Trivia for
Arachnophobia (1990) More at IMDb Pro »

• "Canaima" (the town attacked by the spiders) is the name of the avenging spirit of the Guyana Indians. It's also the name the area in Venezuela where the beginning of the movie was filmed and home to the world's tallest waterfall, Angel Falls. The actual town in the movie is Cambria, California, and there is a scene shot in the gymnasium of the local Coast Joint Union High School.
  
  
• Mustard packs were used for effects for all the squashing of spiders underfoot.
  
  
• First release by Hollywood Pictures, the third film-making/distribution arm of the Walt Disney Company.
  
  

• "Family Ties" (1982) is playing on the TV when spiders start crawling over the screen.
  
  
• The small spiders used in the film were Avondale spiders (Delena Cancerides), a harmless species from New Zealand that were provided by Landcare Research in Auckland. Despite their fierce appearance, this spider is docile member of the crab-spider family and are, in fact, harmless to humans. They were not allowed back in New Zealand for quarantine reasons. The giant "spider" used in the film was a species of a bird-eating tarantula, which attains an 8" legspan or more. Those types of tarantula are not easy to handle and can give a nasty bite. The spiders in the film were managed and handled by famed entomologist Steven R. Kutcher.
  
  
• The sound of a spider being crushed by John Goodman was made by the foley artists crushing a couple of potato chips
  
  

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