, internal skeletons and red blood. When it comes to narrative effect, otherness is always scarier than practical threat. Of course, spiders are rather simple creatures, and few people know their body language and behaviour patterns only because spiders aren't that important to most people.

Compare: Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?, Giant Spider, Scary Scorpions.

Not to be confused with Demonic Spiders, which is a gameplay trope, though the two can certainly overlap.

Examples of Spiders Are Scary include:

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Anime and Manga

  • The first three seasons of Digimon had Dokugumon, a monstrous spider Digimon who served either as a guard to the bad guy's lair, or just as a typical spider catching other Digimon that get caught in its web.
    • The second season also had Arukenimon.
    • The first season had what's apparently named Kodokugumon. Those are the zillions and zillions of mini-Dokugumon that appeared with the first one.
    • Or you can not bother with mini-mes and go for an army of the full-sized ones! That's what happened in season five. If Gaogamon's Mid-Season Upgrade hadn't shown up then, the team would have been screwed.
  • The Johto episodes of Pokémon introduced Spinarak and its evolved form, Ariados, while the Unova episodes introduced Joltik and its evolved form, Galvantula.
    • Even more frightening that both Joltik and Galvantula have the ability, Unnerve.
      • Likewise, Spinarak and Ariados both have the move, Scary Face.
      • Joltik, however, is viewed as a Ridiculously Cute Critter by the fandom. At this point, lots of fans consider it to be cuter than Pikachu!
  • Arachne from Soul Eater.
  • Mentioned, but not quite seen in fruition, but in Episode 6 of the Little Lulu anime, Tubby is apparently scared of spiders.

Comic Books

  • Subverted by Spider-Man who calls himself "friendly neighborhood Spider-Man" and is loved (or at least tolerated) by everyone in New York but J. Jonah Jameson; but played straight by spider-motif enemies Venom and Carnage. Sort of.
    • Even then, Spider-Man is supposed to be creepy. When shown from the villains' point of view, we're shown a guy who moves and stands nothing like a human being (putting him in the Uncanny Valley), can come out of freaking nowhere, and no matter how far you run or how sneaky you think you're being, you will find him hanging upside down in front of you with the giant bug-eyed eyepieces staring into your soul.
    • During the rare occasions where he's been truly pushed to the edge, Spidey has shown a much darker and ruthless side to him that is downright terrifying. One of the most famous examples is during the Back in Black arc, where he hunts down the sniper who accidentally shot Aunt May and is led to an imprisoned Kingpin, the man who ordered the hit. While he's struggled with Kingpin in the past, it's always been because he's been holding back so as not to severely injure or kill the man. Here, he comes after him with no restraints and beats the flying pigshit out of him before repeatedly slapping him so hard he tears his skin and coldly threatening to suffocate him by filling his lungs with webbing. While it wouldn't last thanks to One More Day meddling with the timeline, he leaves Kingpin a broken, humiliated wreck of a man with an audience of horrified inmates as witnesses to his ultimate defeat. All we can say is thank god for the restraint Spidey normally shows.
  • Twisted and played with with Nightwing cast member Tarantula. The original was a Silver Age hero. The current day one was an Anti-Hero who sort of raped Nightwing after encouraging him to kill.
  • In the Tintin book The Shooting Star, Tintin sees a meteorite through a telescope and nearly has a heart attack when he sees a spider covering the entire thing. It turns out it was just a spider through the telescope, which causes Snowy to laugh at him... until he sees it himself and jumps three feet in the air (which blossoms a running gag through the series).
    • Snowy is also shown being frightened by a spider in The Black Island.

Fairy Tales

Film

  • Alex from Madagascar is spooked by a large spider on his shoulder. After it gives him a friendly "Well, howdy do."
  • After all of his Death Traps fail to impress Roxanne, Megamind notices a spider dangling in front of her face and pretends it was intended. Then Roxanne nonchalantly blows on it and it lands on his face. Cue freak out.
  • The Secret of NIMH: A spider stalked Mrs. Brisby without her knowing it, before it got squashed by the Great Owl.
  • Arachnophobia was a film about a group of hybridized spiders that invaded a California town and began killing the inhabitants that lived there.
  • The late-1970s William Shatner film Kingdom of the Spiders was about a Southwestern town that was overrun by a bunch of killer spiders.
  • Similarly, the 1950s sci-fi film Earth vs. the Spider was about a giant mutant spider that invaded a nearby city.
    • No relation to a similarly-titled 2001 movie about a lowly comic book fan who injects himself with a serum that causes him to gain the powers (not to mention the appearance) of a spider in order to become a superhero.
  • The giant mechanical spider from the Will Smith movie Wild Wild West
  • The movie Eight Legged Freaks is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
  • Annie Hall - Annie calls Alvy (Woody Allen) over late at night claiming an emergency (some months after they broke up, as an excuse to see him again) - when he finds out it's for a spider in the tub, he gets peevish and exasperated at her...he enters the bathroom and comes right out, saying "Very big spider. Lotta trouble, there's two of them!"
  • Dr. No - a mook plants a tarantula in Bond's hotel room at night, clearly the most terrifying thing in the world judging by the shrill soundtrack music and the obvious pane of glass between the spider and Sean Connery. In the book it was a centipede known by Bond to be deadly - guess he hadn't read up on all the arthropods...
  • One of the things trying to kill you in Jumanji.

Literature

  • In Morganville Vampires mad-scientist vampire, Myrnin, takes a pet house-spider and calls him Bob, this is greatly to Claire's dislike, being an arachophobe herself.
    • Ada used Bob as a weapon as she blew Bob up to be the size of a stool and set him to attack Claire all because she was jealous of her. Eventually, Bob just exploded, unable to cope with the dramatic resizing.
      • It was later revealed that the spider wasn't Bob, it was actually the mate Myrnin had gotten him.
  • Averted in Charlotte's Web, where Charlotte is actually kind and sympathetic towards Wilbur.
  • Initially averted in Harry Potter: Harry has lived in a cupboard long enough not to be bothered by normal spiders. Subverted by Aragog from Harry Potter, the giant Spider that was Hagrid's pet. Initially, he seems chatty and civil, and then he turned out to be scary as all hell. He didn't really care about anyone else other Hagrid, trying to kill Harry and co. when they went to talk to him so that he could feed them to his hundreds of children. His children are even worse, as they had to be restrained from killing Hagrid by their parent.
  • Shelob from The Lord of the Rings.
  • Ungoliant from The Silmarillion.
  • The Spiders of Mirkwood from The Hobbit.
  • Pennywise turns into a demonic Giant Spider.
    • Also from Stephen King, Mordred is described as a sort of were-spider. Fitting, given who one of his fathers is. The Crimson King, who is sometimes called the "Lord of Spiders," and is somewhat were-spider-like in the comic adaptations.
  • Used somewhat the first couple of times wolf spider is used as a morph in Animorphs.
  • Averted in the Miss Spider books, where Miss Spider is a kindly Maiden Aunt to a town of bugs. Adorable, albeit subject to Carnivore Confusion.

Live-Action TV

  • Stargate Universe: Episodes Human and Lost. Spiders didn't do anything but were scary enough for Greer to shoot on sight.

Col. Young: Why exactly was Greer "forced" to fire his weapon?
Lt. Scott: There was... a spider, sir.
Col. Young: A spider.
Lt. Scott: It was a sizeable spider, sir.

  • The Eight-Legs of Metebelis III in the Doctor Who story "Planet of the Spiders". Mutated by blue Metebelis crystals from Earth spiders that stowed aboard a colony ship, they eventually grew to several inches across and gained mental powers that allowed them to dominate (and occasionally eat) humans. Their supreme ruler The Great One became a true Giant Spider, many yards across, and attempted to take over the universe. You can probably guess how that turned out for her.
  • Power Rangers and all other Toku series have a spider Monster of the Week every so often.
    • Kamen Rider makes a point of it, as Homage. The first two MOT Ws in the original series were a spider and a bat in that order, so many a modern KR will have a spider and a bat as the first monsters, or recurring enemies, or paired, or important to the story, or something. Spiders are really the ones they use to ramp up the creepy, though, so this trope is in effect whether homaging or not. Most KR monsters are People in Rubber Suits, but the spider in Kamen Rider ZO was a huge horrific Claymation drider with bloodred eyes and unhingeable jaws on its otherwise human face (looks like a Glasgow Smile, then opens its mouth, and... uh, you should run at that point.) Kamen Rider Ryuki gave us a giant CGI spider that revived as a giant CGI drider. Kamen Rider Double has a Spider Dopant in the teamup with Kamen Rider OOO, and its design wasn't too scary but its effect was pretty horrible.
  • The one thing that scares Budnick in Salute Your Shorts.
  • Subverted in Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a student has a waking nightmare of a swarm of spiders attacking him...it turns out he loves them, and this is a manifestation of his guilt at his pet spiders dying under the neglectful eye of his brother. Played straight by Willow, who is afraid of them. ("Why do they need all those legs anyway?")
  • Played with on Angel, with the episode where Angel visits the goddess of lost things trying to find a way to locate Cordelia. She's big and spider-like and covered in spooky web-material.
  • The Brady Bunch The Hawaii trilogy had one ep with a spider sneaking into the hotel room beds and scaring some of the kids. It was crawling on one of the boys.
  • Averted on Star Trek: The Next Generation, where they're one of the few things the neurotic Lieutenant Barclay isn't afraid of. Which is for the best, since in a later episode he devolves into one.

Music

Newspaper Comics

  • A number of Garfield strips showed Garfield interacting with spiders, before he swats them without remorse.

Video Games

  • Baels in Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones are giant spider monsters, and most notable in one stage where you have to keep some defenseless NPCs safe from being killed by one, either by clearing the map before it reaches them, or by rescuing them.
  • Phantom from Devil May Cry is a giant spider demon that can light himself on fire and is a re-occuring boss in the first game.
  • There's a level in Donkey Kong Country Returns where spiders chase you down for disturbing their nest. Should the player get caught they are dragged into the swarm in true Nightmare Fuel fashion.
  • In SimAnt, the spider is especially scary from your ant's point of view, and is one of the biggest threats to your existence.
  • City of Heroes has the recurring threat of Arachnos, and their leader, Lord Recluse. In City of Villains, you can work for them, if you want.
  • Why do you think these are a staple of the Resident Evil games? When people were used to the tarantula and huntsman style Giant Spider they were given several redesigns to be made more scary, and included even when they weren't needed (Resident Evil 5 had realistic, normal but still huge ones in the background, and the Lost in Nightmares DLC had some bigger than Jill's ass.) Thanks, thanks a lot.

Web Comics

10. Spiders are not insects. Insects have 6 legs, while spiders have an empire of fear.

Web Original

Western Animation

  • In Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Bloo uses a fake spider to scare Eduardo so that he'll freak out and scare people away.
  • In The Magic School Bus episode "Spins A Web", the bus turns into a spider while the class was learning about spiders.
  • Subverted on Static Shock by Anansi, who was a Zorro-type superhero who emulates Anansi the spider from African folk tales.
  • Played straight then subverted in the Darkwing Duck episode, "Aduckyphobia" where the giant spider who gives Darkwing spider powers actually has the mind of a child and is being manipulated by the bad guy into doing his bidding.
  • Adventures of the Gummi Bears also featured a Monster of the Week Giant Spider called the Spinster who captures the Gummis for dinner. Fortunately, they escape in the end.
  • The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy movie "Wrath Of The Spider Queen" had the titular duo facing off against giant killer spiders sent by the eponymous Big Bad herself.
    • There's also Jeff, who Billy is absolutely terrified of, but he's really a nice guy, and just wants his dad to love him.
  • In an episode of BBC kids' show Kerwhizz Twist is really scared of meeting Kaboodle's pet spider Cynthia, but being a boy he unconvincingly pretends not to be. Averted in the end when he actually meets Cynthia and discovers that she's cute and friendly.
  • Optimus Prime apparently has a fear of spiders ever since the day both he and Sentinel accidentally left Blackarachnia behind on a spider-infested planet.
  • In My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic Princess Luna, formerly Nightmare Moon, in a rather misguided attempt to make the ponies of Ponyville no longer afraid of her, brings several large beanie baby-esque spider toys to life which doesn't help matters.
  • Fang from Teen Titans, who shoots paralysis-inflicting venom beams.
    • His design is a doozy. Picture a giant spider... with a human body dangling from it and sorta swaying in the wind as the spider body does... stuff. He basically has a spider five times his size for a head.
  • This is what Buttercup fears in "Power-Noia."
  • The Venture Brothers parodied Dr. No when henchmen of The Monarch and Baron Underbeit both deposit a tarantula and a scorpion into Dr. Venture's bedroom, unseen by each other. When the two creatures meet on Dr. V's bed, they square off against each other, as he screams in terror.
  1. ↑ Yet you'll never see anyone standing on a table screaming "Yeeewww, champagne cork!"
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