MegaMonsterMonth! #7 - Earth Vs The Spider (1958). Trapped in a Web of Spoliers.

It's Bert I. Gordon again. For someone who wasn't that good a filmmaker, I seem to like watching his stuff. Today I'm checking out Earth vs the Spider.

Synopsis

Jack Flynn (Merritt Stone) is driving home to a small town in the southwest after purchasing a birthday gift (a bracelet) for his daughter, Carol (June Kenney). He hits something and his truck crashes. The next day Carol and boyfriend Mike (Eugene Persson) go looking for him. They find the truck, but no body. Spying a nearby cave and thinking he may have crawled in there for shelter they venture inside and find...a giant spider! The local sheriff (Gene Roth) and high school science teacher, Kingman (Ed Kemmer) are eventually convinced that the spider is real. They venture into the cave and gas the spider with DDT. It collapses, apparently dead. But not so fast! While being stored in the high school gym, the spider is revived by rock and roll and gyrating teens (none of whom seem to be under 30). It breaks out and goes on a rampage through the town.

The most inattentive posse ever.

It eventually grows bored of eating people and heads back to the cave, where the sheriff traps it with dynamite; but not before Mike and Carol head inside to look for her birthday gift! The teens manage to survive long enough for the locals to get to the kids, where Kingman arms Mike with an electrode. The two of them catch the spider in an electrical arc which stuns it. The multi-limbed menace falls onto a stalagmite and the film ends with the monster impaled and dead.

Analysis

This is probably the most competent of Gordon's movies. The effects are okay with the matte shots avoiding the transparent look of some of his other movies. There are some pretty gruesome corpses, drained of fluid by the spider. The acting is amateurish, but adequate. Gordon keeps the movie moving along, he throws in enough spider action to balance some dull character interactions and, at 73 minutes, the film does not overstay its welcome. The opening - with Jack screaming into the camera as something slashes across his face, is an arresting way to start he film.

Of course, there are a lot of things wrong with the movie. The effects, although adequate for a film of this type (low-budget) and era(the late-Fifties), look pretty sad when compared to other films of the time (like the superior Tarantula (1955)). The acting is wooden and the "teen" cast is far too old. Although this is often the case in films (with actors in their twenties playing teens) in Earth, some of the high-school students look like they're pushing forty. The script is pretty bad, having characters doing some amazingly dumb things, even by horror movie standards. Would you really want to stage an impromptu sock hop in a room with a huge spider, even if you think it is dead? Would you really go back into the cave of death to get a bracelet? And the dialogue, which tries - clumsily, painfully - to channel the teen slang of the day - laughable.

Notes

One thing I like about this movie is that there is no explanation for the spider. It's not radioactive. Toxic waste hasn't seeped into the ground water. It didn't drop into a tank of bovine growth hormones. It's just a big spider living in a cave. Why? Are there more? Is this just an outlet for a vast, underground world of giants? Who cares?!? Not Bert I. Gordon.

Verdict

This is a bad movie I love. HThe dialogue is goofy, the acting is sub-local theater, the effects are barely competent, but something about the movie makes it fun to watch and doesn't get boring. Because of the this, the many flaws and failings are acceptable, since the movie itself is entertaining and endearingly silly. Check it out.

Here's the trailer: