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Always Check Under The Bed

Itsy Bitsy is a 2019 horror film directed by Micah Gallo and starring Bruce Davison, Elizabeth Roberts, Arman Darbo, and Chloe Perrin. It also features performances by Denise Crosby, Treva Etienne, Eileen Dietz, and Matty Cardarople. Kara (Roberts) is a nurse who moves her children Jesse (Darbo) and Cambria (Perrin) from New York to a house on the property of the ailing treasure hunter, Walter Clark (Davison). Walter is approached by former associate Ahkeeba (Etienne) who offers him the Black Egg of Maa-Kalaratri, the sacred artifact of a tribe who may have been involved in the death of Walter's wife, Maggie. When Ahkeeba is rebuffed, he smashes the egg in frustration, and is the first victim of the spider that emerges. Kara, on her part, is carrying a dark past involving a pain pill addiction, a car crash, and a child named Stevie, and Sheriff Jane (Crosby) is deeply suspicious.


This film exhibits the following tropes:

  • Abusive Parents: Kara doesn't intend to be abusive, but her poor handling of grief over her son's death and addiction to pain pills causes her to be emotionally abusive to Jesse. Fortunately, she gets better by the end of the movie.
  • Adventurer Archaeologist: Walter is indicated to have been of the "steal important historical artifacts from living tribes" type, and the point is made that it really is a form of theft. One of these thefts by a former partner of his is what sets off the plot.
  • Black Dude Dies First: The first character killed by the spider is Ahkeeba.
  • Extreme Mêlée Revenge: In a moment of hysterical strength to protect her son, Kara rips the spider's legs off, pummels it into the ground, and finally stabs it over and over with its own severed legs until its nothing but pulp on the ground.
  • Functional Addict: Kara has a pain pill problem. She gets caught stealing pills from Walter, and it's implied that that's how she lost her last job.
  • Giant Spider: The spider that emerges from the egg is about three feet wide, and has deadly necrotizing venom.
  • Improbable Infant Survival: When Cambria is bit, the spider fails to inject any venom due to its fangs being long enough to pierce her hand completely, and her puncture wounds are relatively easily dealt with. The other victims aren't as lucky.
  • Mama Bear: Once Kara realizes the danger is real, she launches into protective mode. [[spoiler:In a moment of hysterical strength, she manages to overpower the spider, rip its legs off with her bare hands, and brutally beat it to death.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It's never confirmed if the spider is actually the physical incarnation of an ancient goddess or just a very large, prehistoric spider the tribe managed to keep dormant.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: At one point, Kara loses her temper and slaps Jesse. She instantly is horrified by what she did.
  • My Greatest Failure: Kara is dealing with the death of her youngest son, who was killed in a car crash they were both involved in.
  • Outliving One's Offspring: Kara and her youngest son were in a car accident before the start of the movie. Kara survived, but the child didn't.
  • Police Are Useless: Subverted: while Sheriff Jane arrives after the spider has been killed, she also instantly believed Jesse's call about it, was prepared to bring as many officers as possible, and the ambulance she calls is the only reason that Kara survives.
  • Rasputinian Death: Kara rips the spider's legs off, slams it into the ground, rips more of its legs off, pounds it repeatedly with her fists until its almost squashed, and then finally starts stabbing it over and over with its own severed legs.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Sheriff Jane frequently checks on citizens in town and, even though she suspects Kara's pain pill problem, she merely tries to help her. Unlike her deputy, she's much easier on Kara as a witness. She doesn't even dismiss Jesse's story about the spider because Walter's corpse is in a state that's impossible to be explained by conventional reasoning, and just tells him if he can find solid proof, let her know. When Jesse calls her in a panic about his mom being attacked by the spider, Jane instantly mobilizes all available units and an ambulance rather than dismiss it.
  • That Poor Cat: The first victim of the spider is a stray cat that Cambria dubs "Mr. Whiskers", and the standard stock sound effect is used when the spider pounces.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: The spider was kept inside of an ornate jar by a tribe and appeased via sacrifices to keep it contained. The jar being stolen and smashed is what unleashes the spider on the world.
  • You Have to Believe Me!: Jesse frantically tries to tell Kara about the spider, but she doesn't believe him. Subverted with Sheriff Jane, as while not outright believing the story, recognizes that the condition of Walter's corpse isn't easily explained by conventional means.

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