THEY'RE BUGGIN' FILMMAKERS DEAN DEVLIN AND ROLAND EMMERICH GET THEIR 'FREAKS' ON.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Staff Writer

During a couple of summers of his North Hollywood youth, Sunday afternoons meant one thing to producer Dean Devlin: a double bill of ``Star Trek'' and a creature feature.

The movie could be ``Them!'' or ``The Blob'' or ``The Creature From the Black Lagoon'' - it didn't really matter. Devlin and his buddies would watch, goof on the movie and then have a little trouble sleeping that night. (Just a little, mind you. The movies weren't that scary.)

Devlin and his partner Roland Emmerich have gone on to make a career out of revitalizing B-movies. They updated the Egyptian epic with ``Stargate,'' the '70s disaster epic with ``Independence Day'' and the Godzilla series with their poorly received 1998 film.

Now with ``Eight Legged Freaks,'' they're tackling another B-movie genre - the giant bug movie that Devlin and his friends watched on those Sunday afternoons - with the hope that the low-budget effort will introduce younger audiences to a largely bygone brand of humorous horror.

``If this movie is successful, it could open the door for a whole bunch of cool genre films - zombies, the Blob - the list could go on forever,'' Devlin says.

With its rampaging giant spiders, ``Freaks'' is a direct descendent of 1950s movies like ``Tarantula,'' ``The Deadly Mantis'' and ``Them!'' The '50, in fact, were something of a golden age of big bug movies. Some sociologists say the films were an outgrowth of the era's mistrust of science and fear of atomic energy. (The mutant bugs were almost always a product of some misguided experiment or nuclear snafu.)

``The seeds of these movies were definitely rooted in the atomic age and what it might bring,'' says B-movie expert Marty Baumann, who runs the definitive genre Web site, bmonster.com.

``There wasn't exactly a paranoia, but there was an unsettling feeling of newness about this powerful force,'' Baumann continues. ``But to be honest, I don't think these filmmakers put a hell of a lot of thought into that. They weren't out to make social statements, thank God. The last thing we need is a preachy movie with giant ants.''

``Eight Legged Freaks'' doesn't aim for social commentary, either. Devlin says the goal of the movie was ``to try to recreate the old bug movies using state-of-the-art visual effects without losing the charm that made the old films so much fun in the first place.'' To that effect, the producers spent $10 million on production and $17 million for digital effects.

``If you were around when `Them!' or `Tarantula' came out, those effects were as good as you had ever seen,'' Devlin says. ``We wanted the spiders to be fun, but have them look really good, too.''

Indeed, first-time writer-director Ellory Elkayem wanted ``Freaks'' to be ``scary and funny and suspenseful, all at the same time.''

It's a tall order, and the mixture of elements frightens B-movie guru Baumann.

``The problem with a lot of these filmmakers now is that they're incapable of making a scary movie so they lard it with humor,'' Baumann says. ``Those older movies were trying to be scary - and they were. Now, I guess people think they're too smart to be scared so the people making movies think they have to make it a joke.''

Recent creature features have followed that formula. David E. Kelley's 1999 film ``Lake Placid'' felt like an episode of ``Ally McBeal'' that just happened to feature a giant alligator. It was remembered more for Betty White's potty mouth than for any thrills and chills.

1997's ``Anaconda'' resembled an old B-movie, but that was due to incompetence more than any genuine intention. It was a creature feature that was unintentionally so bad that Sony Pictures decided late in the game to sell it as a comedy. Not coincidentally, the movie's director hasn't worked in Hollywood since.

``You can't make a B-movie on purpose,'' Baumann says. ``It's like 'Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.' They were trying to make a terrible movie and they succeeded. It's unwatchable.''

Baumann believes the bug movies disappeared because ``people forgot how to have fun.'' And he takes issue with those who belittle the old ``classics'' as camp.

``Each one of those films is a classic little American success story,'' he says. ``The end product might not always be so hot, but some guy had an idea and by some hook and crook, he got that idea on the big screen. We can laugh now, but by God, he got his movie made.''

Crazy legs

Got ants in your pantry? These big bug movies will put your problem in perspective.

Them! (1954, DVD and VHS) The first and also the best of the 1950s big bug B-movies is really more of a mystery than a creature feature, which is probably why it holds up nearly 50 years later. James Whitmore plays a detective who comes across a desert trailer home that has been gutted. The only survivor is a little girl, and the only thing she can utter is: ``Them!''

It turns out ``Them!'' is a colony of 20-foot ants whose queen is getting ready to mate. Whitmore and friends find the queen's nest in the L.A. drainage system and fire up the flame throwers to do battle with the pesky critters. This was one of the year's highest grossing films, and special- effects supervisor Ralph Ayres copped an Oscar nomination for his work. Masterstroke: Shots of the cheesy ants are kept to a minimum.

Tarantula (1955, VHS) Spider grows to be as big as a battleship due to misguided experiments of a mad scientist (Leo G. Carroll). Look for Clint Eastwood as a napalm-dumping bombardier trying to destroy the creature and listen for Henry Mancini's uncredited score. Apparently a favorite of playwright Richard O'Brien, who immortalized the movie with a line in the ``Rocky Horror Picture Show'': ``Leo G. Carroll was over a barrel when the tarantula took the hills.''

The Monster That Challenged the World (1957, DVD, VHS) Palm Springs earthquake unleashes killer crustaceans that had been living in the Salton Sea. The creatures come armed with huge, snapping mandibles that crush their human victims; then the slobbering snails suck the juicy life out of their prey. It takes a while to beat back the monsters, mostly because the movie's hero spends an inordinate amount of time putting the moves on the white-bread heroine.

The Deadly Mantis (1957, VHS) Polar volcano (why worry about global warming?) awakens a giant praying mantis who knocks off soldiers, airplanes, Eskimos (!) and anything else the filmmakers could find in the stock-footage vault. The bug really just wants to find his way back to the tropics, but lands in Washington, D.C., instead. But then, the Capitol can be pretty humid in the summer.

Beginning of the End (1957, DVD with ``Mystery Science Theater 3000's'' snarky commentary, VHS) Giant grasshoppers rampage through ``Illinois'' on their way to ``Chicago.'' Classic moment: The insects attack the Wrigley Building, only the ``building'' is really a picture postcard. Peter Graves of ``Biography'' fame leads the counterattack.

- G.W.

CAPTION(S):

5 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) ATTACK OF THE CREATURE FEATURES

(2) Eileen Ryan and David Arquette get off their tuffets when one of the stars of ``Eight Legged Freaks'' comes calling.

(3) An interloper steps into a parlor of giant spiders, presumably univited, and prepares to do some arachnid battle.

(4) no caption (``Tarantula'')

(5) no caption (``The Deadly Mantis'')

Box:

Crazy Legs (see text)