10 Massively Underrated 1990s Movie Performances

Yes, this one is a little more obscure than the mostly starring roles listed here, but it’s also an all-time great John Goodman performance, so pipe down.

Frank Marshall’s 1990 creature feature Arachnophobia is itself a pretty underrated flick, a minor entry into the “monsters terrorize small town” subgenre begun by Jaws and popularized in the eighties by Joe Dante’s Gremlins. With its cast of well-drawn oddballs and local outcasts, Arachnophobia could pass for a Dante film, and it’s mostly down to a stellar turn from comic relief legend Goodman.

As the stoic exterminator Delbert, Goodman wrings countless deadpan laughs out of the film’s premise, whether he’s identifying the structural faults in Bill Pullman’s new home (“Bad wood”), or uncovering the desiccated remains of the spider’s latest kill (“Holy smokes they got the professor!”).

It’s a perfect performance, relying on Goodman’s stellar timing as well as a hilariously out-of-place swanky sitcom theme which follows the character’s every appearance, courtesy of nineties composer du jour Trevor Jones.