Colton West (Steve Guttenberg) is an aging action hero in the movies. Annoyed with some technical problems and that the filming is going later than it should, Colton walks off the set. Now, stuck on the freeway, Colton calls home. Colton’s wife, Olivia (Nia Peeples) is angry. Colton had promised to take his son to a ballgame and he is late. Colton’s son, Wyatt (Noah Hunt), leaves to hang out with his friends.
As Colton is talking to Olivia, the ground begins to shudder. A series of earthquakes rocks the area. Suddenly the earth opens up. Lava and giant fire breathing spiders begin to crawl out of the cracks, attacking people on the freeway. Colton goes off road and races home. When he finds out that Wyatt is downtown with his friends, he tells Olivia to stay home takes off looking for Wyatt.
When the tires on his SUV burst from the heat of the asphalt, Colton commandeers a tourist bus. One of the passengers is Chris (Patrick Renna). With a bad case of hero worship, Chris latches on to Colton. The spiders attack the bus and Colton gets everyone off it before it explodes. With Chris by his side Colton continues his quest to reach downtown, and his son, killing spiders and saving people as he goes.
Colton and Chris run into a former stuntman who is now working as a one handed pirate named Pirate Jack (Ralph Garman). Colton worked with Jack previously in films. Colton and Chris take off with Pirate Jack in his car. When they reach the “La Brea Tar Pits and Museum”, the car dies.
Taking refuge in the museum they meet Dr. Eric Von Struble (Time Winters). Dr. Von Struble explains to them where the spiders came from. He tells them that the spiders and the volcano that is causing the earthquakes are one. He calls them lavalantula. The underground lava tubes are the same as insect nests. In order to stop the spiders the queen spider, or the mamalantula, needs to be killed. Once she is dead the other spiders will die as well.
As Colton is trying to get to Wyatt, both Wyatt and Olivia are having their own battles with the fire breathing arachnids. Eventually they manage to find each other among the disaster unfolding around them. Together, but trapped, the West family needs to come up with a plan on how to survive downtown Los Angeles.
“Lavalantula” was released in 2015 and was directed by Mike Mendez. It is an American science fiction comedy horror thriller made for the SyFy channel. Ian Ziering makes a cameo appearance as Fin Shepard, tying the movie into the “Sharknado” universe. The film also includes many of Guttenberg’s co-stars from the “Police Academy” series of films.
As with the “Sharknado” series, “Lavalantula” includes many disaster film tropes. There’s not much to the film except corny jokes, explosions and CGI spiders. That’s what makes it both ridiculous and fun. Mike Mendez, the director of the film, also directed “Big Ass Spider”, which was a far better movie, and an homage to the big bug films of the fifties. Still “Lavalantula” isn’t tough on the brain. It does pass the time and I was entertained. If you’re a fan of any of the “Sharknado” films, then this is the movie for you.