‘Arachnophobia’ Changed the Way I Take Showers Forever

Normally when I’m writing an article about a movie that came out decades ago, I like to watch it again to make sure I get all the details correct. It’s important, because you want to be factual and aren’t misremembering something because your brain has turned into soup in the intervening time. But this article is about the 1990 horror/comedy Arachnophobia, and there’s no way in hell you’ll get me to watch that again, because that movie ruined the way I’ve taken showers for the past 28 years.

To get two things out of the way: I am a bundle of deep-seated neuroses that are mostly based on glimpses of horror movies*; and the directorial debut of Frank Marshall is great. It’s funny, scary and boasts an excellent cast (Jeff Daniels, John Goodman). The plot concerns a small town in California that gets invaded by deadly Amazonian spiders, and it plays out as a mix of Gremlins and Ghostbusters. Steven Spielberg was heavily involved in the creation of the film, and it definitely feels of a piece with the other Amblin Entertainment films of the time.

But let’s talk about the scene in question.

When it takes place, the town isn’t aware yet that they’ve been overrun by deadly spiders, so everyone is going about their business. This includes a teen girl trying to take a shower, when she’s bugged by her Dad. After ushering him away, she takes the shower with the sort of teasing, implied nudity you’d expect from Buena Vista Pictures, a slightly more adult division of Walt Disney Studios. As she takes the shower, you can see the shadow of a spider slowly crawling up the curtain. Still enjoying her shower, she doesn’t notice the arachnid perching itself on the rod holding the curtain, or that she sticks her hand through a spider’s web as she fiddles with a knob on the spout.

And then the itsy, bitsy spider comes down the water spout, landing on her forehead, then falling down directly between her cleavage (again, Buena Vista, folks), and then to her stomach, where she finally realizes there’s a massive spider crawling on her naked body. She screams, and kicks it into the drain where it flows away. Her father rushes in, sees her nude, she screams again and covers herself with the shower curtain. End of scene!

Obviously it’s a jokey, horror inflected riff on the classic children’s rhyme, but it also permanently scarred me for life. From the moment I saw that scene, I couldn’t take a shower without wondering if a spider was hiding somewhere, ready to jump on my head. Even now, nearly three decades later, I still keep one eye popped open and check the corners of the shower for spiders, just in case. Particularly if I’m staying at a hotel, or at someone else’s house? Spider check, baby.

Not only that, but my phobia extended to towels. It’s not part of the scene, but I reasoned as a young chap that if spiders were hiding in the bathroom, they could be hiding inside the folds of my towel. So even to this day, I shake out my towel before drying off, in order to get rid of any spiders inside. As of October 23, 2018, I have yet to discover a single spider trying to bite me… But there’s still time!

Oh, there is one other aspect to that scene I should mention. As the teen takes her shower, her Dad goes downstairs to use the toilet. Right before he does, guess what sneaks under the lid of the toilet? A spider. And guess who still flips up the lid of the toilet to make sure there are no spiders hiding there? This guy!

So if you want to check out the movie that changed my bathroom routines forever, watch Arachnophobia. As for me, I’ll be over here huddled in the corner, checking for spiders.

*I happened to catch the scene in A Nightmare on Elm Street where Johnny Depp gets pulled into his bed, and I still sleep on my stomach so I can see Freddy coming, just in case. I’m a big weirdo!

Where to stream Arachnophobia