31 Days, 31 Horror Movies: The Giant Spider Invasion

The Giant Spider Invasion
The most unbelievable thing about The Giant Spider Invasion is that it's one of the fifty top grossing movies of 1975. All I can think is that the poster was pretty awesome and there was some serious nostalgia for the giant bug movies of the 1950's going on.

Watching this film killed any plans I had to have a Bill Rebane film festival, though. There are moments of hilarity and that giant spider is... well, it's something. I just don't think I can devote that much of my life to a series of films with this level of acting, cinematography, writing and effects. I have other things to do - like paint the trim on my house or rake pine needles.

And clear the spiders off the roof.

I will have to see his The Capture of Bigfoot at some point, as I have previously unspoken (even to myself, *sob*) desire to see all the Bigfoot-themed movies of the 1970's. This, despite the fact that Troma studio head Lloyd Kaufmen calls it one of the 5 worst films Troma ever distributed.

The Medium
Currently streaming on Shudder. It's an incredibly poor copy of the film, but I'm honestly not sure how a clearer picture would have improved things. (Holy crap you guys - there's a Blu-ray release of this movie. All I can do is wonder at the fact that there's a Blu-ray of this, but none of Alligator or It's Alive!) (In the US anyway.)

The Movie
The Giant Spider Invasion starts of like a ton of 50's sci-fi movies did, with a mysterious light in the sky and something that crashes on the property of a local farmer. This farmer, Kester, is the most reprehensible sonova bitch - stepping out on his wife and leering after his step-daughter. He's an entertaining asshole, though, I'll give him that much.

"Not the first body I've had to hide. Hey, wonder what's in his wallet..."

Meanwhile, NASA sends a scientist, Dr. Vance, to coordinate with local astronomer, Dr. Langer., in order to find whatever crashed. They're both played by veteran TV and film actors and their straightforward and earnest delivery of lines makes those lines even more ridiculous. (One of my favorites is probably unintentionally funny - after an extended sexist sequence where Vance keeps asking to see Langer's husband, brother or son, not expecting her to be the astronomer, she introduces him to her staff as "Mr. Vance." Sick burn, Doctor L.! You know he didn't get that Doctorate just to be called "Mr."!)

"That really hurt my feelings."
"You have feelings?"

Of course Kester and his wife, Ev - who obviously hate each other - have found the crash site. It's surrounded by geodes. Kester brings some back to the farm and manages to split one open. Unfortunately for everyone he doesn't see the spider that escapes from it. That's only the first and soon the farm and surrounds are infested with spiders (they're all live tarantulas at this point). In one horrifying sequence we see Ev mix up a drink using a blender containing a spider. It's nausea inducing.

"You brought a shovel to the kitchen table. This is why I drink."

Around these two storylines are some things with the sheriff (Gilligan's Island vet Alan Hale Jr. - forced by the script to utter "Hey little buddy!" in his first appearance) and a local reporter.

Finally Ev must deal with the spiders when a furry muppet attacks her from a dresser drawer. She does her best to sell this as a real spider, but... come on. This thing quickly grows in size and before you know it is almost as large as a house - threatening Ev's daughter (just like almost every male character in the film) and destroying the farm before moving off to be in a parade somewhere.

Later the Shriners will jump over it in miniature cars.

I'll give the film this - the giant spider is damn entertaining to watch. It's not scary or threatening in any way, but it is hilarious and they managed to get the legs moving in a semi-realistic fashion. The bits where it swallows people whole are a bit less believable.

Their expressions before it does so are pure gold, however.

The two scientists wander around for a bit and have a budding romance and eventually figure out that a black hole is causing some kind of interdimensional gateway (instead of, you know, simply sucking all matter into it and causing the destruction of the Earth). They manage to close it and all the extra-dimensional spiders turn to goo.

Wow. So, I'm not going to lie - I started to drift off during this movie, so I didn't pay as much attention as I should have. There are things I enjoyed - the level of cheese is so high that you can't help but get carried along in some spots. The dialogue is often unintentionally hilarious, the hate/hate relationship with Kester and Ev is also entertaining, and that giant spider thing is always fun to watch. The production quality is pretty terrible, however, as is the cinematography, music, acting, editing effects... And the subplot about guys lusting after Ev's daughter is creepier than anything going on with the spiders (except that blender sequence).

Least exploitative shot of Terry in the entire movie.

In some ways this reminded me of films by Don Dohler, like The Alien Factor and Nightbeast (which I watched for the very first 31 Days). The pure incompetence makes you root for the film and moves it - occasionally - into 'so bad it's good' territory.

The Bottom Line
Well, The Giant Spider Invasion is something I've seen now. At some point I'll have to watch the MST3K episode that features it. I have a feeling I'll enjoy it a lot more than the original. If you have to see a spider-themed movie from the 1970's I highly recommend the Shatneriffic Kingdom of the Spiders instead.

31 Days, 31 Horror Movies: Big Ass Spider

Big Ass Spider

I remember hearing about this last year and the title of the film generated a lot of good will on its own - you gotta love when a filmmaker is willing to embrace the cheese in such an up front way. Initial reviews were promising as well, so I've been looking forward to seeing and was happy to find it on Netflix streaming yesterday.

Maybe I was expecting too much from a film called Big Ass Spider.

The Medium

Netflix streaming, I think I said that already. (The more I do these 31 Days writeups, the less important the The Medium section seems.)

The Movie

Big Ass Spider starts promisingly with our protagonist Alex (Greg Grunberg) waking up in the middle of a rubble-filled street. He rises and walks forward in slow motion to a Pixies tune while people run and soldiers fire into the air at something we can't see. Finally the camera tilts to show what he's looking at - it's a big ass spider doing its best King Kong impression on a skyscraper as helicopters buzz around.

Bring me Fay Wray!

Nice! That's an awesome opening and it primes you for what you're expecting will be an epic ride.

The movie then flashes back to the morning of the same day and we're introduced to Alex properly, as a wise-ass but kind-hearted exterminator who's willing to take payment in fruit-cake from an elderly customer. He's bitten by a brown-recluse and ends up at a local hospital where he hits on a nurse (badly) and negotiates to have his bill thrown out if he takes care of a little problem the hospital has. Seems like a large spider is loose in the building...

I'm already concerned at this point. I like Grunberg, but the jokes are pretty flat and the production quality is pretty low.

Alex is teamed up with the security guard, a guy named Jose (Lombardo Boyar). The jokes get even broader and less funny, though I love Jose. His half-hearted corrections and asides are the best part of the movie for me. The two actors do work well together, though, and even the crap dialogue can't diminish the obvious fun they're having.

The expressions are so much better than the dialogue.

Ray Wise shows up, heading the obligatory military contingent. He's always fun to watch but his character, as with everything in this movie, is overly broad. The military has, in its monster movie way, created the spider and needs to contain it before it reaches the dreaded 'stage 5' (which is reproduction, in case you're wondering). Alex tries his moves on Lieutenant Karly Brant (Clare Kramer), though he's shot down (at first).

Alex and Jose thrust themselves into the middle of the spider hunt, being as effective (and more so) than the military in tracking and confronting the ever growing spider. There are lots of cameos and gore along the way - including Loyd Kaufman, who gets his face eaten off and a shot where the spider venom melts a guy. Eventually they find themselves back at the beginning, needing to get into that skyscraper and rescue Karly before the spider's eggs hatch.

Although, I think she's got this.

The spider effects are inconsistent. Sometimes the armored, alien looking thing is pretty impressive - the skyscraper sequence is particularly well done - and sometimes looks like the worst low-budget CGI effect you can imagine. The jokes are bad, the dialogue is also bad, the acting is... also bad, with a few exceptions.

I get the feeling like there's a certain tone the filmmakers are going for and I'm just missing the joke. I know the film is trying to be funny - that it's making fun of a certain kind of film - but it's just too on-the-nose. I'm left feeling like I'm with the guy who keeps elbowing me in the side and going "Isn't that funny? That's funny, right!?" I haven't seen enough SyFy Original Pictures, I guess.

Bottom Line

I would happily watch a show that was just Alex and Jose running around LA getting into trouble.

Bad boys, bad boys, whachu gonna do...

It's not that there isn't some fun to be had. I get the feeling like I might enjoy this a lot more with a group of friends. It's just too broad and flat for me. It left me wanting to watch a film with more craft,  heart, and subtlety - like Shaun of the Dead or Tucker and Dale vs Evil.

Fear Flashback Friday: Tarantula

Tarantula

I’m a bit arachnophobic, so spider-based horror movies have a greater effect on me than they might on the average movie-goer. I saw Arachnophobia in the theater with my friend Chris and he laughed the entire time because I’d slide down in my seat, realize that spiders would be on the floor if they were in the theater and then jump up onto the seat. Rinse. Repeat. I don’t HATE spiders – in fact I’m kinda fascinated by them – but holy crap do they creep me out.

I don’t like being irrationally afraid of anything, so I’ve worked hard to desensitize myself to spiders. I do my best not to kill them and I’ve gotten to the point where I can actually pick up small spiders to take them outside (bigger ones get carried out on something long – like a yardstick or a broom). However, I’ll still freak out if I get surprised by one or stumble through a web. If you ever see me staggering along, waving my arms madly in the air as if fighting off invisible birds, well, you’ll know I’ve walked through a web.

I trace my fear of spiders back to a childhood event that is almost certainly a dream, but that I simply assumed was a memory for the longest time. I would have been four or five (I hadn’t yet gone to school). My brother Scott, sister Jen and I were rambling about my grandfather’s camp on Cedar Lake in northern Maine. Out in front of the camp was a short, rocky path down to the water and at the base of the path was a large rock that had a scoop taken out of it, forming a shallow basin. As we came ‘round the edge of the path and caught site of that rock we saw a spider FILLING THE BASIN. In my mind’s eye the basin is roughly 3 feet across, but I was 5 and terrified and since then I’ve looked and it’s roughly 8-10 inches across.

Maybe not QUITE this big. Maybe.

To my mind, this doesn’t make things much better.

My siblings and I ran screaming, but of course the spider was gone by the time adults showed up. I started swimming off of the dock from that point on. I figure if it WAS real and not a dream I probably saw an oversize fishing spider (which we used to call wood spiders). I’ve seen them get as large as 3 inches or more and maybe this was just a particularly large specimen that didn’t really fill the basin, but appeared to through the filter of abject horror.

You can imagine what effect Tarantula had on me as a kid.

Hi Bob! See you in your nightmares!

The thing is, for the longest time I didn't even know what movie it was that had scared the crap out of me, because I only caught the last 20 minutes or so. I saw it at my grandmother's on a Saturday afternoon, which is where and when I saw a lot of 1950's sci-fi pics - like Day of the Triffids. I'd been playing outside when it began to rain, so I came in, plopped down on the couch and turned on the TV only to see this freakish, monster-looking guy in pajamas and a spider as big as a damn house! BIGGER! Then some cops tried to stop it and got eaten. Then they tried to blow it up with dynamite and didn't even scratch it! Then it was heading towards a town and HOLY CRAP LOOK AT THE SIZE OF IT!!! By the time the jets finally came in with the napalm and blew it up I was so worked up I could barely sit still.

It was several years before I got a chance to see the whole film in all its black and white glory, and by then it had become some epic creepshow in my mind. The reality wasn't quite so scary - but of course by then I'd seen a lot worse. It was still a ton of fun, though, and it's one of my favorite 50's monster/sci-fi movies even now (right behind THEM! and The Incredible Shrinking Man).

The Medium

I really wish some of the classic 1950's films like THEM! and Tarantula were available on Blu-ray in the US, but they're not, at least not yet. The version I watched for this review was part of the Classic Sci-fi Ultimate Collection, and was fairly sharp and clear for an older DVD release. (This set is very much worth tracking down, if you're a fan of 1950's sci-fi films.) 

The Movie

Tarantula was written and directed by Jack Arnold, who made some of my favorite sci-fi films: It Came from Outer Space, Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Incredible Shrinking Man. He also wrote The Monolith Monsters, which is an interesting little film if you get a chance to see it.

The titular monster is the result of experiments by a scientist named Deemer. He’s invented a  nutrient formula that he hopes will be able to sustain the human race in the face of food shortages that he expects to be caused by overpopulation (one of his dire pronouncements is that the world population will reach three billion, six hundred fifty million by the year 2000 – it was closer to six billion!). In animals, the side-effect is enormous growth. In humans it’s accelerated acromegaly (which we know because his colleague and assistant both experiment on themselves – I assume in the hope that they had discovered Viagra several decades early).

"Let's see, giant rabbit, giant hamster, giant... very funny guys, are you high again?"

Deemer’s assistant goes mad, attacking him and causing several of the animals to escape. Now they’ve used some standard lab animals – including monkeys, rats, rabbits and guinea pigs. Unfortunately, they’ve also used a tarantula for some reason. These are people who injected themselves with a radioactive, experimental nutrient  remember, so I guess we should just count ourselves lucky it wasn’t an alligator or a tigon.

Anyway, in the chaos, the tarantula – already the size of a large dog – escapes and Deemer is injected with the nutrient as well, giving him 4 days before he’s overcome.

The hero is a local doctor, who is immediately suspicious when the sheriff finds the body of Deemer’s colleague in the desert. He’s never seen a case of ‘acromegalia’ happen in 4 days before and takes every opportunity to go out to Deemer’s lab and ask him questions. He befriends Deemer’s new assistant, a lovely woman named Steve and is generally hanging around all the time, rather than seeing patients. (To be fair, the script mentions this as well.)

Meanwhile, the tarantula is growing. It’s feeding on cattle in the high country and leaving skeletons and big pools of venom around (I burst out laughing when the Doc actually tastes the damn stuff). It was big enough for nightmares before, but now it’s close to 30 feet high and probably 80 feet across. 

The special effects are pretty darn good for the time. The use of an actual tarantula for most of the matte shots makes it more effective than the ants in THEM! (though I think THEM! Is actually a better movie). There are problematic bits, of course (in one scene the spider moves beyond the matte frame, causing its legs to suddenly disappear into thin air), but in general the effects are as good as it gets for 1950’s giant monster movies. You won’t see ‘Tonka’ written on the bottom of any overturned buses, anyway.

What? Is there something on my face?

The scene in which the spider attacks the two story house where Deemer (by now overwhelmed by acromegaly) has his lab is the one I remember the most from a kid. The model they used for the closeups of the spider is still pretty gruesome and the matte shots and model work are great. It’s a pretty tense sequence and well edited.

The final scenes where the air force is called in to deal with the skyscraper sized spider, making its way inevitably towards town, are tense and exciting as well. It’s a fairly well known bit of movie trivia that Clint Eastwood makes his first film appearance as one of the fighter pilots. The credit sequence with the corpse of the spider burning in the background, looming over the town, reminds me of the end of Independence Day with the crashed spaceship.

Paging Mr. Eastwood, Mr. Eastwood to the enormous spider, please.

 

The Bottom Line

Tarantula is a fun, ‘50s monster film - better than most, with decent acting, writing, good special effects and lovely desert scenery. Maybe not one to check out if you're arachnophobic, but still a decent chiller after nearly 60 years