El beso de la tarántula

In the distinctly 70s tradition of films such as WILLARD, HOLY Wednesday, STANLEY, and JENNIFER; THE SNAKE GODDESS, this unspectacular independent non-chiller concerns a strange, spider-loving girl who dispatches her little 8-legged friends on killing missions...vengeance against folks who've treated her badly. Lovely Suzanna Ling, apparently in her only film appearance, is quite appealing. Her performance isn't exactly award-winning, but she shows potential, and one wonders what she may have accomplished had she not opted for instant retirement following KISS OF THE TARANTULA(it's hard to blame her, however).

It's very likely that you've seen this whole idea brought on before, and with better results(actually, I can't think of a time when it might have been done more poorly). Even as 70s-era drive-in fodder goes, this is a weak, ordinary film devoid of surprises or anything resembling quality craftsmanship.

An obscurity, moreless, and justifiably so. 3.5/10

I would say that this was inspired by the success of Willard which came out the previous year but the action is provided by spiders instead of rats. How about the scenes at the drive-in movie theatre? A volkswagen contains four victims who are screaming at the top of their lungs and no one comes to investigate. Were they and the spider woman the only ones at the drive-in? The spider woman spends time fending off the lecherous advances of her uncle, played by Eric Mason, whose acting style reminded me of William Shatner.

Susan is a young girl who had always had an fascination with spiders, but her mom didn't like it. After finding out she had planned to kill her father, just to be with his brother. She scares her mother to death by releasing a Tarantula on her. Years have past, Susan now has a big collection of pet Tarantulas, but one night some hoons come into the mortuary where she lives with her father, to steal a coffin and but they kill one of her spiders. Now she what's to take revenge on those who were involved by releasing her pets onto them. But that's one of her worries, as her sly uncle is now trying to put the moves on her.

While searching around in a second hand shop for some unknown films, I came across this little oddity which was called "Kiss of the Tarantula". Well, I liked the look of the front cover of the video case and the synopsis sounded like great b-grade, drive-in 70's feature. Paid my $2 for it, later I watch it that night and I gotta say that this little tale was a fair treat. Not great, but fair is best the way to put it.

This simple-minded low budget horror flick had an innocently sweet tone to it, and you'll definitely be thinking of "Willard" (1971), as they shared definite similarities. Just this time it's the spiders turn. Also it adds a twinkle of "Carrie" (1976) into the equation too. But in that case, it doesn't match the thrills of those particular films. It skewed more towards a glum melodrama actually, with the creepy crawlies playing second fiddle to Susan's troubles with her devious uncle. I guess that's just the way the plot plays out, as it seems to lose interest in the tarantulas, because they don't even pop up in the third act. Though saying that, just the look of a hairy spider makes my skin crawl. But here that wasn't always the case, yeah there are some eerie scenes like a grisly panic caused by the tarantulas in a car and a pulsating air vent scene (..now that was eerie). But these were more provoked by panic and you somewhat laugh because its basically silly watching the spiders crawl all over their initial victims. Nothing is totally horrific about the hysteria laced attacks, but more so... freaky. Mainly for a person who has arachnophobia. Most of the time Susan's either pondering around, caressing with her fingertips and talking to them! Suzanna Ling is rather gorgeous as Susan Bradley and Eric Mason is notable as Walter Bradley. The rest of the amateurish cast, I was surprised, they gave above average performances. Though, there were one or two characters that seem to vanish, after thinking they might have more of a role. The dialogue is stilted and the direction is mostly dour with the exception of a couple lines of added irony, but the minor production to a certain agree still generates a surprise or two that sticks with you. That really goes to the cleverly illustrated climax that effectively packs a killer punch. Backing all that up is an electronic score, which did at times settled the mood, but other times came across as unbalanced with rather odd choices and placement. If your looking for something cheesy, you won't find it here, because it takes itself rather seriously. It does comes across like a TV feature, but still it doesn't hamper proceedings.

A reasonable time waster, but don't expect a whole lot of spider terror.

I would guess that this uninspiring little film was probably inspired by Stephen King's book 'Carrie', and possibly even Brian De Palma's film adaptation, as while this film was released in the same year; I'm sure that there was more than enough time to write the script and make the film with what was left of it. Spiders are common throughout horror cinema, and big tarantulas are a fear of many people. Adding to this theme is the tried and tested formula of a young female outcast getting her revenge...so really, there's not many excuses for this film not being better. Kiss of the Tarantula hasn't gone on to achieve much acclaim and it's rather unknown, which doesn't surprise me at all. The film focuses on a young girl who likes spiders. Her mother doesn't share this arachnid appreciation, however, and after continually telling her daughter off for playing with spiders, the young girl decides that enough is enough and ends up putting a spider in her mother's bed, which leads to a heart attack. Some years later, the girl is still disturbed; and decides to use the spiders to get revenge on her current enemies.

The fact that this film was shot on a low budget is clearly shown through the use of the spiders; as it can't have cost much to round a few up for filming, and this is pretty much all the film has in terms of horror imagery. The spiders are about enough to pull it through, but the film is otherwise lacking; and I find it hard to believe that everyone except the central character is scared of them. The plots surrounding the spiders isn't too interesting either, with only the idea of the young girl being an outcast for her 'hobby' and a plot involving her uncle and her mother having an affair providing distraction from the central theme. The fact that the film is set in a funeral home is a positive element, as mortuaries often provide an interesting location for horror films, and that works well here. As you might expect given the type of film, the acting is largely diabolical, and I'm not surprised that this was the only film role for Suzanna Ling. Director Chris Munger never made another film after this one also, and overall; Kiss of the Tarantula is almost worth seeing, but you wouldn't be missing anything by not watching it.

From the first scene, little Susan seems troubled and is fascinated with spiders. She considers them her pets. And why not? Mom has all of the warmth and maternal love of one of dad's corpses on a slab. Dad is a mortician and full of love for his daughter. The actress playing mom is pretty stiff in her role (no pun intended) and actually seems much too old for the part she is playing. She is having an affair with her husband's brother, a cop. Susan overhears mom talking on the phone, figures out who she is talking to, and overhears their plans to kill her beloved dad.

So Susan waits until mom is asleep and puts her pet tarantula on her. Mom awakens, doesn't jump out of bed, just lays there in terror, and then has a heart attack and dies. Mission accomplished. Dad is safe. Susan grows up. Her age is never specified, but it seems that she is in high school because she is walking to school with a backpack. Although, like mom, she seems about ten years too old for the part. By this time Susan has many tarantulas as pets in the basement and she is still the apple of her dad's eye.

Pretty soon Susan is solving all of her problems with bullies and the kids who broke into the mortuary and killed one of her pets spiders by planting spiders on them when and where they least expect it. In every case they don't run away, they just sit there screaming with the spiders crawling on them and die of a coronary. Never have I seen so many healthy young people die of heart attacks.

Now that Susan has matured, Dad's lecherous brother begins to have the hots for her, bothering her and getting just a little too affectionate. Blech! The girl is your niece! To make matters worse he's the local DA, and he and the cops are stumped at all of the deaths occurring around town. To make matters even worse he wants to run for state Attorney General. But for some strange reason he sends his brother out to campaign while he shadows Susan with his tongue dragging the floor. Usually voters want to hear from the candidate, not his brother.

This all comes to a head with the DA committing a terrible crime himself, and Susan wreaking a completely ironic justice upon the guy that for once did not involve her spiders.

The dialogue is wooden and the acting uninspired. And then there is the case of the high schoolers that look like they are in their 30s and the convenient way all of the victims die at the sight of a spider. However, this is a case of something you just don't see anymore - an independent low budget film with actors so anonymous you wonder why they bothered to give them names in the movie different from their actual names. For several of the players I think this was their only credited role.

For me, it is an artifact of the last days of drive ins, and for that reason I enjoyed it. It is so authentic, so not mass produced, so something that no movie studio would have any part of today that it is just a guilty pleasure of mine. Your mileage may vary.