Strong and Moving!

Purely Joyful Movie!

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Near the small town of River Falls, a bird spider that's grown to enormous proportions is discovered inside a mountain cave. It's supposedly killed by the authorities, and taken to a temporary holding spot in a high school gym in preparation for transportation elsewhere. Wouldn't you know it: the beast hears the strains of some groovy rock 'n' roll and comes back to life! Among the intrepid heroes who must destroy the monster for good are the local sheriff (Gene Roth) and know-it-all science teacher Art Kingman (Ed Kemmer).Considered by some to be one of director Bert I. Gordons' best "giant thing on the loose" sci-fi thrillers, "Earth vs the Spider" benefits from a fairly snappy pace, and special effects that aren't TOO, too bad. Even though his character should know that spiders are arachnids and not insects, Kemmer is a decent enough lead. Roth is an absolute hoot as the lawman who is understandably skeptical of the idea of a giant spider. Eugene Persson and June Kenney are reasonably engaging as the kids who get themselves into tons of trouble by heading back to the caves to retrieve a bracelet. Hal Torey is good as Perssons' dad, as are Jack Kosslyn as Mr. Fraser, June Jocelyn as Kenney's mom, and Hank Patterson as Hugo the janitor. The eight legged menace is appropriately creepy, and it's amusing that these filmmakers have the thing screaming like a banshee.One effective, unnerving touch is to see two dead bodies that are victims of the creature. And another is a tracking shot that shows some of the devastation wrought by our villain, ending on a crying child.After this, Mr. B.I.G. wouldn't make another special effects, size oriented picture for several years, until he made "Village of the Giants". The man sure knew how to promote himself: posters for his past work can be seen at a theatre.Seven out of 10.

Two teenagers on a date(played by June Kenny & Eugene Persson) explore a cavern and stumble upon a gigantic spider(tarantula). Terrified, they escape from it and go for help. The authorities "kill" it with DDT, but a scientist(played by Ed Kemmer) wants to study it to see how it got so big. Big mistake, since the spider isn't dead, merely inactive, and after listening to a Rock & Roll band in the school gymnasium(where it is being kept!), awakens and goes on a rampage through town. Can it be stopped before everyone is killed? Bert I. Gordon directed this typical film of his, with inadequate F/X and a thin story. Some tension in the cavern, but too silly otherwise.

This movie is atrocious. I knew what I was getting into and that Bert I Gordon did it. I liked his giant man movies, and the Mystery Science Theater treatment was very very funny with them. Here though, that is the only thing going good for this film. I had to pause it at least 5 times and go off to do other things like fall asleep. This movie is horrible. I love horrible bad movies and maybe I'm just not in the mood today to watch a horrible 50's drive in s movie, but this movie has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, it really was just thrown together for a quick drive in theater buck. There are no jokes, there are no characters you actually like (even the monster sucks), and the movie is full of obvious reality flaws! SPOILERS. OK most of this film is made in a "cave" except it's well lit, where is the light coming from? The town's long distance phone lines are down, OK it's the 50's where are the radios at? I mean where are the ham radios at? Hey lets take the giant spider to the high school? Huh? Lets blow up the cave and THEN find out there are people inside it when we look at the car outside the cave? Huh? Lets have the spider go to the teachers house specifically and terrorize his wife and kid, huh? Lets have the spider destroy a just married couple's fun, and a toddler's in the road, huh? None of those kids at the high school get eaten either, oh my God this movie is horrible! We can't fix the phone lines and have no radios but lets rig the power lines to zap the spider? HUH? 2 or 3 stars if you watch the MST3K version, even they weren't smart enough to joke about the lack of light thing, they were coasting on this episode, 0 stars if you watch it without the laugh track. Atrocious.

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)