Desperate to gain superpowers, a man injects himself with spider blood, hoping to become the next great hero. Instead of glory, he faces a horrifying curse that changes his life forever, leaving him trapped between his ambition and a terrifying fate.

‘SPOILER ALERT’

A young and shy security guard named Quentin wakes up after his alarm clock rings. He then brushes his teeth and waters his flower. As he hears people talking outside, he looks through his window and sees a drunk man named Willie and greets him.

He also sees two thugs trying to bully an innocent person across the street, and this disgusts him. He eventually continues his morning routine and prepares breakfast for himself and his dog, Thor. After this, Quentin reads the newspaper and sees the main headline about a midtown murderer who has just killed another person.

The front page also has a section showing a picture of a police detective named Grillo, who is being scolded by the public for still not catching the killer. After Quentin is done reading, he wears his uniform and waits for his neighbor, Stephanie, to leave her room first so he can pretend to bump into her. Stephanie is a new resident in the building, and Quentin has a crush on her but still hasn’t told her anything.

As he heads out of his room, Stephanie sees him, and they greet each other. Before he says much, Thor leaves the room and runs to meet Stephanie, who pats him. Quentin is shocked by this, but he notices that Stephanie likes his dog, so he doesn’t complain about Thor leaving the room.

As he then eventually gets Thor to stay inside, Quentin asks if he can walk with Stephanie, and she says it’s not a problem. On their way down, Quentin asks Stephanie if she’s already a doctor, but she says she’s still a nursing student. She adds that she only moved to the new apartment so she could be close to the hospital where she works.

Stephanie then asks if Quentin already saw the news about the Midtown murderer. He says he has, and that he’s surprised the cops haven’t caught him yet. He adds that if he was the one assigned to the case, he wouldn’t have slept until he caught the murderer.

Stephanie doesn’t say anything about this, but Quentin still mentions that he just hates it when bad guys win. As they head out of the building, Stephanie asks if he has had to deal with any bad guys at his workplace, and he says that nothing really happens there because it’s a research facility. He adds that the only time he had to deal with a crime was when he caught someone kicking the snack machine.

Just then, two thugs approach them and say some offensive things to Stephanie. Quentin doesn’t like this, but as he tells them to back off, they make fun of him and his job because they know he can’t do anything to them. Stephanie eventually stands up for him, but after the thugs leave, Quentin says she didn’t have to do that for him.

As Stephanie tries to explain herself, Quentin just walks away and looks pissed. Shortly after, Quentin stops by a comic book shop owned by a guy named Han. As he enters the place, Han shows Quentin an action figure of his favorite hero, the Arachnid Avenger.

Quentin admires it and looks really interested in buying it, but since he can’t afford it, he doesn’t talk much about it. However, Han says he’ll let Quentin pay in installments because he knows how much he likes the superhero. Han then shows him a new limited edition comic book he just got, and Quentin says he just loves how the Arachnid Avenger got his powers after injecting himself with a serum.

He also says he sometimes wishes he had powers like that so he could help people. After he leaves the store, Quentin heads to work and meets his partner, Nick, who asks how his day is going. Quentin says it has just been okay, but Nick mentions that it should be better than that because he’s much younger.

Quentin doesn’t really care about this, and as Nick offers him a sandwich, he says he’s okay. As they then head out to inspect the building to ensure that there are no problems, Nick asks Quentin if he has already asked Stephanie out. Quentin says she’s out of his league, and as he adds that he doesn’t know how he’ll be able to get a girl like that, Nick tells Quentin that he’s a good security guard who works at an important research facility.

He adds that if Stephanie doesn’t want him, then it’s not his problem because he’s a good person who should be able to get anyone he wants. Quentin looks pleased to hear this, and he thanks Nick for the kind words. As they continue moving around, they see a room where a spider is being drained of a special serum using a new machine that has a big needle attached to it.

Nick doesn’t get why they stabbed the spider, but he eventually mentions that it likely has traits that make it invincible, and it’s why the scientists are giving the serum to the other spiders. Before they can watch the next process of the experiment, one of the scientists closes the blinds. Much later, Nick alerts Quentin that it’s almost their closing time, and they need to inspect the building again.

As he sees Quentin reading a comic book, he asks what he really sees in it. Quentin then mentions that comic books make him dream because when he reads about his favorite hero, he often thinks about the possibility of having something special and saving people. Nick doesn’t quite get this, but he says he has his own dreams about other things.

He then tells Quentin to begin the inspection alone, and as he heads out, Nick sees a masked person forcing a scientist to enter the room where the spiders are being experimented on. Nick immediately sends a distress signal to the cops and heads out to see what’s happening inside the lab. Meanwhile, Quentin returns from the security room, and as he looks at the footage from the camera, he sees that a masked person has now captured Nick and is forcing him into the lab.

Quentin heads out to save Nick, but before he enters the lab, a cop named Williams shows up and tells him to stay back so that he and his partner can do their jobs. Before they enter the room, the masked person starts shooting at the door, and the cops are unable to go in. After the gunshots stop, the masked person escapes, and the cops enter the room only to see that everyone inside is dead.

Quentin also sees Nick on the floor, but before he can do anything, his partner dies. This leaves him terrified and disappointed because he couldn’t save Nick and the others from getting killed. While he’s standing outside the room, Williams attacks him and blames him for the death of his own partner.

Quentin feels sad because he also lost Nick, but Williams doesn’t seem to care. Before he continues attacking Quentin, Grillo shows up and tells Williams to leave. Even though he hesitates at first because he still wants to tell Quentin how he feels, he eventually leaves the research facility.

Grillo then consoles Quentin on losing his partner and says he’ll be asked some questions later. Almost immediately, the facility manager shows up, and Grillo asks what really happened. The man says he doesn’t understand, and that the attack is weird because they’re a research lab and not a bank. Grillo then asks what kind of research they do, and the facility manager says it’s weapons resistance research. He adds that he can’t give more details because it’s still private, and Grillo says he’ll ask him more questions later.

The facility manager then sees Quentin sitting on the floor and says he can’t believe the security guard let something like that happen. He also takes away his badge and tells him to clean out his locker because he has been fired. Quentin is still shocked by what happened, but as the facility manager walks away, he sees another man step on a spider, but nothing happens to it.

As Nick’s body is then wheeled out of the room, Quentin remembers what he said about the spider being invincible. Since the serum is still inside the lab, Quentin goes inside to inject himself with it. He suddenly starts feeling weird after this, and he eventually passes out.

The next day, Stephanie leaves her room and hears Quentin’s alarm clock ringing. Even though she finds this weird, she eventually ignores it and walks away. It then turns out that Quentin is back in the room, but he’s now in the jacuzzi after he filled it with ice cubes. He also happens to be so weak that he can’t stand up to stop the alarm. Many hours later, Stephanie returns home and sees a newspaper just outside the house, with the major headline being about the robbery at Quentin’s workplace.

Stephanie is shocked to see this, and she looks worried because she hasn’t seen Quentin since the previous day. As she heads up to her room, she notices that his alarm is still ringing, so she knocks on his door and calls his name. When he doesn’t respond, Stephanie opens the door, and Thor quickly runs to meet her. After patting him, Stephanie looks around the house and sees that the fridge is open. This surprises her, but as the alarm keeps ringing, she turns it off.

She then walks to the bathroom to see if Quentin is there, but it turns out that the jacuzzi is already empty. As she wonders where he is, Quentin suddenly appears behind her, looking pale. Stephanie says she saw the news, and she wants to know if he’s fine. Quentin then says he only wanted to save Nick, but he let the cops stop him. As he adds that things are going to change, he nearly falls, but Stephanie holds him.

Shortly after, she starts treating Quentin so he can feel better, but she also suggests going to the hospital because his body is still burning up. Quentin says he doesn’t want to go, and that it’s likely nothing serious. As Stephanie tries to convince him, she sees a needle mark on his hand and assumes that he was using drugs.

Before she leaves, Quentin immediately stops her and says it’s not what she thinks. He adds that it’s a result of an accident that happened at work. Stephanie then decides to stay back to continue helping him. As she cleans the area around the needle mark, Quentin thanks her and says she doesn’t have to keep helping him. However, Stephanie says she’s his neighbor, and that she’s sure he would do the same for her if she was in his position.

Stephanie then asks what he meant when he said things would change, and he says he’s just tired of being a nice guy. As he says he just wants to be a bit more than that, Stephanie mentions that there are still people who like nice guys. This makes Quentin smile, and as she leaves, he tells Thor that he’ll ask her out the next time she visits him.

Almost immediately, he feels a sharp pain in his stomach, but it eventually relieves him. He then goes to sleep, but when he wakes up, he realizes that he slept for twelve hours. Even though this is weird, Quentin doesn’t seem bothered, and he heads to the kitchen to prepare something to eat. Interestingly, Quentin eats more than normal, and even Thor looks confused. Later that night, Quentin changes his clothes, and after looking at a picture he took with Nick a while ago, he leaves the house and heads to a bar.

There, Quentin sees Williams hanging out with a lady named Trixie, who happens to be Grillo’s wife. As Quentin keeps staring at them, the bartender suddenly notices the tattoo on his arm and says it looks nice. Quentin is shocked by this, and as he looks at his arm, he sees that there’s now a tattoo on it. Quentin doesn’t understand this, but he realizes that it’s likely a result of the injection. Quentin then asks the bartender if Williams will leave the bar alone or with the woman.

The bartender sounds shocked to hear his question, and he tells Quentin not to worry about Williams because he’s one of the brutal cops in the city. He adds that the lady he’s with is Grillo’s wife, who happens to like tough guys. Quentin looks confused, and the bartender says that Trixie has been following Williams because she doesn’t think her husband is tough anymore.

Quentin asks how that’s possible, and the bartender tells him about the time Grillo’s partner got killed, and even though he had a chance to kill the criminal, he just froze and couldn’t do it. Coincidentally, Grillo enters the bar and heads straight to pick up his wife. Williams doesn’t look happy to see that he’s around, and Grillo says he can’t believe that the cop chose to mourn his partner by enjoying himself at a club.

Williams says he at least tried to save his partner, unlike Grillo, who couldn’t use his gun when he had the chance to kill the criminal. He also makes fun of Grillo and says that people like him should no longer be allowed to carry a gun since they can’t use it. Grillo doesn’t want to argue with Williams, and he just drags his wife away.

Trixie is unhappy about this, but Grillo still drags her to the door because she’s already drunk. Before he heads out with her, Williams tells Grillo that if he needs help with catching the midtown murderer, he can help him. Since Williams is now alone, Quentin decides to go to his table, but another lady quickly sits beside the cop, so he just stays back.

Elsewhere, Stephanie arrives home and notices that she’s being followed by a strange man. Before she can call for help, the man grabs her and knocks her to the ground. Stephanie tries to fight back, but the man is too strong for her. After he slaps her, she gets really weak and loses her strength to fight back. Meanwhile, Quentin leaves the bar and arrives at the building, only to see Willie outside begging for some money.

After he gives Willie a dollar bill, he suddenly feels a weird vibration inside the building. He then asks Willie if he can feel the vibration as if someone is shaking, but he says he can’t. Following this, Quentin goes inside and sees the strange man attacking Stephanie. He then grabs the man and tells him to leave her alone. As the man says he can’t, Quentin suddenly throws him across the hallway, and he lands badly against a door.

Quentin then sees Stephanie still unconscious on the floor, but as she’s about to wake up, he flies out of the window and climbs the wall to get down. Quentin cannot believe what he has just done, and as he sees the tattoo on his arm growing, the cops arrive at the house. Quentin then finds a place to hide so that he won’t be questioned about what happened.

Shortly after, Grillo arrives at the scene, and he’s told that the strange man who attacked Stephanie was the Midtown murderer. The forensic scientist at the scene also shows Grillo the dead man and says that whoever killed him threw him with immense force. Grillo then goes to see Stephanie to ask what happened, but she says she didn’t see the person who saved her.

Almost immediately, Quentin returns to the house and sees Grillo asking Stephanie some questions. As Stephanie sees him, she runs toward him and tells him about how she was saved by an unknown person. Stephanie still seems to be in shock, but Quentin tells her not to worry anymore because she’s now safe.

Grillo then says he still needs to ask her some more questions, so Quentin leaves her and heads to his room. When he gets there, he puts a poster of the Arachnid Avenger on his fridge and says he’s just like him. He also looks happy and jumps on his bed while saying he’s now a superhero. He then looks at his picture with Nick and says he’s happy to finally have something special. Later that night, Quentin struggles to sleep because his hearing senses have heightened, and he can now hear sounds from different areas in the building.

Even the faintest sounds seem unbearably loud to Quentin, and he’s also forced to lock Thor inside the bathroom when the dog’s licking becomes intolerable. Quentin still struggles to get rid of the loud noises, but he eventually falls asleep. The next morning, Quentin wakes up and starts reading comic books about the Arachnid Avenger.

After he sees that the superhero has a surveillance camera that he always monitors, Quentin puts one outside his room so he can see everything happening in the hallway. Almost immediately, he sees Stephanie moving some things out of her room, so he goes outside to ask if she’s moving out. Stephanie says she just took the day off to arrange her room properly, and she’s also moving some of her boxes to the basement.

Quentin says he has something to put there too, but he ends up picking up only a small box from his room. He then offers to help Stephanie carry her boxes to the basement. On the way, the thugs outside the house try to harass them, but Quentin grabs one of them and squeezes his face. After he lets go of the thug, they both run away, and Stephanie is shocked by this. As they get to the basement, Stephanie asks if something has happened to him, but he says he’s just tired of the thugs always trying to harass people.

He also says he’s sorry if he upset her, but Stephanie says she thought it was cool to stand up to them. Shortly after, Quentin goes to Han’s shop, and Han notices that something is off about him. As he asks what happened to him, Quentin says he has just been really busy.

Han says he has a whole new vibe, and as he asks what really happened, Quentin says he has superpowers. Han thinks he’s joking, and he says that Quentin only got a new credit card. Quentin says he’s serious, and that something happened to him, but Han still doesn’t believe him. Just as a spider is about to attack a lady in the movie showing on the TV at Han’s store, Han says he doesn’t understand why she can’t just play dead. Quentin asks what he means, and Han mentions that spiders like their prey alive.

He adds that they don’t attack people who remain still. Quentin looks shocked by this, and as Han asks what superpowers he has, he says he hasn’t quite figured it out yet. When Quentin returns home, he starts to feel strange, and he also loses his appetite for normal food.

After a brief nap, Quentin wakes up and sees that he’s floating over his bed because he has shot out a web to the ceiling from his stomach. He looks shocked by this, but he eventually manages to cut the web so he can fall to the floor. As he then wonders if he can now shoot webs out of his stomach, he targets some objects on his table, and it works.

This leaves him surprised, but he also decides to test his powers on a moving object. He then targets Thor and manages to trap his dog with the web. As he then tries to free the dog, Quentin feels a sudden urge to eat Thor. He cannot believe this, and as the urge grows, he just runs out of the house. After running around for a while, Quentin enters a nearby shop and hears a man arguing with the cashier and talking about how he can decide to rob her store.

Quentin then goes toward the man and slams him against one of the shelves. As he passes out, the lady shouts at Quentin and tries to help the man. Quentin doesn’t get this because the man was hurting her, but she says he wasn’t, and that he’s her boyfriend. As she calls the cops, Quentin tells her not to do so, and she asks who he is. Quentin says he’s her hero, but she tells him to leave her alone.

As she walks out of the store, Quentin shoots his webs at her, and she falls to the ground. His tattoo then grows again, and surprisingly, his hand transforms into a monster’s claw. Before he can do anything else, Williams arrives at the scene, and as he sees the lady outside covered with giant webs, he makes fun of her and asks what kind of things she’s into. Just then, Quentin attacks him and takes him to the basement of his apartment building. The next morning, Stephanie sees Thor in front of her room with a note from Quentin telling her to take care of his dog because he currently can’t do that.

Stephanie is shocked by this, and as she knocks on the door, Quentin doesn’t answer it. As he then sees her through the camera outside his apartment, he says he wishes he could tell her what’s happening to him, but he’s just scared. Interestingly, it turns out that something is already growing in his stomach, and he looks really scared. Elsewhere, Grillo arrives at the supermarket that was attacked the previous night. After looking around, he sees the cashier’s boyfriend, whose blood has been drained.

The forensic scientist then mentions that the man was likely slammed against the shelf with incredible force before his blood got drained. As he asks if it sounds familiar, Grillo remembers that the person who killed the midtown murderer did something like that. Grillo then says they need to check around to see if they can find anything else.

After seeing some giant cobwebs, Grillo eventually sees Williams’ badge on the floor. Since this suggests that Williams was at the store when the attack happened, Grillo asks if any of his other officers have seen him. No one seems to have seen him, but Grillo tells the forensic scientist to check the blood on the floor to see if it matches Williams’ own. As he then sees the cashier inside a cop car, he asks one of the cops at the scene if she has said anything. The cop says she’s still in shock, but she talked about seeing a man with claws.

Elsewhere, Quentin notices that something is growing out of his mouth, and as he screams, Stephanie stands outside his room and tells him to open the door. Quentin says he can’t, but Stephanie insists that she needs to help him because he sounds terrible. Quentin doesn’t respond to her, and as she’s about to walk away, he asks if she would’ve gone out with him. Stephanie says she was waiting for him to ask her out, but Quentin says it’s now too late. As she asks why he thinks it’s already late, he doesn’t say anything, and she walks away.

A while later, Quentin feels really hungry, and after scattering his room, he heads to the basement and lures the thugs standing outside to come in. As they follow his voice, he drags them into the basement and feeds on them. Elsewhere, Grillo arrives home and tells Trixie about Williams’ sudden disappearance. As he says that he likely got himself lost or killed, Trixie begs Grillo to help her find him. She adds that she doesn’t love Grillo as she used to, and she’s now in love with Williams.

Grillo feels sad to hear this, but as he doesn’t say anything, Trixie accuses him of doing something to Williams because he was jealous. Grillo doesn’t understand why his wife would say something like that, but he denies knowing what happened to Williams. The next day, Grillo goes to Stephanie’s building to see if he can find anything on the man who saved her the other day.

Surprisingly, he sees some cobwebs on the basement door and takes some of it as a specimen so it can be analyzed at a lab. Following this, he goes to Quentin’s former workplace and asks the manager about the research they’re conducting there. The manager initially refuses to say anything, but after Grillo threatens to take the case to the public, he mentions that their experiments are to analyze the survival capabilities of a spider.

Grillo then asks if they ever experimented on humans, but the manager says they never got there. The next day, Quentin starts feeling hungry again, and since he doesn’t want to kill anyone, he goes to Han’s shop. Han is shocked to see him looking deformed, but Quentin tells him to stay still so that he won’t hurt him.

Han does just this, and Quentin asks him what would kill the Arachnid Avenger. Han then says that the hero has a human heart that cannot grow back if it gets broken. Following this, Quentin leaves the store and heads home.

Later that night, Grillo heads back to Quentin’s house and knocks on his door, but he doesn’t answer it. As Grillo returns to his car, he gets a call from the forensic scientist who tells him that the blood from the store matched Williams’ blood. Grillo then asks about the spider web and if it has any traces of DNA, but the forensic scientist sounds confused and says he needs to be careful because his bosses are about to take him off the case.

Shortly after, Grillo decides to check out the basement at Quentin’s house. Surprisingly, Trixie has secretly followed him to her house, and she watches him from inside her car. As Grillo enters the basement, he sees Williams covered in webs, but he’s still alive.

Grillo is shocked by this, but Williams mentions that the killer hasn’t killed him like the rest. As Grillo wonders what he’s saying, he looks around and sees some other bodies inside the basement. He then tries to free Williams, but Trixie walks in and thinks he’s trying to hurt him.

Unfortunately, Williams’ hand has been freed, and he removes his gun from his pocket and kills himself. Trixie immediately runs outside, but Grillo follows her. Before he gets to her, Quentin has already attacked her, and Grillo is unable to do anything as he watches his wife take her last breath.

Stephanie hears the noises outside the house, so she leaves her room to see what’s happening. Unfortunately, Quentin appears before her and fully turns into a monster. Stephanie cannot believe this, and as she screams, he grabs her. Grillo hears Stephanie’s cries for help, and he runs into the house, but he doesn’t see her. He then goes into the basement and sees her tied to a big spider web.

As she sees Grillo, she tells him to leave because Quentin is around, but he refuses. Just then, Quentin shows up and tells Grillo to save Stephanie. He sounds shocked and says it’s exactly what he wants to do. Quentin then says he needs to shoot his heart, but Stephanie begs Grillo not to do it. Quentin sounds pissed to hear this, and as Grillo also says he won’t kill him, he says he’ll have to hurt Stephanie.

Grillo still hesitates to kill him, but as Quentin pretends to attack Stephanie, the detective shoots him in his heart. Quentin looks relieved by this, and as he falls in front of Stephanie, she thanks him for saving her. After she says this, Quentin dies, and Stephanie looks sad. A while later, Han creates an action figure of Quentin, but he tells his customers that he can’t sell it because the person was his friend.

Quentin always wanted to be a superhero, but he didn’t expect that he would become a bloodthirsty one. He also knew deep down that his uncontrollable powers would eventually lead him to kill Stephanie. Since he couldn’t bear the thought of harming her or continuing his killing spree, Quentin made the ultimate sacrifice and decided to get himself killed. His story reminds us that real strength lies in being selfless and doing what’s right even when it comes with a huge cost.

Earth Vs The Spider 2001.