The Spider (1958)

Earth Vs. The Spider is drive-in material if I ever saw it. The kind of film that you can relax at the drive-in and not miss a lot as you get down to business with your significant other.This film gets confused a lot with Tarantula, they're about the same though I would give not want to split the difference either way.Two kids Eugene Persson and June Kenney are the protagonists, they find the cave where the giant arachnid hangs out and which has been rumored to be haunted for years. Later on they go back to the cave looking for a present that the girl dropped and have a second encounter with the big spider.These two kids are dumb, but they can't be held accountable because they've got a colossally dumb science teacher in Ed Kemmer. He goes along with the sheriff to rescue them the first time and they think the big guy's dead after all kinds of giant quantities of DDT are sprayed at him. All it does is put him in arachnid coma.The sheriff wants to blow up the cave and bury the body, but no Kemmer says he'd make a great exhibit for study. So they take the body and store it at the high school gym. In the meantime the local rock and roll band doing a little practice wakes him from his coma and everybody has to do it all over again.Some of those Fifties science fiction movies were better than others. Earth Vs. The Spider is not on the A list.

Ah, the '50s. The era of movies about radioactivity turning creepy-crawly things into giants. The most famous of these flicks remains "Them!", but others include "Tarantula" (which features a young Clint Eastwood), and "Earth vs. the Spider". The latter features a gigantic Mexican redleg tarantula that wreaks havoc on a small town.I could easily identify the superimposed scenes, but there's one scene in the movie that really stands out. Mike (Gene Persson) works in a movie theater that's showing "Attack of the Puppet People". B movie connoisseurs will likely know that "AotPP" is another Bert I. Gordon movie that also stars "EvtS" co-star June Kenney: she plays a secretary whose boss shrinks her and some other people to the size of a hand. In that movie, she gets made smaller than most humans, and in this one she's normal size but has to deal with a king-sized arachnid. Can't that woman ever catch a break? Anyway, most of the movie is about what you might expect: the scientists and authorities try to figure out how to stop the humongous Brachypelma boehmei, while the women mostly shriek and sob. The movie is totally corny but very enjoyable. And above all, June Kenney is a REAL FOX!

To begin with, I have to wonder whether Universal ever brought charges of plagiarism against this film in view of their own superior take on the 'giant spider' theme i.e. TARANTULA (1955); the title, then, ripped off Columbia's solid alien invasion movie EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS (1956)! All of which suggests this was a pure exploitation flick aimed at teenagers (even incorporating a rock'n'roll number at one point) and, on that level, it is not too bad – being also thankfully brief at just 73 minutes – though clearly offering nothing we have not seen before! The Carlsbad caves used for a good part of the duration supply an ideal otherworldly backdrop, even if the special effects involving the spider itself are less successful (the spider often changes color from dark black to light grey!); the wizened make-up created for the blood-drained victims is rather creepy, however. One thing which can be said about Bert I. Gordon is that he was a shrewd promoter and, to be sure, two of his other horror/sci-fi efforts get namechecked here, namely THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN (1957) and ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE (1958) – both of which, as it happens, I have acquired in time to be viewed this Halloween (along with three more of the director's work within the genre)

If you're looking for a classic-style American movie, try out Earth vs. The Spider. I won't say it's an actual classic itself, but it has all the elements that make low budget American drive in horror fun.Emotional teenagers: check. Skeptical, good ol' boy sheriff: check. Bit of mumbo jumbo scientific talk: got it. Killer giant insect: bingo.The whole production has a cheerfulness about it that I like. The small town, the high school janitor, the wanton use of DDt--there's an innocence about all these elements. Remember, with a movie like this, its about fun and not about being scared. Earth vs the Spider is a minor, but fun effort.