Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo (1977)

Some animals just lend themselves to horror movies, and as movies such as Tarantula, Kingdom of the Spiders and Arachnophobia have proved; big spiders are one of them. Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo was made for television, so it's probably unfair to expect great things from it; and while the film does have its moments, I really wouldn't add it to the list of films that prove spiders are prime candidates for having horror films made about them. The plot is pretty simplistic, which isn't really surprising considering the television origins and basically focuses on a bunch of tarantulas from South America being released in a town in California. We focus on a small airplane carrying coffee beans that have spent a lot of time in storage. Unbeknown to the crew, these particular beans have become infested with huge spiders that kill some of the crew and cause the plane to crash in the aforementioned Californian town. It's not long before the spiders have got off the plane and begin killing local residents; causing the authorities to take action.Most horror films about spiders have the antagonists with something about them - perhaps they're genetically modified, a new type of spider, absolutely huge or maybe there's just thousands of them - this film doesn't bother with all that, all we get is just a bunch of pretty average looking spiders, and it's really not all that menacing - I constantly wondered why the lead characters didn't just put on a big pair of boots and go round stomping on them all. The film was obviously a pretty cheap production as there is no special effects and the sets are very minimal. Unfortunately it would seem that they couldn't afford to hire someone to write an imaginative screenplay either, as despite some standout moments - there aren't a lot of them, and the main sequence in a warehouse, while well done, is really too silly to take seriously if you take a minute to think about it. The conclusion to the film includes an interesting method of getting rid of the spiders - I have no idea whether or not it would work in real life, but one thing is for sure - a big pair of boots would have worked better and wouldn't have involved so much messing about. If only I were there to lend a hand

Man how could I fell into this? Anyways, the movie is as bad as you can get. I don't know if the director tried to make this movie look like a "real" footage or something but it has a feeling of raw that makes the movie effective for some moments.But overall this movie is very bad. It's poorly done, directed, and I won't even get on the f/x. The idea is not that bad and could've been better with more budget but oh well, you can't have everything. The acting is atrocious but it's good for it's B-movie standard. I'd recommend this movie only if it airs only on cable. Don't waste your money on it please. This is an objective review for a movie this bad.

This merely okay 70's made-for-TV killer animal fright feature centers on a horde of lethal poisonous tarantulas who run amok and attack folks in the heretofore sleepy little California hamlet of Finleyville after a cargo plane containing the deadly critters crashlands in a nearby field. It's up to take-charge two-fisted fire chief Claude Akins, diligent doctor Pat Hingle, and cranky mayor Bert Remsen to stop the evil arachnids before things get too out of hand. The story has the potential to deliver a suitably creepy nature-turns-nasty yarn, but alas Stuart Hagmann's pedestrian direction, a by-the-numbers script co-written by "The Candy Snatchers" director Guerdon Trueblood, sluggish pacing, infrequent and blandly staged spider attack scenes (although I have to give the film a couple of points for killing off a little boy), and a silly subplot concerning the town's orange crop doom this one to mediocrity. However, the sturdy cast do their best with the generic material (Tom Atkins and Howard Hesseman are especially engaging as the two cargo plane pilots), both Robert Morrison's crisp photography and Mundell Lowe's funky jazzy score are up to snuff, and the last twenty-five minutes with a bunch of people trapped in a warehouse infested with the dangerous buggers makes for a genuinely gripping and nerve-wracking set piece. All in all, this one sizes up as a strictly passable, but altogether rather blah and unexceptional timewaster.

This movie is so crap, there is no suspense whatsoever, actors seem to perform a repetition, and even the spiders are insipid. The idea was not so bad one could have made a good movie, even a TV movie, unfortunately it is far from being the case. Bad Bad Movie.