Kiss of the Tarantula

"Kiss of the Tarantula" is a mildly interesting horror film about a teenage girl named Susan(Suzanne Ling)and her fondness for spiders.When anyone crosses her or her mortician father,the spiders come out to set things right.Her leering uncle and town sheriff(Eric Mason)has eyes for her,and she has the perfect plan to dispose of him.She also takes vengeance on the high school kids who broke into her house and killed her prized spider.She unleashes a slew of her friendly eight-legged buddies in their VW Bug at a drive-in.It's a pretty gruesome,but also very silly scene.Although its' low budget shows,the film still has some nice touches and a great ending which shouldn't be missed.Director Chris Munger also made exploitation flick "Black Starlet" (1974)and producers Daniel Cady and John Hayes were also responsible for "Grave of the Vampire"(1972) and "Garden of the Dead"(1972).Give it a look,if you like tarantuals.6 out of 10.

1975's "Kiss of the Tarantula" may have been easily overlooked in its day as a low budget drive-in quickie, but in recent years is gaining momentum as a cult item. As a two time solo feature on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater (Nov 22 1980 and Aug 6 1983), I was familiar with it at the time but had long forgotten the details, not surprisingly. The only horror film shot in Columbus, Georgia, it didn't do the kind of business it was expected to, a cast of local unknowns with one Hollywood import, Eric Mason, a TV veteran cast as town sheriff Walter Bradley and uncle of teenage Susan (Suzanne Ling), whose father John (Victor French lookalike Herman Wallner) is a mortician, one reason why she's been shunned by classmates and branded as weird. A more understandable reason is her total devotion to her pet tarantulas, enabling her to kill her abusive and unloving mother, who was plotting with Walter to murder her husband, his own brother. This knowledge is also known to Susan, who grows into pretty womanhood with her uncle's unwanted advances becoming more creepy over time. After classmates accidentally kill one spider in her home, she sets the others loose on them in a parked car at the drive-in (double billing "Dirty Harry" and "Magnum Force"), unable to get out of their vehicle before fatally succumbing. The two people who suspect the truth soon meet their dooms, the first in claustrophobic fashion, the other strangled by the brutal sheriff who knows his niece is responsible but still desires her for himself. The climax is certainly fitting, but leaves the viewer feeling rather empty, no characters to identify with or root for. The central figure of Susan is never developed to any likable degree, glimpses of remorse not enough to register beyond the surface. This is the critical lack preventing audience sympathy for her, unlike better known protagonists such as Willard or Carrie. The film pretty much ends with Susan unsuspected and free to continue, with all her enemies dead, yet this provides no satisfaction for the audience, left only with the pervasiveness of unease. In that way the picture does succeed in its modest approach and rural atmosphere, pretty much the definition of a cult film.

When you look at the poster or the VHS cover, you think this is going to be some kind of horrible boring B movie that flunked before it even hit theaters. Well, in some ways it's absolutely ridiculous. Other ways, it's frightfully disturbing and suspenseful. The Tarantulas used are actually a quite expensive and sought after species, the Mexican Red knee. Completely harmless, we make the venom of these spiders look like they can kill virtually in an instant. That's silly to me, but to others it might prove quite chilling. The crazy part is the family life of the poor young woman. Incest, murder, bullying, I'm amazed the poor girl wasn't in an asylum. I'll say this much, this film will leave you with your mouth agape in disgust and amazement. I really liked it.

When a cheating wife is discovered plotting her husband's death, her oddball daughter commits matricide with the aid of some hairy, eight legged companions. Creepy little thriller is a poor man's "Willard" in which the beguiling Susan (Suzanne Ling - never seen before or again) is remarkably naive to the cruel intentions of various sleazy characters with whom she comes into contact. High on the pervert-alert, is her nefarious uncle (Mason), the local police chief who's been chasing her tail since puberty, discovers her involvement in a series of unexplained deaths and seeks to protect his political ambitions abetting a cover-up to divert suspicion away from his family. Mason is the epitome of ugliness, and his predatory pursuit of the adolescent Ling, is as appealing from a cinematic perspective as it is morally repulsive.

Intense over acting and varying breeds of comically amateurish supporting performances coupled with laughable set-ups contrived for lukewarm climaxes, successfully mar what could have potentially been a minor sleeper, such is the satisfying symmetry in the storyline. Director Munger's casual treatment and unimaginative scene construction, display a lack of detail that is evident throughout the film, though he does manage to conjure some modicum of suspense at every critical peak – it's just a shame there's not a more palpable indication of the tarantula's impact on the victims (most seem to succumb to shock and hyper-anxiety, or is that just the quality of the acting?).

"Kiss of the Tarantula" takes a convenient pathway to imagined justice, while the central character's psycho-sexual motivation, which is intimated throughout the film, is never properly explored or connected to her deviant behaviour. As such, Ling's character is little more than a facade, and much of the film's promise is diluted by the superficial treatment. Perhaps lethally hampered by the budget, while there's lots of potential, overall, it's significantly lacking in the execution.

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.