Ashleigh Guthrie, reptile manager at Pet Zone in Pittston, has gotten over her own fear of spiders, and was pleased to handle Charlotte Webster on a recent Friday afternoon.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
Screenwriter and director Sarah T. Schwab, at right, is determined that she will eventually handle a tarantula before asking actors to do so for the movie ‘Arachnophilia,’ which will be filmed in and around Scranton. She recently became acquainted with a spider named Charlotte Webster, shown on the wrist of Schwab’s partner, Brian Long, at Pet Zone in Pittston. But Schwab didn’t feel ready to handle the spider herself.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
Years ago, Ashleigh Guthrie was afraid of spiders herself. But she overcame that fear, which is good because she comes into regular contact with them at Pet Zone in Pittston, where she works as reptile manager.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
Spider handler Bill Pambianco, at left, let Asheigh Guthrie do the spider handling on a recent Friday afternoon as he talked to Pet Zone visitors about spiders, including the Mexican Red-Knee Tarantula that is set to appear in an upcoming film.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
Spider handler Bill Pambianco poses with screenwriter/director Sarah T. Schwab at Pet Zone, where she is holding a plush spider. Soon, she hopes, she’ll feel comfortable holding a real one.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
Sarah T. Schwab spent a good half hour Friday afternoon getting to know a spider named Charlotte Webster at the Pet Zone in Pittston.
Schwab is the screenwriter and director of a movie called “Arachnophilia,” which translates to “love of spiders.” And before Cardinal Flix, the independent company she co-founded with partner Brian Long, begins filming in and around Scranton in September, Schwab is determined to handle a tarantula.
Because that’s what she’ll be asking actors to do.
“I don’t want to ask somebody to do something I wouldn’t do myself,” she said.
That said, Schwab admits she’s had a case of arachnophobia, or “fear of spiders,” ever since she saw the 1990 movie of that name in her youth.
On Friday, the writer/director didn’t feel ready to touch Charlotte Webster herself. Even though Charlotte Webster was less intimidating than she had feared.
She watched closely as Ashleigh Guthrie, the reptile manager at Pet Zone, gently cradled Charlotte Webster in her hands and allowed the spider to crawl up her arm.
She even watched as her Cardinal Flix partner, Brian Long, allowed Charlotte to crawl on his arm.
And she listened with appreciation as spider handler Bill Pambianco, who manages Pet Zone for his mom, owner Michele Pambianco, explained that Charlotte Webster, a Mexican Red-Knee Tarantula, is not aggressive and not particularly venomous.
She’s also fragile. Although she has an exoskeleton, like a lobster, a fall from the pet store counter could kill her, Bill Pambianco said.
Schwab agreed with the Pet Zone visitors and staff who called Charlotte Webster “beautiful” and “delicate.”
She listened attentively to Pambianco’s basic lesson in spider anatomy: the back of her body is where her spinnerets are; the front of her body is where you can see her eyes.
“Her eyes are so small,” Schwab said.
“But they can see almost 360 degrees,” Pambianco said.
If a spider touches you, Pambianco said, “it feels almost like a hairy toothpick.”
“You can feel every contact point,” Long said, meaning he felt all eight legs as Charlotte Webster crawled on his hand.
If a spider loses a leg, another will grow to replace it, said Pambianco, who explained Charlotte Webster is about 3 years old and eats a diet of crickets, cockroaches and other insects.
She doesn’t spin the kind of aerial web that makes a perfect Halloween decoration, he said. Her web is more like a carpet that lies right on the ground.
In the movie, Schwab said the main character is a violinist who admires spiders as fellow artists, thanks to their web-weaving, and wants to use them to take revenge against people who have hurt her.
Charlotte Webster is one of several spiders from Pet Zone who will be part of the cast, along with a black widow and a European house spider, which will stand in for a more venomous brown recluse spider.
“I’ll make sure the crew knows,” Schwab said. “We will treat them with the utmost respect.”
As of Friday afternoon, she wasn’t quite ready to touch Charlotte Webster. But she said she’s feeling braver all the time.
People interested in being considered to be extras in the movie can register through the movie’s social media pages on Facebook and Instagram, Long said. “Arachnophilia” is the first of four movies that Cardinal Flix expects to film in Northeastern Pennsylvania.