Great review. I too am a fan of the spider scream and the look right before the crow bar beating. After reading your review it dawned on me just how much I loved this movie back then. I feel like it was the very last time I loved a movie with my impressionable kid brain. It was only about 8 months later or so that I flipped the switch into "I'm too old for this kids stuff" mode and started to get exclusively violent and weird with my movie interests... as a 12 year old.
You're taking me back, man.