Small-Town America in Disaster Films

Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, America was battered and embattled: we went to war, we experienced terrorist attacks and biological warfare, we endured hurricanes, earthquakes, and tornadoes, and we lost everything in a recession and subsequent stock market crash. National paranoia rose as we clung to the things that seemed quintessentially American: mom-and-pop shops, true grit, and apple pie. And so a culture war between the liberal big cities and conservative small towns was born. This tension was reflected in our pop culture, especially science fiction, and as always, the genre perfectly captured the struggles of our ever-growing nation.

Arachnophobia (1990, dir. Frank Marshall)

Dr. Ross Jennings (Jeff Daniels) leaves the big city for private practice in a rural California town, Canaima. Unfortunately for him and his crippling arachnophobia, the town is also where the body of an ill-fated photographer was sent home, and his killer, a deadly spider, hitched a ride in the coffin. Arachnophobia isn’t just a creature feature, though — it’s a portrait of small-town paranoia and distrust of outsiders, perfectly symbolized by the South American spiders who conveniently strike in a pattern that mirrors local politics.