The Spider: A Horror Spider-Man Fan Film is a 2024 Fan Film directed and written by Andy Chen and produced by Kealani Kitaura, Artin John, & Chandler Riggs (of The Walking Dead fame) who also stars as the title character. It is a Darker and Edgier horror reimagining of Spider-Man, with the film showing a familiar origin of young Peter Parker being bitten by a spider on a school trip, which causes a startling transformation. Except things quickly goes From Bad to Worse as Peter finds himself transforming into something horrific and dangerous.
The film can be watched here
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Tropes
- Adaptational Nonsapience: Becoming Spider-Man in this version involves Peter seemingly becoming a mindless monster that kills, though that's probably a mercy considering what he ends up doing at the end, killing Uncle Ben and Aunt May.
- Adaptational Villainy: Instead of a great hero, Peter is a Tragic Villain in this film.
- Bloodier and Gorier: Since it's a horror take on Spider-Man's origin story, there is much more blood and gore than is seen in the comics.
- Body Horror: This ends up happening to Peter when his teeth starts falling out, ending with him mutating into a half-spider monster when killing his aunt and uncle, before later becoming a giant spider creature in The Stinger.
- The Cameo: Both Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson are seen as classmates of Peter, while J. Jonah Jameson is seen on the TV.
- Composite Character: This Peter Parker is a combination of his canon self, with his loving aunt and uncle along with his traditional supporting cast, and the origin of Patton Parnel, his Corrupted Character Copy from Spider-Verse.
- Darker and Edgier: The film starts out following a very traditional origin for the character, with Peter being bitten by the spider and then walking home. Except instead of leaping out of the path of a car onto a wall and discovering his powers, Peter is hit by the car and the driver tries to rob him him, with Peter grabbing hold of his hand and accidentally tearing the skin off.
- Downer Ending: The short ends with a half mutated Peter killing both his uncle and aunt before further mutating into a half-spider monster, with The Stinger implying that he will go on to kill more people.
- Expy: Peter in this version has more in common with Seth Brundle than with other versions of the character.
- From Bad to Worse: Despite the very brutal discovering of his wall crawling abilities, the film at first plays the origin completely straight. It's only when Peter starts throwing up and some of his teeth fall out that things truly go off the rails, with the result being that Peter ends up mutating into a half-spider monster, kills two paramedics, his uncle and aunt, and a random woman in The Stinger.
- Genre Deconstruction: This short deconstructs the entire idea of a Superhero Origin by showing that it's ultimately dumb luck whether being bitten by a genetically altered spider results in a teenager developing amazing superpowers or mutating into a nightmarish monster.
- Mythology Gag: When discovering that he can crawl on walls and has super strength, Peter goes out and starts leaping across rooftops much like in the original Spider-Man film.
- The Stinger: Peter is shown to have mutated further into a monster that is impossible to recognise as once being human and kills a nameless woman, after butchering Aunt May and Uncle Ben.
- Tragic Villain: Peter is just a ordinary teenager who did nothing wrong except be bitten by a random spider on a school trip like with every other version of his origin story. Except instead of gaining amazing powers and becoming a superhero, he mutates into a violent monster that starts killing people.
