Avis des utilisateurs

Bert I. Gordon's 1958 "Earth vs the Spider" was the director's seventh and last sci/fi effort of the decade, after which he branched out into teen fantasy ("The Boy and the Pirates," "The Magic Sword," "Village of the Giants"), straight horror ("Necromancy," "Burned at the Stake," "Satan's Princess"), and psychological dramas ("Tormented," "Picture Mommy Dead"). A giant spider had been a Universal regular with "Tarantula" and "The Incredible Shrinking Man," so the only surprise is that Gordon was bringing up the rear on this occasion. The search for a missing father reveals him to be the latest victim of a hungry eight legged monster living in a nearby cave (New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns in fact, plus reliable Bronson Canyon), capturing its prey using a thick strand of silk spun across the highway. A bout of DDT seemingly renders it harmless, the local high school professor allowed to showcase the remains in the auditorium, only for the creature to come back to life during a rock 'n' roll jam. Nothing can stop its journey back to the cave, where natural elements must be used to destroy it once and for all. There are plugs for both "The Amazing Colossal Man" and "Attack of the Puppet People," and the picture succeeds better than most Gordon fare despite the absence of a reason for the spider's outsized existence. It's certainly not as good as either of Universal's classics, and the director would reuse the idea briefly for a scene in his 1965 teenage romp "Village of the Giants."

This is a typical drive-in movie horror film from the late 1950s. Like all similar films (such as ATTACK OF THE GILA MONSTER, THE KILLER SHREWS, etc.), this one had a very low budget, was quickly made and featured small-time actors. Naturally, the dialog was poor at times and the overall plot laughable, but in a strange way the film was still a lot of kooky fun. The spider special effects were generally very good and the story kept my interest. While those who love Shakespeare and art films probably won't appreciate this film, for those who love the genre this is a film that will most likely satisfy. As for me, I like these silly old flicks and recommend the movie--but I also can't rate it any higher because of its questionable aesthetic value and cheesiness.

PS--Look at the marquee at the movie theater. One of the films on the bill was THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN and the other was ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE--both films by director/producer Bert I. Gordon who made this film.

Released in 1958 and shot in B&W, "Earth vs. the Spider" details the events of a small town in Southern California when a colossal spider living in a cave comes to town.

While "Earth vs. the Spider" is great when you're 8 years-old its flaws surface when viewed as an adult. For one, the spider's size changes according to the sequence: In the cave it's huge, but when it's on display at the school it's noticeably smaller; then when it traverses the town it's gargantuan. Inconsistencies like this don't make for great movies. It's entertaining in some ways, like being a period piece of the late 50s, but it pales in comparison to Sci-Fi giants from the 50s like "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) and the monumental "Forbidden Planet" (1956). It doesn't help that colossal animal/monster movies made in the decades since are just all-around better, including being in color. Still, "Earth vs. the Spider" is worth catching if you favor these kinds of flicks and want to go back in time to the late 50s, not to mention there are some effective elements, like the horrific sounds the spider makes and the drained remains of its victims.

The film runs 73 minutes and was shot in Bronson Canyon, Griffith Park and Los Angeles, California, with additional footage from Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

GRADE: C

I remember the newspaper ads for this as a kid. They showed a hideous spider with the head of a skull, and the tagline: It must eat you to live! Talk about giving a kid nightmares. Never got to see it at the theater but got the videotape and, while not as good as Tarantula, it comes pretty close. Mr BIG (Gordon) always had a knack for getting decent character actors, and he has good ones here, except for the teenage male lead who is pretty lame. He also knew how to keep the story clean and simple, fast-paced and interesting, without much superfluous material to bog down the action. Usually his films were hard-pressed to get to 90 mins, no filler material in them. If you are able to forgive the effects limitations of the times and of the budget, you will enjoy this and not feel that you've wasted your time. And keep your eye out for JOE, the thirty year old high school student!

When you sit down to watch a Bert I. Gordon picture, you know you're in for a bad movie.

And, knowing that you can have a real good time.

The story is about a giant spider that attacks a town. No more need be said about the plot. The acting is horrendous. It's awful inconsistent too, half the time the characters do really dumb things, and half the time (well part of the time) they are actually smart too. That's the bad news, here's the good news, it is fast paced and fun. While the movie came out the same year as "The Blob", and both movie feature "kids" (AKA teenagers) who first witness the monster, in "The Blob" nobody believes the teens until it's too late. Not in Earth vs. the Spider! At least some of the adults totally accept that there is a giant spider on the loose, right from the get go. And that's what you, the viewer have to do here to - there is no explanation for what caused the giant spider, or why there are no other giant spiders, it just is, and you have to accept it. It also features a great rock and roll number, effects that run the gamut from real cheesy to real impressive, the world's oldest teenager, "hep" 50s dialogue, a theremin soundtrack and "spider noises"!

At just 73 minutes, it never gets dull, it's up there with some of the best so-bad-it's-good movies ever made. So grab some friends and a 12 pack, and check out this - the original 1958 version of "Earth vs. the Spider"!

There are few film genres which can evoke such a wonderful sense of vintage entertainment as classic monster horror films. Whether perused in more depth to explore resonant themes and cultural tie-ins or simply taken at face value for comically poor dated special effects and pulpy entertainment, the particular cocktail of entertainment offered by almost any given similar film from the era is unlikely to disappoint - and Earth vs. the Spider is no exception. Despite a somewhat misleading title (then again, 'Small Rural American Town vs. the Spider' does lose some dramatic flair), the film's small, self-contained scope proves to be its greatest advantage, with few more profound aims than to entertain, and, despite whatever other faults, almost unwavering dedication to that front.

While firmly ensconced in genre conventions, the film's tongue in cheek tone promotes such a wholesome sense of enjoyment that such clichés feel warmly familiar rather than suffocatingly so. Like many of its contemporaries, the film explores notions of adults versus teenagers (one particularly comical yet chilling scene has the titular creature awoken by a rock 'n roll song and dance interlude) and science versus good old fashioned American values, though the film is politically correct to not outright condemn scientists as nonsensical lunatics as many other such films do. Similarly, the much alluded to cause for the spider's abnormal growth is crucially never discovered, feeding into cultural notions of post-war nuclear paranoia. However, the film boasts surprisingly strong production values (the spider's cave is a wonderfully grotesque setting) and above par special effects given its inevitably low budget, and again manages to bend convention to its advantage through use of an eerie theremin score, giving it a sturdy enough veneer to make for a surprisingly entertaining 73 minutes.

Despite the cast's typically universally flat performances failing to infuse much life into the shoddy script, one would hardly peruse such fare for the acting, making the cast's lackluster efforts endearingly amusing. Ed Kemmer interestingly melds the 'scientist voice of reason' and 'charismatic protagonist' figures into a single character, and feels all the more fresh and appealing because of it. June Kenney is often embarrassingly and comically melodramatic as a teen mourning her missing father, and Eugene Persson counterbalances her overacting with a dull, unenthusiastic performance as her earnest, "gee whiz" boyfriend. Gene Roth delivers many an (intentionally) comical moment as the town's ineffective sheriff, who also intriguingly shifts roles into a voice of reason figure later on.

Despite a slew of expected faults given its genre, Earth vs. the Spider is never less than supremely entertaining, making for a wonderful comedy (intentionally or not) and easily worth investigating for any fans of classic horror, or those willing to derive amusement from envisioning how frightening it must have been to 1958 audiences, or simply ridiculing it throughout.

-5/10

Jack Flynn is attacked while driving home. His teenage daughter Carol and her boyfriend Mike go searching for him and find a giant spider in a cave. The Sheriff doesn't believe them. Their teacher Kingman is able to convince him to send a posse. Armed with DDT, they are able to kill the giant spider. They bring the spider back to town and store it in the high school gym. As the kids practice rock and roll, the spider revives and terrorizes the town. Meanwhile Carol and Mike go back to the cave to find her lost bracelet.

It's a campy 50s creature feature. The giant spider is a fun visual. The acting is bad. The story is simplistic which actually helps. I certainly don't want too many explanations about giant spiders. That can't be any good. It's a B-movie with a few fun unintentional silliness.

Somehow I'd missed seeing this AIP '50s monster flick, so I recently gave the new Lions Gate R1 DVD a spin. It's rightly considered a rip of Universal's TARANTULA, but this still turned out to be brisk and enjoyable, and a lot of cheesy fun. When a young girl and her boyfriend search for the girls' missing father, they stumble across a giant spider's cave and, naturally, the monster eventually crawls around town. Better-than-average special effects for this type of cheapie, with some surprisingly vivid shock moments and the required helping of some typical teenage 1950's rock n roll music. Gene Roth is a hoot as the doubting sheriff, and there are some shameless plugs for some of Bert I Gordon's other pictures like THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN and ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE. *** out of ****

OK, so the special effects are not always that special, though better than many of the period, the story line is routine, though again no worse than that of similar films, and the acting is as one would expect for a film of this type. But, ask yourself, were you bored by it? At least Bert Gordon kept the action going and there were very few dull spots in his films. A lot of modern directors could learn how to pace their films from some of the old B movie directors.

Compare that to the overblown, overlong, CGI laden sci-fi "epics" to which we are currently subjected - and I know which I would prefer.

At the end of the day which is the better film - one made on a shoestring which entertains, or one costing a hundred million dollars which has you looking forward to the end credits?

When EARTH VS. THE SPIDER crawled onto theatre screens nationwide in 1958 and first appeared on television in 1963 it was under the title THE SPIDER. Thus its current label is somewhat of an enigma. Perhaps the additional prefix of EARTH VS. was part of its original intended title (with actual prints struck as such) but was deemed too ambitious for what actually transpires in the movie. Possibly because of this title's similarity to the Ray Harryhausen epic EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS (released a few years earlier) it was feared to be an infringement on the Harryhausen work (or it could be mistaken as a re-release of same) and was shortened to the more appropriate THE SPIDER.

EARTH VS. THE SPIDER has the handicap of being a steal of Jack Arnold's TARANTULA (1955) and like all giant mutation films of the 1950's following in the wake of the 1954 sci-fi masterpiece THEM! (trying to emulate its distinctive qualities and commercial success) but taken on its own terms it successfully establishes its own eerie atmosphere and excitement that makes it popular today.

Comparison with TARANTULA is unavoidable but while both films utilize an actual tarantula spider (for practical purposes) EARTH VS. THE SPIDER usually manipulates the title protagonist in confined, claustrophobic surroundings when pursuing its intended prey to great effect (the expansive yet enclosed underground caverns, the high school gymnasium and the climatic confrontation on the cavern ledge, etc.). Further this monster also spins a web (unlike the title menace in TARANTULA) and a great deal of suspense and tension is achieved as nosey intruders are caught in it while the wailing bellow of the approaching creature is heard.

The giant spider's cave sanctuary is as much a character as the spider itself and it engenders a tremendous sense of foreboding and dread as the two teenagers and later as the town sheriff, his deputies and some townspeople approach and enter it (the mood is beautifully underscored by Albert Glasser's ominous background music).

In comparison to the technical virtuosity of THE SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD released the same year (or any Harryhausen film of the period) the special effects in EARTH VS. THE SPIDER are thin beer indeed but adequate. These effects include rear projection, split screens, superimposures, miniatures and forced perspective utilizing photographic plates of famed Carlsbad Caverns. At the film's suspenseful finale there appears to be an unheralded moment of stop motion animation of the giant spider dangling along a precipice and the closing image of the dead creature impaled on stalagmite on the cavern floor (actually a painting) is quite impressive.

All told EARTH VS. THE SPIDER is a film well worth looking into.

This is a pretty funny 'horror' movie. It must have been great fun to watch at a drive-in 'back when' but now it's really campy. One of the big weaknesses of this movie is that most of the 'teenage' type actors are beyond the believable age range. The main character high school boy's friend (who is also supposedly a high school student) is played by someone who is - and looks every day of - 35 years old. And did you know that spiders actually make a high-pitched screaming noise? That part was news to me. If you go for these old horror / monster type movies, you could give this one a try - but keep something in backup just in case you decide this isn't worth your time, which might possibly be the case.

While driving back to his home late one night a man by the name of "Jack Flynn" (Merritt Stone) is attacked by a giant spider which sends his car off the road and down an embankment. The next morning his teenage daughter "Carol Flynn" (June Kenney) is walking with her boyfriend "Mike Simpson" (Eugene Persson) and wondering out loud why her father hasn't returned yet since he was supposed to be there for her birthday. As time passes she grows even more concerned to the point that the two of them drive down the mostly deserted highway from which he should have been traveling on. It's then that they notice wreckage from a car and after walking down the embankment find the car itself. Not finding anyone in the car they wander around until they see an old abandoned mine entrance and decide to look inside just in case he might have taken shelter there for the night. Unfortunately, not only do they find her father's body but they also narrowly escape from a giant spider which has established its home there as well. Naturally, they immediately inform the town sheriff who doesn't believe them at first and this soon leads to disastrous consequences for everybody concerned. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say this was an okay grade-B horror film which managed to capture the time period in which it was produced. Needless to say, the special effects and sets weren't nearly as sophisticated as those seen today but that is to be expected from a film that was produced during this time. Be that as it may, while it certainly wasn't a great horror movie by any means, it managed to pass the time and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Average.

The title is a bit ambitious. A small town, not the whole world is being terrorized by a giant spider. No real explanation for this creature is given. But it is big and scary and it kills people...so destroy it. Easier said than done. Creepy music makes for a tense atmosphere. Nice flick for a slumber party, that way you have something to do while the movie runs.

This film seems to have been done cheap and quick. The intent, no doubt, was to cash in on the popularity of the other giant mutant movies. Quite below average, but not a total bust.

Cast members include Ed Kemmer, June Kenny, Eugene Persson and Skip Young.

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.

i just love this little "b" movie from the 50's. At the start of the movie a father buys a birthday present for his daughter, and one the way down the road to give it to her,, a gigantic spider comes out of nowhere to send him off of the road,, the big spider confiscates the body,, when the daughter finds out that her father is missing, her and her boyfriend come across his vehicle off of the side of the road,, they head over to a cave, figuring maybe that he took shelter there, what they find there is a huge spider .. one the likes of which has really never been seen or discovered before,, along comes a high school teacher to help out with the investigation, they all must try to capture the spider and see what secrets that it holds,, the key to discovering what made the spider so big, this is a black and white film and very good, very funny in spots,, good music from the 50's to go along with it.

True schlock indicates unworthiness, but this flick has its merits--mainly, vintage giant-spider effects that probably freaked people out 60 years ago. The story is standard 'townspeople-versus-monster' illogical, with your brave teenage couple and assorted overage classmates ("Joe" must have been pushing forty), dumb sheriff (who doesn't blink an eye when he passes some human skeletons in the cave) housewives running about in high heels, and so forth. Also, why would they put a scientific find like a gigantic spider in a high school auditorium? No matter---these people are plucky, and you have to admire the way they fend off a huge arachnid that probably has more IQ points than they do. With a big bowl of popcorn, it's a comfortable trip back to a simpler time, and worth a watch.