EARTH VS. THE SPIDER

EARTH VS. THE SPIDER (aka The Spider/1958). Director: Bert I. Gordon. Colorized. 

For inexplicable reasons a gargantuan bird spider which has been snacking on luckless spelunkers decides to come out of its cave and kill the father of high school student Carol Flynn (June Kenney). Science teacher Art Kingman (Ed Kemmer) instructs the authorities, including laconic Sheriff Cagle (Gene Roth), to fill the cavern with gas. Thinking the huge arachnid is dead, the group takes the creature to the high school, where it  is put on display and wakes up during band practice! As it goes on a rampage, Carol and her boyfriend Mike (Eugene Persson) go into the cave to see if they can find a gift that Carol's late father bought for her birthday. Naturally the monster comes back. Now it's a question if the teens, lost in the cave, will die of starvation or become instant bug food! 

There's something oddly likable about The Spider, Bert I. Gordon's imitation of the superior Tarantula, although one could certainly point to plenty of dumb moments and glaring imperfections. The movie could have been a nail-biter but never achieves that level of tension. The cast generally plays it straight, which always helps, and June Kenney is rather good as Carol. Still the actors have to take a back seat to that spider. Its rampage is quite limited, and the last quarter of the film is a bit on the slower side, but the flick is still entertaining if you like creature features. The color, as usual, adds a new dimension. Albert Glasser's score is effective as well. 

Verdict: A fun big bug movie. **3/4.

GIANT FROM THE UNKNOWN

GIANT FROM THE UNKNOWN (1958). Director: Richard Cunha.

Many monster movie fans will be disappointed to know that the “giant” in this movie is not of Bert I. Gordon proportions like The Cyclops or Amazing Colossal Man but is only a very tall, bear-like actor named Buddy Baer. Baer plays a nasty Spanish conquistador who has been in suspended animation for 500 years, but has come back to life to attack people and livestock in the vicinity of Devil's Crag. This conquistador, Vargas by name, was known as “the Diablo Giant” due to his size. Ed Kemmer [of Earth vs. The Spider infamy] plays Wayne Brooks, who hooks up with an archaeologist named Cleveland (Morris Ankrum of Earth vs the Flying Saucers) and his not-terribly-scientific daughter Janet (Sally Fraser, who appeared in War of the Colossal Beast and other genre films). Fraser is better in this picture than in others, and she and Kemmer play a nice, charming love scene together. 

While it's become obligatory to snicker at Giant from the Unknown, the fact is that it's not such a bad movie at all. It is fast-paced, professional, continually suspenseful, and not badly directed by Cunha, who handles several sequences quite adroitly. The film is also very well edited. Albert

Sally Fraser and Buddy Baer

Glasser's score, as usual, adds a lot to the picture as well. There has been some confusion over a scene when it appears that Vargas revives during a lightning storm even though people and animals have already been attacked earlier in the picture. It's possible that in this scene Vargas is merely awakening after sleeping for awhile, and that he covered himself in leaves and the like so that he wouldn't be attacked while asleep. Unfortunately the dialogue refers to the lightning as a source of resuscitation, further muddying the waters. (Maybe it was the continuity person who was asleep.)

Verdict: Some giants are bigger than others. ***. 

EARTH VS THE SPIDER

The spider saunters past sheriff's office

EARTH VS THE SPIDER (1958). Director: Bert I. Gordon. 

A gigantic bird spider of unknown origin wakes up in a cave and begins eating the locals. One of the first victims is Jack Flynn (Merritt Stone), whose daughter Carol (June Kenney) and boyfriend Mike (Eugene Persson) find his desiccated corpse. Initially put down by gallons of DDT, the spider is presumed dead and put in the gymnasium, until a band's practicing wakes it up and off it goes on a rampage. Now the town has to figure out a way to destroy the monster for good, but are science teacher Art Kingman (Ed Kemmer) and Sheriff Cagle (Gene Roth) up to the challenge?

The deputy: pitiful victim of the giant spider

Earth vs the Spider, clearly inspired by the superior Tarantula, is another of Burt I. Gordon's  (Mr. BIG) monster movies with its usual attempts at characterization, variable special effects work, and a few grisly touches that might have provided shocks for teens in the fifties. The picture has some suspense, a few disturbing moments, and is a lot of fun. Like normal-sized spiders, this monster immobilizes its victims and sucks all the juice out of them, although this business is never actually depicted; we only see the results. The film was supposedly filmed in the famous Carlsbad caverns. The "teens" in this movie were mostly played by adults. Joe the bandleader, is played by Troy Patterson, who was thirty-five at the time! 

NOTE: You can read more about this film and others like it in Creature Features: Nature Turned Nasty in the Movies. 

Verdict: You can't go completely wrong with Mr. BIG! **1/2.