Spider movies, giant or otherwise, are my kryptonite. Why? Because I am massively arachnophobic and just editing this piece made my skin crawl and set my teeth on edge. Still, I have a job to do to deliver content for you, our beloved Outposters. So I am going to put on my big boy pants and Tarantula! done. That is the big boy pants with elasticated ankles to stop anything crawling up my leg (shudder).
We love a contribution here at Last Movie Outpost, we really do. It warms our hearts and makes Boba Phil go all wobbly. If you have something you want to share with your fellow Outposters then send it over to [email protected] then you, too, can be like Hawkzino here.
When he offered to submit a series of articles on spider movies, I ran away crying and then came back after I had a stern word with myself and said “Of course!”. So here is Hawkzino, and Tarantula!.
Tarantula! (1955)
I have written possibly the most comprehensive book on giant spider movies ever, but who on earth is going to publish it? Maybe I’ll do it myself at some point, but for now I thought I would share a few chapters with the good people of Last Movie Outpost.
For this first one, I fired up the DeLorean and, like Marty McFly, and traveled all the way back to 1955 to the granddaddy of all giant spider movies – Tarantula! Despite the movie being a lifetime old, it features some neat special effects that still mostly work today.
The make-up is top notch and the spider effects work well, involving a real tarantula walking across miniature sets or superimposed on the screen, plus a puppet for close-ups. It isn’t perfect, because real tarantulas move in slow motion like they’re walking away from an explosion in a Michael Bay movie. They should have sped the film up to make it more of a threat. Good job that most of its victims just stand there and scream rather than run away.
The movie starts with some BUM BUM BUUUUUUM type music, which was used unironically back then to signal danger. Some dude resembling a sleepwalking Gamorrean Guard stumbles through an Arizona desert and dies.
Next, we meet our handsome hero, Doc Hastings, as he flies his own plane into town after delivering twins in another city. It’s as if he’s the only person in America capable of such things. What a guy!
I thought the plane was foreshadowing an aerial battle or an escape from the spider later, but nothing comes of it. Just to confirm: it is utterly irrelevant that the doctor can fly a plane, other than to show how awesome he is. And yet inexplicably single, which has to be a red flag in itself, right? How come he hasn’t been snapped up? He’s probably got a weird fetish or something. Fuck that guy.
There IS an aerial battle with the spider at the end. This isn’t fought by the doctor, but by Clint Eastwood. He is uncredited for some reason but it’s him. He has lines and everything.
But I’m jumping ahead. As soon as the doctor lands, the Sheriff grabs him to look at the body of the Gamorrean Guard they found in the desert. The doctor suspects that the victim suffered from acromegalia (look it up), and despite his enlarged face, they recognize him as a Professor who worked for another Professor (Professor Deemer) at a secret experimental lab in the desert.
What could they be up to?
Professor Deemer arrives and confirms that the dead Professor did have acromegalia (seriously, just look it up), only it developed in days rather than years. Okay fine, let me explain acromegalia. No, there is too much. Let me sum up:
We then get a look at Professor Deemer’s lab, which houses an array of enlarged creatures who have been injected with a ‘radioactive nutrient.’ When it comes to giant spiders, as well as late-onset acromegalia, that darned radiation has a lot to answer for. Most of the ‘roided up creatures are rodents and rabbits, but at some point, the Professors must have gotten drunk and bored and shot up a tarantula on a dare.
The spider is only sizeable at this point, as big as a lawnmower, but it sure grows quickly.
Then another bloated freak/former lab partner bursts in and causes a right kerfuffle. He attacks the Professor, trashes the lab, starts a fire, injects the Professor with the same drug he’s been giving the animals, puts a stall through the tarantula’s glass cage, flips the bird, chugs a beer (I might have made that last bit up), keels over and dies.
The Professor wakes up and extinguishes the fire, but he assumes the spider burned up, when in fact it walked out the door in slow motion. It probably hadn’t gotten as far as the end of the garden path, to be honest, but he didn’t bother to check.
Next, we meet the movie’s token female, Stephanie, who insists on being called Steve, though hopefully not in the bedroom, unless you’re into that, in which case…cool. She’s a graduate student who has landed a job working for the Professor, so her timing sucks. After being propositioned by the doctor’s receptionist, who is about 70 years old, Doc Hastings offers her a ride to the lab. It’s a crafty move because Doc suspects that Professor Deemer is up to no good and gives him an excuse to snoop around the lab and ask questions and also he fancies her.
They drive through the desert to the lab and get tailed by the tarantula, which has grown to the size of a family saloon and actually appears to be using the road. Also, it is heading towards the lab, so it must have doubled back at some point.
When they arrive, the Professor gives them a tour of the lab and a large dose of exposition. He is incredibly forthcoming about his growth experiments and the noble aim that drives them: feeding an overcrowded world. According to Dr Nostradamus, there will be 3.625 billion people on planet Earth by the year 2000.
That’s quite a specific number, so armed with 20:20 hindsight, Google, and a penchant for pedantry, I looked it up.
6.1 billion? Damn, I’m kind of on his side now. Anyway, he is growing these oversized animals to provide more food, which is admirable but it still doesn’t explain the spider, does it? Nobody’s eating that. Perhaps that’s the backup plan: if they can’t feed everyone, they can reduce the population by unleashing giant spiders on the peasants.
The Professor keeps rubbing his arm where the second freak injected him, and sure enough, he begins to show signs of acromegalia. He develops a massive chin, a love for ballroom dancing and begins presenting television game shows. Only one of those is true. It’s a Bruce Forsyth joke. You may have to Google that too.
It takes 45 minutes for the killings to start. The Doc and Sheriff investigate a farmer’s dead cows. Later on, the spider returns to chow down on the farmer’s horses, and him. Then it attacks two men we’ve never seen before in a truck, somehow managing to pick up the entire truck and throw it into the air. How does a spider accomplish that? It doesn’t matter how big it is, it doesn’t have any hands.
Anyway, the Doc and Sheriff link the attacks due to the presence of large pools of creamy white goo at each attack site. The Doc even tastes it but makes a face (too salty?). It’s venom, of course. They ask the Professor to confirm that the substance is venom, but by this point, his chin is out of control and all he can mutter is ‘good game, good game.’
The Doc has to fly his plane to another laboratory to get the exposition he needs. They confirm that the goo is tarantula venom and show him a video of tarantulas in action, fighting hawk wasps and shit. I smell a belated sequel coming on: Tarantula 2: Rise of the Hawk Wasp.
This time the tarantula is the good guy when its natural predator, the hawk wasp, is irresponsibly injected with growth serum and runs amok. Only the giant tarantula can save the day, but the odds are stacked against him. Cue training montage.
The Doc’s response to all this exposition can only be described as ‘American:’ he calls the Sheriff and rounds up a posse with as many men, guns, and dynamite as possible. Fuck yeah!
The spider then pays Steve a house call and peeks into her window at night as she de-robes, the pervert. It is an effective scene, with echoes of King Kong, and of course, it’s 1955 so we don’t see anything saucy.
But it’s enough to get spidey excited and he starts humping the house (I’m 78% sure that’s what he was doing). Then he breaks through the ceiling and nabs the Professor as a Brucie bonus.
Steve escapes and guess who’s there to give her a ride away from danger? Dr Slick, that’s who. The posse attempts to blow up the spider with dynamite but it doesn’t inflict so much as a flesh wound. However, a deputy makes literally one phone call to the local airbase and somehow convinces them to scramble several fighter jets to take it on. This conversation takes place offscreen but I imagine it went a bit like this:
‘Howdy, you’ve reached the Colonel Douglas J Mcfuckbuckle air force base, how can I help you this fine morning?’
‘Hi, this is deputy dickhead from One Horse Town, Arizona. We have a giant spider on the loose as a result of a mad Professor’s well-intentioned but misguided attempts to feed the world, way before Bob Geldof made it fashionable. We need you to load up your warplanes with bombs and destroy it immediately.’
‘What in tarnation?! This for real?’
‘You’re darn tootin.’
‘Well that sounds completely believable, we’ll get on it right away. Is there anything else I can help you with today?’
‘Yeah, the local doctor says to load the planes up with napalm. I guess he’s an expert in everything.’
‘Thanks, we wouldn’t have thought of that.’
‘And if Clint Eastwood is available, send him too.’
‘Who?’
‘That’s right…you haven’t heard of him yet.’
In the end, the heroes drive away and do nothing while Clint napalms the shit out of the tarantula and saves the day. The movie ends pretty abruptly after that, much like this review.
Overall I give this movie three stars out of five (or five spider legs out of eight, using a rating system I just made up). Believe me – that’s pretty good for a giant spider movie.