All Eight Eyes #1 Review: A Giant Spider Conspiracy
The official synopsis for Dark Horse's All Eight Eyes horror limited series has three words that stand out – "Jaws meets Arachanphobia." After reading the opening issue, I can't think of a better encapsulation of what this series is aiming for.
The "Giant Spider" horror subgenre is a bizarre one. It's incredibly easy to explain and even harder to screw up, but it's also in a weird place where it's not seen as "enough" for modern viewers. Arachnophobia and Eight Legged Freaks were both financially successful but the latter is now more than 20 years old and there haven't been many noteworthy attempts to try and jump back into the subgenre since then. By the early 2000s, giant spiders were just a feat of CGI sprinkled into other properties and they were almost never even in the horror genre. Think Wild Wild West, The Return of the King and Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets.
Fast forward 20 years and Eiser Award nominated writer Steve Foxe tries a different approach: what if giant spiders are everywhere, but we just try to ignore them? That's what young Vin discovers while walking through New York City late one night. What initially looks like a homeless man attacking a person is actually a man deliberately hunting down a four-foot-tall spider after it killed its latest victim. The homeless man, Reynolds, then explains that hordes of spiders this big have been attacking unsuspecting victims for years and a montage shows that this has been a problem as far back as New York City's earliest days.
It's all played completely straightforwardly and one could argue that it's a bit too much of an exposition dump. But then the book turns around and does something interesting – Reynolds just lets Vin just walk away from the whole thing. He's then given a few days to just move on with his life but simply can't, prompting him to join Reynolds and his dog Possum (yes, we'll give bonus points for including a good boy) on their next hunt. Sure, it's a similar trick to what Squid Game pulled early into its first season, but it's still just as effective. If you had just witnessed a life-altering revelation about the world around you, would you really be able to just ignore it?
As for the horror, there's not really much to talk about even if you are terrified of spiders. We see a few of varying (and alarming) sizes, but outside of one encounter with a nest there never presented as too much of a threat this early on. And based on the previews, it looks like a much more interesting angle—a city official coming face-to-face with the reality of the situation—has been held off until the next issue.
It's way too early to say whether or not this is a series worth reading or if it will somehow stand out as the first great "giant spider" piece of fiction in the past couple of decades. But All Eight Eyes seems intent on approaching the subgenre from a different angle. Sometimes that's enough.
Published by Dark Horse Comics
On April 19, 2023
Written by Steve Foxe
Art by Piotr Kowalski
Colors by Brad Simpson
Letters by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Cover by Piotr Kowalski and Brad Simpson
