2026 has been a banner year for spider horror. Don’t Move brought a prehistoric arachnid to the Ozarks in September. Now Crawlers is coming for your apartment building, and it opens in two days. The producers of the John Wick franchise turning their attention to creature horror is a fascinating creative pivot, and Matilda Lutz, who gave one of the decade’s great revenge-horror performances in Coralie Fargeat’s Revenge, is exactly the kind of lead actor this material needs. The new clip released today via IGN features a spider bursting from a corpse’s eye socket. If that sentence didn’t make you flinch, you’re ready for Friday.
The Story
A catastrophic infestation of venomous, deadly spiders sends an apartment building into full lockdown. Police-mandated quarantine traps building manager Serena (Matilda Lutz) and her residents inside. The creatures multiply by the second. Serena’s intimate knowledge of the building’s layout makes her the group’s best chance of survival, if she can confront her deepest fear long enough to use it.
The Film
Previously titled Arachnid, the film is rated R for violent content, bloody images, language, and brief sexual material. Angel Gómez Hernández (Don’t Listen) directs from a screenplay by Jayson Rothwell (Polar). The cast includes Matilda Lutz alongside performers yet to be publicly listed in full detail.
The Production Team
Crawlers marks the first feature from Badlands, a brand new production banner formed by Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee’s Thunder Road (John Wick, Sicario) and longtime studio executive Scott Strauss (Resident Evil, Underworld). Strauss, Iwanyk, and Lee produce alongside Peter Welter Soler (Terminator: Dark Fate), Jayson Rothwell, Alexandra Milchan, and Josh Weinstock. Roadside Attractions and Saban Films co-distribute.
Strauss himself pitched the film with a line that serves as both tagline and warning, “It is said we are never more than three feet from a spider. Now they’re coming to a theater near you.”
Saban co-presidents Shanan Becker and Jonathan Saba promise “the kind of squirm-in-your-seat, racing-heart moments that horror fans live for”, describing the film as a “uniquely visceral horror experience that gets under your skin in the best way possible.”
Crawlers opens in theaters nationwide this Friday, October 16, via Roadside Attractions and Saban Films.
