The Spider (1958)

Load of rubbish!!

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

When dancing teenagers can stir a supposedly dead giant tarantula back to life, that gives evidence to the 50's square adult's belief that "Rock and roll has got to go!" Unlike the giant dancing duck in "Village of the Giants", this giant spider does not have rhythm, only an appetite for human body fluids, setting a trap with giant rope like sticky webbing to block the road near the deep and dank cave it lives in. Searching for her father out in the middle of this unexplored area, the rather naive June Kenney and her boyfriend (Eugene Persson) search for him inside the cave, already marked with a warning of "Do not enter!" Falling into the giant web, they are disturbed by the sounds of the approaching spider which seems to be speaking to them in anticipation of his lunch to be. Kenney and Persson manage to escape, but Kenney is frantic when she realizes that she has dropped the birthday present for her that she found near the wreckage of her father's pick-up truck. The discovery of shriveled up bodies with all the liquid sucked out (I guess spiders are only drinkers, not eaters) scares the bageebers out of Kenney, but that doesn't stop her from getting Persson to take her back to the cave after they believe that the spider has been killed and removed from the cave for research on how it got to be that size. Like other movies where they remove the supposed carcass of a giant creature, it is never explained as to how they do it, and even more importantly, the objections of those given that assignment who wouldn't touch a small bug let alone a large one!I guess you have to suspend disbelief that a spider can go into suspended animation when shot full of bullets and tied up in a school gymnasium. The school security guard gets trapped after a bunch of students decide to have an impromptu dance in the gym with the spider hanging in the background, and when his body is discovered, it is a hysterical variation of what a Dali painting might look at if it had once been human. I did find the special effects not bad, having seen much worse before when a giant creature is chasing townspeople, but the whole situation just becomes plain stupid when another teenager arranges for the spider (whom he has discovered trying to devour an entire house) to chase him back to the cave where Kenney and Persson have gone to look for that darn birthday present she dropped. Just then, the local law shows up to close up the cave and unknowingly lock Kenney and Persson inside, with them having gone into other areas of the cave with no way of escape. While Kenney overacts in her attempt to display grief for her spider lunch father, his widow (June Jocelyn) seems to show no grief over her husband's nasty death, only showing any emotion when her daughter is revealed to be trapped inside the cave with the spider. It's a fun bad movie that is easy to dissect for all of its absurdities, but can also be enjoyed on an extreme camp level, whether it be the ludicrous situations, the high school students played by bad 30 something year old actors or the fact that at the end Kenney and Persson are not even given a slap on the wrist for their stupidity.

Released in 1958 and shot in B&W, "Earth vs. the Spider" details the events of a small town in Southern California when a colossal spider living in a cave comes to town.While "Earth vs. the Spider" is great when you're 8 years-old its flaws surface when viewed as an adult. For one, the spider's size changes according to the sequence: In the cave it's huge, but when it's on display at the school it's noticeably smaller; then when it traverses the town it's gargantuan. Inconsistencies like this don't make for great movies. It's entertaining in some ways, like being a period piece of the late 50s, but it pales in comparison to Sci-Fi giants from the 50s like "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) and the monumental "Forbidden Planet" (1956). It doesn't help that colossal animal/monster movies made in the decades since are just all-around better, including being in color. Still, "Earth vs. the Spider" is worth catching if you favor these kinds of flicks and want to go back in time to the late 50s, not to mention there are some effective elements, like the horrific sounds the spider makes and the drained remains of its victims. The film runs 73 minutes and was shot in Bronson Canyon, Griffith Park and Los Angeles, California, with additional footage from Carlsbad Caverns National Park. GRADE: C

I like a couple of Bert I. Gordan's films, one of my favorites is Empire of the Ants. This one, which I caught on Mystery Science Theater 3000, just was kind of bland by comparison. Perhaps, it is the fact that in Empire we got a lot more shots of the title character and more than just one appendage as far as what was made or maybe it was the ridiculously overused bracelet plot point that kept this film in the caves more than it did in the streets when the action was at its best. Whatever the reason, just nothing I was overly thrilled with...did make a funny episode of MST3K though. They did another film with scorpions and that one too had lots of cave scenes, but that one was actually pretty good. This one, just too slow for a short film, and too much girl and boyfriend going through a cave and getting lost for my tastes.The story has a father getting offed in the first portion of the film and his daughter gets her boyfriend to help her try and find them. Clues lead to a cave that isn't supposed to be entered, yet they keep rationalizing reasons to enter and proceed further and further in. They even keep going after seeing skeletal remains and then they find themselves falling into a web where a big spider is lurking. They end up escaping somehow, though never clear how as they fell downward and somehow still made it back to the entrance, and warn everyone...including the skeptical sheriff. Though it is nice they did not linger on the skeptical portion of the film for too long. Well, now the town has a problem as the spider is soon on the loose and causing destruction and mayhem...for about five minutes before returning to its lair. Still not quite sure how it managed to get the guy going for help on the motorcycle as it wasn't super fast and he clearly made it away...This made for a very funny episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 as Bert I. Gordan films tend to do. Nice change of pace, as I usually prefer Mike Nelson episodes to Joel's and this is due to the fact that Joel did tend to use very similar films a lot of times like when he did all the Hercules films. When he did do different things he usually was golden though and here the riffs were very funny. You have a lot of ammunition as it is a giant spider film.So all in all a good episode and a rather bland movie. Bert I. Gordan did some good stuff, but only if one likes cheese. Food of the Gods and Empire to me are two of his best and they came out in the 70's so perhaps he was just able to do a bit more in later years due to advancements in technology. His earlier work usually consisted of quick shots and lots of padding and pointless plot points. Still, they did have a certain charm to them.

Despite its lack of credibility, "Earth Vs. the Spider" is an entertaining monstrous arachnidan horror movie which appeared three years after director Jack Arnold's "Tarantula." This low-budgeted American International Pictures release takes place in a small, isolated town. Unlike most of the giant monster movies made in the 1950s, this Bert I. Gordon helmed hokum neither explains the origins of the gigantic spider nor does it blame it on nuclear radiation testing. Instead, the county sheriff and a high school science teacher acquit themselves admirably in taking care of this eight-legged menace. Basically, all Gordon has done is use rear-screen projection and blown up footage of a real-life spider. Indeed, there is a scene in the sheriff's office when a spider like the giant one is crawling across a desk and the sheriff knocks it on the floor and stomps on it.Basically, Gordon and scenarists László Görög and George Worthing Yates play this larger-than-life action in a thoroughly straightforward fashion. Like his later outing "War of the Colossal Beast," Gordon opens the film with a man, Jack Flynn (Merritt Stone of "The Magic Sword"), driving his pick-up truck home late one night when something mysterious (which we're never shown) gets in his way on the highway and then hits him. The following day, Jack's daughter Carol (June Kenney of "Teenage Doll") worries about the disappearance of her dad and persuades her boyfriend Mike Simpson (Eugene Persson of "Bloodlust") to help her search for the old guy. Mike has to borrow a jalopy from one of his friends so he can take Carol to look for her father.Eventually, they find the truck off the side of the road, but nobody is in it. Nearby is a cave with a warning sign posted to keep intruders from entering the cavern. Our teenage hero and heroine enter the cave, prowl around, and then fall into a giant net that turns out to be a spider web. Not long afterward, they are attacked by a huge spider. Miraculously, they manage to escape, but skeptical Sheriff Cagle (Gene Roth of "Young Dillinger") does not believe the teenagers. Carol and Mike approach their high school science teacher, Professor Art Kingman (Ed Kemmer of "Calyso Joe") and he convinces Cagle to investigate. They discover the giant spider and spray down with DDT and kill it. At least, they believe that they have killed it.Professor Kingman persuades Cagle and his men to help him move the giant spider out of the cave and mount it in the high school gym. Kingman uses some of his savings to get the critter moved and he hopes that a university will take it off his hands to study it. Later, our hero learns to their shock that the spider was only knocked out. The spider hears some early rock and roll music, recovers, smashes its way out of the high school, goes on a rampage through the town, attacks the home of Professor Kingman, and scrambles back to the cave. Sheriff Cagle and company assemble a team to blast the cave entrance to seal the spider off. Little do they know, however, that Carol and Mike have gone back into the cave looking for the necklace that Jack had brought for his daughter before he died.Altogether, "Earth Vs. the Spider" is not a bad as it could have been. The spider certainly poses a threat to the community, and it seals off the community from the outside world by knocking down long-distance telephone service so our heroes must fend for themselves against their adversary. They never get a call through to the National Guard or any kind of higher authority, even though a sheriff deputy takes a motorcycle and rides out of town. The spider waylays him and sucks the moisture out of his body. Professor Kingman, Cagle, and other open a hole in the top of the mountain and descend into the cave. Mike and Carol are trapped by the spider. Kingman has arranged for electric cables to be taken into the cave and they catch the giant spider between the cables and fry it. This 73-minute, black and white feature is good fun, with decent performances. This is better than most of its kind. Incidentally, if you look closely, you will see a movie poster one-sheet at a movie theater for "The Amazing Colossal Man."