Arachnophiles: Lovers Of The Unlovable

Everyone else in this room is backed up against the wall
pissing themselves with pure fear

It is estimated that every room in every house in England contains on average ten spiders. In Australia this number is multiplied by 6 and at least 90 percent of them have the capacity to either kill you or turn you into a mumbling excrement factory for the rest of your life. Most spiders catch their prey by spinning webs, which in themselves are terrifying concepts; structures  built from the strongest material known to man by shooting it out of their arseholes for the sole intent of capturing flying insects to torture and starve until the spider deems fit to end the poor soul's misery by sucking their inside's out. Those that can't spin webs have their own equally evil means of trapping unsuspecting ground based animals via holes in the ground which act as trapdoors , and failing that can run at the human equivalent of 120 mph to attack and destroy anything that moves.

Understandably, the vast majority of us humans are born with an instinctive revulsion and hatred of these scummy invertebrates, naturally fearful of their evolutionary superpowers and content to either stay as far away from them as possible, or at least destroy every one of them on sight. The focus of today's review however, is on the small minority of us who actively enjoy the presence of these hell-spawn, technically referred to as 'arachnophiles'.

If you see a happy face here, you may be an 'arachnophile'

Aesthetically, the very name 'arachnophile' brings to mind sordid scenes of balding, bespectacled, middle-aged men hanging around tarantula enclosures in unmarked vans, clutching a bag of dead flies and waiting for the last bell to ring. Honestly, it would be much easier for me to believe that these sorts of people would be the only ones sick enough to want to be near spiders. Yet 'arachnophiles' actually come in all shapes and sizes, walking among us pretty much unnoticed. They generally only give themselves away by being the only person in a room rushing to get a piece of A4 paper and a glass, pleading everyone else perched on the furniture not to throw their shoes at it. 

In order to better understand the subject of today's review, I decided to track down a willing member of the spider-hugging community and find out exactly where they should rank on my definitive rating system. One particular volunteer piqued my interest more than the others. He introduced himself as Chris LeSuavier and told me he owned a small hut in the woods surrounding the Medway section of Kent, in a little known village called Snodland. I travelled there with camera and notebook packed nice and snug in my rucksack, and arrived at his shack at around 10 pm GMT. I knocked and knocked on the door, but there was no answer. Instead, I noticed by my feet a small wrapped parcel with my name hastily scrawled on the top. To cut a long story short, the parcel contained a video-tape, I took it home, found a working VHS recorder yada-yada-yada obvious set up to a crappy scary story. Oh how I wish this were just a story.

Like this, only much much worse

The footage on the tape seemed to be the inside of what must have been Chris's hut. It was fairly sparse, just a desk on one side and a bed on the other. The cam-corder was positioned just next to the bed, possibly on some form of night-stand. The events began with Chris sat at his desk, writing something illegible on bits of yellowed paper. This ended quickly, as Chris put his pencil down and crawled into bed, fully clothed. No sooner had Chris closed his eyes, than any number of species of arachnids scuttled out from their myriad of hidey-holes and climbed down from their webs to throw what appeared to be an illegal spider rave on Chris's head. The ensuing scene was much like one found in any nightclub or party venue over the World, only hideously deranged and completely batshit insane. The hairy bad boy tarantulas with the legs of pure hate skulked around his chin, nodding back and forth and hastily puffing on minuscule spider joints. The slender ones with the tiny bodies performed the YMCA on his eyebrows whilst the smaller ones raved to their own beat, tripping their mandibles off on fly wings and space-aphids. Whenever any of these individuals took too much moth dust or whatever they were snorting up their tiny noses, they would go round back for some fresh air and be pounced upon by the horny females of the species, who would have quick unsatisfying sex with them in the alleyways of his neck, biting their heads off then lay the eggs in his ear. As I began to claw my eyes out in terror, Chris's own eyes opened. He looked straight at the camera, winked at me, and said, "You have no idea what you're missing." The tape ended there. 

So, in conclusion; spiders: bad, everything to do with spiders: bad, and people who like spiders? Fuck 'em. Fuck them all to hell. A resounding 0 out of 10.