UNLIMITED STREAMING
WITH PRIME VIDEO
TRY 30-DAY TRIAL
Home > Horror >

Tarantula

Tarantula (1955)

December. 14,1955
|
6.4
| Horror Science Fiction

A rogue scientist near a small desert town arouses the suspicion of the town's doctor when his lab assistant is found dead from a case of acromegaly, which took only four days to develop. As the doctor investigates, aided by the scientist's new female assistant, they discover that something is devouring local cattle and humans in increasingly large quantities.

...

Watch Trailer

Cast

Similar titles

Reviews

TrueJoshNight
1955/12/14

Truly Dreadful Film

More
VividSimon
1955/12/15

Simply Perfect

More
Platicsco
1955/12/16

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

More
Moustroll
1955/12/17

Good movie but grossly overrated

More
utgard14
1955/12/18

A giant tarantula is terrorizing Arizona. It's not radiation causing it this time; it's scientist Leo G. Carroll experimenting with nutrients that help growth. Local doctor John Agar teams up with gorgeous Mara Corday to try and stop the gigantic spider. Effectively directed by the great Jack Arnold. OK special effects. Nice script gives Agar some good dialogue. Veteran Carroll is solid as the scientist who caused all the trouble and gruesomely pays for it. Corday, who would be a Playboy Playmate a few years after this, was a pretty good actress despite always being cast in roles that required her to be nothing more than pretty ("Science or no science, a girl's got to get her hair done"). It's a classic giant bug movie from a time when that concept could still be done seriously. Fans of '50s sci-fi and horror should like it.

More
Scott LeBrun
1955/12/19

The renowned director Jack Arnold was truly on fire during this period, also turning out such favourites as "It Came from Outer Space", "Creature from the Black Lagoon", and "The Incredible Shrinking Man". This is another solid effort from him and Universal-International; it's intelligent, it's spooky, and it builds to a very big finish.The likable John Agar stars as Matt Hastings, a doctor in the small town of Desert Rock who discovers that the scientific experiments conducted by Gerald Deemer (Leo G. Carroll) have had devastating consequences. Out of the best of intentions, Deemer and his associates have been fooling with a growth formula intended for use in helping a world with too many people and not enough food. The result is a tarantula that grows to MANY times its normal size, and terrorizes the California desert and chows down on any unlucky human (or animal) that it finds.Films such as "Tarantula" may not be for all tastes. Admittedly, it doesn't have that much great tarantula action, but the screenplay, by Robert M. Fresco and Martin Berkeley (based on a story by Arnold and Fresco) is sharp enough, interesting enough, and sometimes amusing enough, to just draw the viewer right in. Arnold parcels the thrills out carefully, tantalizing us a bit at a time until the climax when the enormous tarantula is about to reach Desert Rock and the frantic humans are trying to figure out how to destroy it. One of the most intriguing aspects to the screenplay is the effect that the formula has on human beings.The visual effects are quite good for this sort of thing, but the makeup by Bud Westmore is no less noteworthy. The cinematography by George Robinson is first rate as is the rousing music score by Herman Stein. The acting is extremely engaging from all concerned, with Mara Corday both lovely and appealing as the leading lady who's got brains to match her beauty. The under-rated Carroll is one of those actors to whom you want to listen when he speaks; he carries that kind of authority. Nestor Paiva has an irresistible presence as the jovial sheriff. And be sure to wait for the brief appearance by a certain gravelly voiced, squinty eyed movie legend, in one of his earliest feature film roles.This is just plain fun, and worth watching if you, like this viewer, are a big fan of the many genre productions of the 1950s.Eight out of 10.

More
bkoganbing
1955/12/20

The title says it all. Tarantula is about an artificially enhanced big specimen of arachnid that got loose from a government laboratory having been fed on a new nutrient that has increased his size a hundred fold. He's also got an appetite to match and the little desert creatures he fed on before just won't cut it for the big guy.The cause of all this is scientist Leo G. Carroll who got some of his own concoction and had some growth issues of his own, the kind Rondo Hatton had. Carroll did a good job as the well meaning scientist, but I'm sure he wished he was in another Hitchcock movie.John Agar and Mara Corday are the leads here and though his face is covered with gas mask, Clint Eastwood plays one of the pilots who finally do in the big bug.Tarantula is a reasonably decent Fifties science fiction movie with radioactivity the cause for the grief the Tarantula causes.

More
sddavis63
1955/12/21

My only real criticism of this movie (just to get it out of the way) is that it seemed to try to hold together two plot elements rather than one - and the two didn't fit together all that well (and one wasn't really necessary and I was less than clear on why it was included.) Let's talk about that first.It was a little disconcerting to watch a movie called "Tarantula" and yet in the opening scene to see what looked at first glance to be a primitive cave-man type of creature come stumbling across the desert in his pajamas! It got my attention, yes, but it also made me start out confused by what was going on here. Wasn't this supposed to be about spiders? The man, as it turns out, was stricken with a mysterious condition that caused his face and hands to enlarge and mutate, but the town's doctor (John Agar) was baffled, because this condition is usually a chronic one lasting for years before it kills, whereas the man who died had been perfectly normal just a few days before. This leads Agar's Dr. Hastings to the laboratory of Professor Deemer (Leo G. Carroll), for whom the man had worked and who was experimenting with a new type of nutrient that caused rapid and abnormal growth in animals. That, of course, ties the spider part of the story in, as a tarantula was one of the animals being injected with the nutrient. The movie becomes basically the fight against this behemoth of a spider that's wreaking death and destruction across this part of Arizona.Having a person (and eventually Prof. Deemer) injected with the nutrient and become deformed wasn't really necessary. But if you set that aside, you have a better than average film - actually pretty good for this genre. The special effects were quite well done for the era. The gigantic spider was well photographed, and even though it was clearly a normal spider superimposed on a background landscape, it actually worked pretty well. Agar was a busy enough actor in his day, and you can see why. His performance was really quite decent, Carroll's makeup - once his deformity began - was startling without being as hideous as the man in the opening scene, and the final battle against the giant tarantula as it approached the town was pretty well portrayed. It's a fun 50's creature feature. (7/10)

More