Home - Review Index - Ratings - Content Icons - Links

Shadow's Title: "One Small Town vs. The Spider"

Quick buy:

Mr. Kingman – Science teacher at the River Falls High School. Never doubts Mike’s story about a giant spider and is ready to head right into the cave to find it. How gullible can you be? He probably wrote a book about his experience with the beast and cashed in on the lecture circuit.

This film takes the opportunity right off the bat to tell us who is “starrring” in it. Yes, you read that correctly, the word starring is spelled with three R’s. Who’s responsible for these titles…Tony the Tiger?

Jack Flynn is returning to his home in the small community of River Falls late one night, having driven to the town of Springdale to buy a present for his daughter Carol’s birthday. Sadly, there are worse things to encounter on the road than a speed trap by the cops. In this case, it would be a giant spider stringing its webbing across the road so it can catch its next meal. Even more unfortunate for Jack, that meal is him. Bye-bye Jack, we hardly knew ye.

Mike Simpson and Carol Flynn are classmates. Or friends. Or boyfriend/girlfriend. Or something. Who cares. The point is, Mike wants to impress Carol and in order to cement the deal and offer up apologies for his careless remarks about her dad, he agrees to help her look for him, so he borrows a car from another classmate, Joe. Joe is the biggest moron in movie history. How else to explain why he is still attending high school in his 30’s?

The two head out of town to explore the road between River Falls and Springdale. They eventually find the remains of some stringy sticky material along with the wreckage of her father’s truck. They even find the bracelet he was going to give to her. Alas, there is no sign of daddy, so they decide to check a nearby cave that has garnered a bad reputation over the years.

Ignoring the no trespassing sign, they blunder into the caves. They now begin walking through some photographs. What I mean is, the producers have taken photos of Carlsbad Cavern in New Mexico and superimposed Mike and Carol over sections of the image (and under others) to make it appear as if they really are in that location. Mike notices that they have yet to find any sign of her father. She doesn’t want to give up yet, but he assures her that they are just getting started, adding that the cave is supposed to go back into the mountain “forever.” So they press on.

They manage to find some skeletons, but still no daddy. Then they literally fall into a giant web. Long about now they hear an odd sound. To my ears, it sounded just like the noise my grandmother used to make when she tried to stand up after sitting in her favorite chair for too long. Sort of a dry wheezing. Mike and Carol look at each other in confusion. The sound continues and begins to get louder, heralding the approach of something. Something that sounds like a fat guy trying to climb thirty flights of steps after smoking an entire pack of cigarettes. Alas, it is no asthmatic fat guy that comes lumbering down the cavern, but a tarantula the size of a double decker bus. Mike and Carol manage to escape the monster’s web, exit the caves and haul ass back to town. And just for the record, tarantulas do not spin webs.

The kids quickly tell their story to Sheriff Cagle, who does not believe them in the slightest. Who can blame him? Damn punk kids and their practical jokes! So Mike and Carol go to their science teacher, Mr. Kingman and tell him about the big spider. He believes them without much convincing. He then proceeds to call Cagle and discuss the matter. For his part, the Sheriff is right on top of matters: playing checkers in his office. That’s just where I would want my local authorities to be if I had a loved one missing. Kingman embarrasses the Sheriff into leading a search team into the caves to look for Carol’s father.

They even call in some exterminators with some DDT to deal with the spider, since Kingman says bullets may not work too well, insects having simple nervous systems and all. Cagle thinks it is all wasted effort, but agrees. He also wants Kingman and the kids to go along. Why not invite a few more people while you’re at it, and have a picnic? Sheesh. And yes, Mr. Kingman the science teacher just referred to the spider as an insect and not an arachnid. Moron.

Out at the cave, everyone marches single file, the pest guys bringing up the rear. It must be noted that everyone has to hike down from the road through the trees before they reach the cave. Then the cave entrance itself is pretty big, so in order to get deep within the cave, one must walk quite some ways. The funny thing is, the pest guys are pulling a hose from their truck this whole way! That thing must be a couple thousand feet long, at least!

They all enter the cave and make their way through the same photos from earlier. Before you know it, Carol’s father turns up. Too bad he now looks like Tutankhamun’s grandpa. Everyone is creeped out and for good reason. Kingman has already explained the way spiders feed: by draining the bodies of their prey of all liquids and leaving dried out husks behind.

Not long after that, they locate the web of the big damn spider (kudos to those who get that reference) as well as the spider itself. They throw all the bullets and DDT they have at it, but before it keels over, the monster fatally slaps one fool upside the head, something my mother was always threatening me with as a kid. With the spider now dead, Cagle is ready to board up the cave, but Kingman thinks they need to remove the spider’s body for study.

It’s time to begin the requisite 50’s paranoia speech. Most flicks from this time period had at least one such speech and they spoke to the audience about the dangers of runaway science, our failure to truly understand nature and man’s place in an uncaring universe. Kingman launches into a soliloquy about how in the interests of science and humanity, the big spider must be studied, even though it is quite dead. In needs to be determined why it grew so large, so that the process can be halted in other spiders or animals. Such oversized monsters could easily overrun Humanity and supplant us as the dominant life form on the planet. Being taken down a notch or two on the food chain is not a desirable fate by any means, and even now, giant spiders could be hatching from eggs hidden away from the prying eyes of men. Cagle wants nothing to do with it and walks away. I’m getting the idea that the good Sheriff really doesn’t want to do anything but play checkers. He certainly seems averse to engaging in any activity remotely resembling actual work. Kingman spends his own money in order to haul the colossal corpse to the high school gym, where the remains will be stored until the State University can collect it.

Carol, having realized that she has lost the bracelet from her father somewhere in the caves, nags Mike relentlessly until he agrees to borrow Joe’s car again and take her back in order to find it. Meanwhile Joe and a bunch of other guys convince Hugo the school janitor to unlock the gym so they can have band practice. The loud, shitty music inspires some kids to dance. It also inspires the dead spider to get up and leave! I guess all that DDT only stunned it. On its way out of the school it eats poor Hugo, who does manage to warn Mr. Kingman via the phone before meeting his demise. The dumbass had it coming, as there was a door right at his back that he could have easily opened and run through in order to escape. That’s like standing three feet from a swimming pool while on fire and not moving a muscle.

Mr. Kingman rushes to meet the Sheriff at the school. They arrive to find people running and screaming. This of course, is nothing new. People did that when I went to high school when the local nerds were trying to score dates for the dance, and I’m sure they do it still when the next generation of nerds attempt the same thing. Alas, in this case, it isn’t a horde of socially inept dorks with glasses that they are trying to avoid, but a gigantic spider!

The big arachnid then goes on a rampage through town, knocking over cars, stomping pedestrians flat, eating other folks and leaving crying babies in the street. People panic and run when they spy the creature. One lady tries to flee her car (she was involved in a fender bender), but gets her dress caught in the door. A Spider-Cam shot closes in on her as she struggles and screams up a storm. Her fate is left open. Did the spider pass her by? Did it suck her dry? Did it bitch slap her? Swallow her whole? Stomp her flat? What?!! By the way, when we see that fender bender occur, it was a man driving the car, but shortly after that, it was this broad that was caught in the door. Continuity? Never heard of the word.

Cagle wants to call in state troops, but the long distance lines are down, so Deputy Dave decides to take his motorcycle to Springdale in order to call for help. Cagle tells him to go and get the Governor on the line. He is to tell him that they need troops in River Falls. Also, they need flamer throwers and artillery. Hell, why not just ask for a freakin’ nuke while your at it! Cagle contemplates asking for more DDT, but Kingman says it won’t do any good, as it only stunned the monster previously. Yeah, but that was with a fifty percent solution! Why no go both barrels and spray that sucker with a full on, one hundred percent solution? You wanna know why? This is why:

Monster Death Trap Proviso (n): This stipulates that any stratagem to destroy a monster, once it has failed, may not be attempted again, even if it only failed because of some bizarre fluke. Nor can the same plan be refined and tried again. Instead, a completely other plan must be formulated. Thanks to the Awesome Ken Begg at Jabootu.com and Jabootu.net for permission to use this information which can be found here and here.

Meanwhile, the big spider is spotted near Maple Street! Oh, crap! That’s where Mr. Kingman’s house is, his ultra hot wife Helen and their baby at home and unaware of the eight legged horror coming their way. He rushes home and sees the spider humping his house. He stops his car in the middle of the street and gets out, but somehow there is a row of shrubs right next to his car. A few seconds later, he rams his vehicle into the spider’s ass end and again, there are shrubs directly behind his car…which is still in the middle of the street! Oh…and keep an eye out for those ridiculous spider legs that terrorize the poor woman and her screaming, pooping offspring.

Having gotten the spider’s attention, he floors it. The spider wastes no time in pursuing him. He drives out of town, the arachnid hot on his tail. In the twisting roads near the beast’s cave, he manages to elude the monster and watches as it goes by, the beast unaware that he is hiding around a turn. With the creature gone, he hightails it back to town. He returns home to find the house in shambles, but his family ok. Then he calls the Sheriff and informs him that the Spider is heading south out of town, along the old Higgins road.

Returning now to dumb and dumber…er…Carol and Mike, we see them deep in the cave, looking in the chamber holding the spider’s web. They are having no luck in finding the present from her father. After exploring a new cavern, they locate it, but soon realize that they are lost. D’oh!

At the sheriff’s office, everyone is awaiting the cavalry to come charging in to town to rescue their asses, but when Kingman returns, it is with the dried out corpse of Deputy Dave. The poor schmuck never made it to Springdale. Hell, he never made it out of town before the Spider ate him, Kingman having found his remains at the corner of Maple and Horton. Long about now a guy comes in and reports that the Spider has returned to its cave. That can only mean one thing. Time to blow shit up! Figuring the best way to keep the Spider from escaping again is to collapse the cave entrance, they decide to detonate some dynamite to accomplish the task. A small convoy of vehicles heads out to the spider’s cave.

Deep in the cave somewhere, Mike and Carol have managed to get themselves good and lost. They reach what appears to be a dead end and while looking for further points of egress, find some writing on the wall. It just says George Weston lost April 9, 1902. Dumbass Mike takes this as a good sign, saying that this means people have been through there before. However, the skeleton Carol spots on the floor below the writing is testament enough that poor old Mr. Weston never made it out of these caves.

Mike suddenly feels hungry (men usually are) and remembers that he has a candy bar. He produces it, tears it in two and then gives one half to Carol. The two of them bite into the measly portions of sweets with all the gusto of a cannibal in a Ruggero Deodato or Umberto Lenzi movie. As they consume the meager meal, they hear the recognizable wheezing sounds of the spider. Wasting no time, they begin to run. Where, I don’t know, since they are lost, but run is what they do.

Unaware that Mike and Carol are in the cave, the Sheriff oversees the detonation of dynamite that collapses the entrance. Then the news comes in that two moron teenagers are still trapped inside with a huge, pissed off Spider.

Note - It is at this point that the movie enters its final segment, so if any of you really feel the need to watch this film and not know the ending ahead of time, skip the rest of this section.

The sheriff says they will start clearing the entrance again, but that it is a job easier said that done. Kingman suggests digging down into the cave from a small plateau higher up on the hill, so the crew breaks out their shovels and picks and goes to work. Kingman also comes up with the idea of electrocuting the beast after spotting a power line. The science teacher outlines his plan to tie into the power line, drop two electrodes into the cave, get the spider between them and then turn on the juice. Well, was that all? And here I thought it was going to be something hard. Someone is sent to fetch a quarter mile length of insulated copper cable, which should be easily found at the local hardware store. Yeah, right.

Mike and Carol learn the cave entrance is gone, having barely survived its collapse, but they soon realize that attempts are being made to rescue them. Fleeing the spider (which was also stunned by the collapse), they race through the caves until they reach the end of one passage that opens up onto a huge chasm with big, sharp stalagmites at the bottom. Noticing a ledge that extends along the chasm wall, Mike advocates walking out on it, hoping to get beyond the spider’s reach. The two slowly make their way out onto the ledge and there is that predictable moment when their weight causes part of the ledge to fall out from under them. They’re now trapped on the ledge.

Meanwhile, the others have broken through from above. Kingman and Cagle descend with the cable and electrodes. As Mike and Carol wait on their ledge, Mike spots the spider. It is descending the wall nearby. All the ruckus alerts Kingman to their location and he calls to Cagle to haul ass. The two men now emerge onto the opposite end of the ledge, the enormous arachnid suspended by webbing between them and the two teens. Quickly Cagle swings over one of the electrodes to Mike, who manages to catch it on the first pass. Kingman then instructs Mike to put on the attached rubber glove and then extends his own electrode. The call for power is relayed up to the surface and soon ZAP, a huge arc of electricity is coursing between the two electrodes…and right through the spider’s body. The spider is fried and falls into the depths, dead. Everyone climbs from the cave, and the opening is once more filled in.

The End

By the late 50’s, giant monsters were starting to wear out their welcome on movie screens and the age of atomic and radiation inspired fears was gradually giving way to the coming social anxieties of the 60’s and the new kind of monsters that came with it. While the silver screen still saw its fair share of enormous monsters, more often than not, these films were fueled by smaller budgets, even the releases from big studios.

Despite the low budget, cheap FX and several moments of questionable acting, Earth vs. The Spider is a lot of fun for those of us who appreciate the era in which it was made. The movie is damn near the epitome of the B-Movie, rolling out all the requisite ingredients: a rampaging monster, less than stellar visual effects, characters that don’t seem to make the wisest decisions and little room for much else. The movie also has a good pace and a great sense of fun. Personally, I find it to be much more engaging that many other films from the same time period. Whereas other low cost projects from the 50’s often suffer from slow, plodding plot lines and boring characters, this film zips along at a good pace and at least has memorable people in it, even if they push the bounds of believability at times with their behavior.

In spite of some of the negativity directed towards this film, I think one could easily do worse when it comes to 50’s genre films. The storyline is simple and straightforward, featuring no complex plot twists. Alas, the FX are merely adequate, but the cheap approach certainly gives the film some of its dated charm. The characters run the gamut from somewhat likable to flat out annoying, but are tolerable enough to keep things semi interesting. There is enough monster action to satisfy those who crave such things (such as myself), even though the creature sounds too silly for words to describe. The movie does make quite a few factual mistakes concerning spiders, but that is hardly something unique to this period of filmmaking. Overall, a fun movie for those who like such things.

This film represents some of my earliest memories. Not just early movie memories, but earliest memories period. By the time I was five, I had seen this film so many times, all it took was a brief second or two of exposure and I would recognize the movie. This was verified one night when my mother my father and I were watching TV. Dad was flipping through the channels and came across a black and white shot of a truck driving down a winding road in the hills. All it took was that split second of footage and I knew what it was. “Oh, Earth vs. the Spider,” I cried excitedly out in my (no doubt) shrill and annoying voice. My dad was dubious, doubting that a five-year-old could recognize a movie from about two seconds of footage. He thought I was wrong, but I told him that in just seconds, the driver of that truck was going to be attacked by a giant spider. Sure enough, an instant later Carol’s dad met his sticky end. My dad was amazed at how easily I recognized the film, and would cite this incident for years to come. As a kid, I remember marveling at how real that giant spider looked as it marched down the street. As an adult, I can recognize the cheap methods used to make a real tarantula appear gigantic. Still, there is something about this film that I love and I can watch it over and over again.

Deaths: 6
Desiccated Corpses: 2
People bitch slapped by spider: 2
Rubber bats on strings: 1
Total shots fired at spider: 22
Total shots fired at rubber bat: 3
Photos used as backgrounds: 25
Number of times Carol screams: 11
Instances of rear screen projection: 3
Dynamite explosions: 3
Decidedly 30+ year old teenagers: 1

Shadow's Drinking Game: Every time you here the theremin in the background music, take a drink.

Carol talks about her missing father.

Carol: “I can’t blame people for what they think. Even mother says that he must have run into some of his old cronies and stayed in town. He had his paycheck with him. I know it isn’t true, not this time. He promised he’d be back. I know something’s happened to him!”
Mike: “Sure it did.”

Shadow’s Comment: Of course something happened to him! Let loose in another town with his buddies and his paycheck? The guy no doubt had the time of his life and is still sleeping off a night of booze and hookers.

Sheriff Cagle requests help.

Cagle: “Go ahead, and get the Governor on the phone. Tell him we’ve got to have troops from Fort Brown. Also flame throwers and artillery.”

Shadow’s Comment: Why not ask for an entire battalion why you’re at it? And some fighter jets. And maybe an atomic bomb or two. You know…just to have all the bases covered.

• Caves have natural lighting that makes them as bright as day no matter how deep one goes.
• Giant spiders sound like hoarse drunkards.
• The optimal vehicle for the average Sheriff’s department is a station wagon.
• Pest control trucks are equipped with 5,000 feet of hose.
• A quick look is all it takes to determine if someone is dead or not.
• Improperly mixed DDT may only stun the pest in question.
• Rock and Roll has the power to resurrect the dead. In some communities, it is not uncommon to see people well into their thirties still in high school.

This film represents some of my earliest memories. Not just early movie memories, but earliest memories period. By the time I was five, I had seen this film so many times, all it took was a brief second or two of exposure and I would recognize the movie. This was verified one night when my mother my father and I were watching TV. Dad was flipping through the channels and came across a black and white shot of a truck driving down a winding road in the hills. All it took was that split second of footage and I knew what it was. “Oh, Earth vs. the Spider,” I cried excitedly out in my (no doubt) shrill and annoying voice. My dad was dubious, doubting that a five-year-old could recognize a movie from about two seconds of footage. He thought I was wrong, but I told him that in just seconds, the driver of that truck was going to be attacked by a giant spider. Sure enough, an instant later Carol’s dad met his sticky end. My dad was amazed at how easily I recognized the film, and would cite this incident for years to come. The movie was in the regular rotation of genre flicks the local stations aired, so I saw it numerous more times over the next few years, but as with many films from this era, it started showing up less and less often, until by the time the 80’s rolled around, the film disappeared from the local airwaves. I never managed to see the film again until it arrived on DVD a couple years back. The intervening years did not alter my memories too much, though in the back of my mind, I thought that the big spider had been shown during that opening scene with Carol’s dad. My imagination conjured up a shot of the spider jumping out from a behind a boulder, like a colossal trap door spider, to grab the truck. After reflecting on this false memory, I must conclude that at some point in the distant past, I dreamt that shot and the long years convinced me that it was actually part of the movie. Also, as a kid, I remember marveling at how real that giant spider looked as it marched down the street. As an adult, I can recognize the cheap methods used to make a real tarantula appear gigantic. Still, there is something about this film that I love and I can watch it over and over again.

Shadow's rating: Six Tombstones

The Good

• Hot chicks
• Great looking desiccated corpses
• Decent FX given budget and era
• People bitch-slapped by spider
• Sally Fraser…HOT!!

The Bad

• Mike was super whipped
• Cagle was an ass
• Postcards used as movie sets
• Joe the 35 year old teen
• The 5,000 ft hose on the DDT truck

The Ugly

• The wheezing sound made by spider
• Tarantulas don’t spin webs
• Spiders are NOT insects, damn it!
• Changing size of the spider
• Silly looking spider leg prop

This review is part of The VS. Roundtable. Be sure to click the banner and read all the
other kick-ass reviews from folks who, unlike me, actually know what they're doing!

Review Round-Up
Check out other reviews for this film!
- -

Home - Review Index - Ratings - Content Icons - Links