What a waste of my time!!!

Nice effects though.

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

1975's "Kiss of the Tarantula" may have been easily overlooked in its day as a low budget drive-in quickie, but in recent years is gaining momentum as a cult item. As a two time solo feature on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater (Nov 22 1980 and Aug 6 1983), I was familiar with it at the time but had long forgotten the details, not surprisingly. The only horror film shot in Columbus, Georgia, it didn't do the kind of business it was expected to, a cast of local unknowns with one Hollywood import, Eric Mason, a TV veteran cast as town sheriff Walter Bradley and uncle of teenage Susan (Suzanne Ling), whose father John (Victor French lookalike Herman Wallner) is a mortician, one reason why she's been shunned by classmates and branded as weird. A more understandable reason is her total devotion to her pet tarantulas, enabling her to kill her abusive and unloving mother, who was plotting with Walter to murder her husband, his own brother. This knowledge is also known to Susan, who grows into pretty womanhood with her uncle's unwanted advances becoming more creepy over time. After classmates accidentally kill one spider in her home, she sets the others loose on them in a parked car at the drive-in (double billing "Dirty Harry" and "Magnum Force"), unable to get out of their vehicle before fatally succumbing. The two people who suspect the truth soon meet their dooms, the first in claustrophobic fashion, the other strangled by the brutal sheriff who knows his niece is responsible but still desires her for himself. The climax is certainly fitting, but leaves the viewer feeling rather empty, no characters to identify with or root for. The central figure of Susan is never developed to any likable degree, glimpses of remorse not enough to register beyond the surface. This is the critical lack preventing audience sympathy for her, unlike better known protagonists such as Willard or Carrie. The film pretty much ends with Susan unsuspected and free to continue, with all her enemies dead, yet this provides no satisfaction for the audience, left only with the pervasiveness of unease. In that way the picture does succeed in its modest approach and rural atmosphere, pretty much the definition of a cult film.

***SPOILERS*** The only release of the now long defunct Cinema-VC Studios with it's star Suzanna Ling's-As spider loving Susan Bradley-first and last movie appearance the film "Kiss of the Tarantula" has to do with Susan getting revenge against those who killed , by stepping on it, her pet tarantula Albert by using a hoard of tarantula spiders that she bred in her basement to do in those that give her and her beloved pet spiders such a hard time. Using the spiders who are in fact really harmless-tarantulas are non-poisonous- but terrifying to look at to do in those that cause her all this trouble.It was Susan's mom Martha, Beverly Eddins, who was her first victim who didn't care much for her pet spiders and was cheating on her undertaker husband John, Herman Wellner, with his brother the town chief of police uncle Walter Bradley, Eric Mason, behind his brother John's back. It's later that Susan took care of those who killed her pet tarantula Albert by dropping a dozen of Albert's or fellow spiders into a car that they were making out in at the local drive-in scaring them all to death or out of their minds and into a coma. It was Bo Havens, Ron Prather, who saw what Susan did who she later dispatched with her tarantulas scaring him to death to keep him from talking to the police.***SPOILERS*** The final nail in the coffin came to her sex crazed and murderous uncle Walter who's plan all along was to get Susan into the sack with him only to end up getting the shaft by her. That's when he was left immobile, by being pushed down a flight of stairs, by Susan and sealed into an air tight coffin, with one of his victims, at her father's mortuary never to see the light of day, or breathing in any fresh air, again.

Before KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS revolutionized the use of spiders as villains in horror films, there was KISS OF THE TARANTULA. Made on a miniscule budget with a no-name cast, KISS is easily one of the worst horror films of the 70s. Promising chills and delivering nil, this one is not even recommended to bad movie fans.A young girl grows up displaying an infatuation with spiders and in her teen years, uses them as tools in killing her vicious, hateful classmates. Sounds good, right? Wrong! This is the sypnopsis given in every movie guide and is not the majority of the film. There are approximately three tarantula attacks and the rest is a plot by the girl to get rid of her incestuous uncle. No, she does not use the spiders on her uncle. She instead breaks his legs and buries him alive! The spider scenes are not effective, even for an arachnophobe for me. One standout scene is when a swarm of tarantulas chase down a man in a closed airduct, which is both claustrophobic and horrifying! That's it, that's the only thing about the movie that I can recommend.I spent $15 buying this and wish I hadn't. Don't make the mistake I did. Either rent it, or better yet, don't even do that! Avoid KISS OF THE TARANTULA! It is a waste of time and money for all involved, including the viewer.

My first impression of this drive-in schlock horror film was that it's quite simply, in two words: LOW BUDGET!!! You don't need to be a fan of modern day, more mainstream big-budget movies like Scream just to be underappreciated by bad films like this one, which unfortunately gets forgotten to this day. Here's what it's all about: A teenage girl named Susan gets real angry over guys tearing up the local mortuary where she has a collection of real, live tarantulas. She then gets even, and starts releasing her own kind of terror , TARANTULAS! It's highly amazing that people get killed by these strange creepy crawlers in this film, and for some unknown reasons. Only the last 15 minutes has nothing to do with the dark and shivering, yet maybe silly, nature of this film. B-movie lovers and movie seekers will enjoy this, but if you're in the normal world like many, steer clear. It's fun. it's silly, it's low budget, and it's so bad it's good! You might want to trash Scream for this one!