URBANA, Ill. (WCIA) — Foellinger Auditorium will be home to the 42nd Annual Insect Fear Film Festival (IFFF) this Saturday.

This event is being hosted by the Entomology Graduate Students Association (EGSA) in the Department of Entomology at the University of Illinois. This year’s theme is Tarantulas: Hairy, Scary Spiders, which will include movies featuring tarantulas.

While tarantulas are popular pets for some people, others are frightened by their size, eight eyes and hairy bodies. Hollywood has capitalized on these fears and produced a wide variety of horror films with tarantulas in starring roles.

This year’s festival will welcome Steven Kutcher, a renowned Hollywood “bug wrangler,” who will show a number of clips highlighting his work in many horror films, many of which greatly feature tarantulas. Following his presentation, the event will screen the film “Arachnophobia” (1990), in which a California town has to defend itself from deadly spiders and stop their spread across the rest of the world.

This event is free to attend and open to the public. Activities will begin at 5 p.m. and the film introductions will start at 7 p.m. A full schedule is available on the IFFF website. Other activities at this year’s festival include:

• An insect petting zoo featuring tarantulas
• Bugscope, a scanning electron microscope, to get up-close and personal with tarantulas, other spiders and arthropods
• Insect arts and crafts for the whole family
• A gallery of the annual IFFF art contest entries featuring insect and spider themed artwork done by local K-12 students

For more information, visit the IFFF website, their Facebook page or contact Annaliese Wargin at awargin2@illinois.edu or Joseph Spina at jmspina2@illinois.edu.