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1975 - USA Directed By: Bill Rebane. Starring: Steve Brodie, Barbara Hale, Robert Easton, Alan Hale Jr, Leslie Parrish, Kevin Brodie, Diane Lee Hart, Christiane Schmidtmer, Tain Bodkin and Bill Williams.
Aka
Invasion Of The Giant Spiders
Current Availability
There are currently a couple of cheap DVD's releases of The Giant Spider Invasion doing the rounds on UK R2 DVD. The first of these was released in 2005 by Stax Entertainment and there is also a more recent yet seemingly identical release from Boulevard Home Entertainment. These releases can be found very cheaply and have even turned up in some branches on Poundland. The fullscreen image quality is nothing to write home about being roughly the equivalent of a good VHS transfer but happily both UK releases are fully uncut reinstating all the modest gore and sleaze cut out of the film for its original UK theatrical release. Both discs also boast the pleasant bonus of both the films original theatrical trailer and a brief but amusing interview with director Bill Rebane who basically trashes the film. These UK releases seem to be a direct port of an older US R1 DVD from Retromedia which is now OOP.
Recommended?
Bad movie fans should certainly have a wail of a time watching The Giant Spider Invasion. With its laughably crap excuse for a giant spider, amateurish acting, bad comic relief and shoddy low budget production values this should be an unwatchably awful movie but somehow the films shoddy qualities only add to its delightfully lurid, trashy charm. The Giant Spider Invasion is a so bad its good delight which deserves a place in the collection of any self respecting trash movie aficionado.
Review (Contains Spoilers)
If anyone set out upon the daunting task of writing an exhaustive and completely definitive chronicle detailing the history of horror and exploitation cinema then said individual would have to be rather hard of heart not to reserve a paragraph or maybe two to chart the contributions of Wisconsin based filmmaker Bill Rebane.
Born in 1937 in the Latvian capital of Riga but educated in Germany before moving to America at the age of fifteen, Rebane soon developed a great love for the cinema and dreamed of one day becoming a part of the filmmaking process himself whether as an actor or a director. Rebane would eventually fulfil his dream of becoming a fully fledged film director and after much quiet toil in 1966 would relocate to a quiet area of rural Wisconsin where he soon set up his own independent production studio. Working from these premises Rebane and his associates would direct and produce a whole host of educational films and infomercials in order to raise the money needed to finance his own feature films. Throughout the seventies and eighties Rebane would produce and direct a number of ragged yet predominantly successful low budget horror and exploitation films which have earned the hardworking Wisconsin filmmaker minor iconic status amongst trash cinema buffs.
Rebane’s directorial credits include the utterly inept yet oddly endearing no budget backwoods monster flick Rana: The Legend Of Shadow Lake (aka – Croaked: Frog Monster From Hell) (1975), the Night Of The Living Dead knock-off sci-fi cum horror opus The Alpha Incident (aka - Gift From A Red Planet) (1978) and The Demons Of Ludlow (1983) – perhaps the only horror film in cinematic history to be based around the premise of a haunted piano. While few would categorise Rebane’s output as great his horror and exploitations films invariably returned a modest profit off of their miniscule budgets and would enjoy a decent shelf life on home video.
However, the film which Bill Rebane will always remain best known for is undoubtedly his 1975 drive-in hit The Giant Spider Invasion in which a legion of gigantic spiders – mutated by a crash landed meteor – lay waste to a small community in rural Wisconsin. Giant bug movies had of course been a drive-in movie staple ever since the atom age monster obsessed fifties with giant arachnids playing the role of antagonist is classics of the era such as Jack Arnold’s Tarantula (1955) and Bert I. Gordon’s Earth Vs. The Spider (aka – The Spider) (1958). Made on a modest budget of approximately $300,000 The Giant Spider Invasion combined the giant bug thrills of its fifties forbearer's with the sleazy trappings of seventies exploitation. A winning combination it would seem as The Giant Spider Invasion would prove a modest box office hit upon its original theatrical release and has since carved out a reputation as something of a “so bad it’s good” classic amongst trash cinema aficionado’s. Rebane’s film would also “enjoy” the dubious distinction of being one of the numerous low budget sci-fi and horror movies fecklessly lampooned in the interminable Mystery Science Theatre 3000 television series.
The Giant Spider Invasion takes place in a small rural town of Merrill, Wisconsin which sees some rare excitement when it is hit by a small black hole which has crash landed on Earth from outer space. The scientific duo of Dr J.R. Vance (Steve Brodie) and his female colleague Dr Jenny Langer (Barbara Hale) soon arrive in town in order to investigate this previously unheard of phenomenon.
Meanwhile white trash farmer Dan Kester (Easton) as his alcoholic wife Ev (Parrish) whose land the black hole landed upon investigate the crash site and are disturbed to discover the mutilated remains of several of their cattle. Little do they know that the crash landed black hole has opened up a doorway to another dimension through which a large number of spiders emerge. One of these spiders soon grows into a fifty foot monster spelling terror for the small community and its residents.
Panic soon sets in as the giant spider goes of the rampage, killing and devouring several people, destroying buildings and causing mass hysteria. Some of the white trash locals form a rifle wielding posse in a violent and disorganised attempt to combat the trans-dimensional arachnid menace but in doing so only end up adding to the growing mayhem. Finally it is left up to the duo of Dr Vance and Dr Langer who join forces with the local Sheriff (Alan Hale Jr) in a desperate bid to end the giant spiders reign of death and destruction.
With The Giant Spider Invasion Rebane orchestrates a gloriously trashy marriage between the giant bug mayhem of the oft-celebrated atom age creature features of the fifties and the conscientiously sleazy vibe of low budget seventies exploitation cinema. Indeed The Giant Spider Invasion wears its rural Wisconsin setting on its sleeve as Rebane populates the film with a rather motley assortment of hick protagonists. Peopling the film with such a lowbrow country bumpkin crowd certainly adds to the films sleazy seventies exploitation flavour and lends some much needed humour – intentionally or otherwise – the rather uneventful opening fifty minutes. Unfortunately however, the cast are most amateurish in the extreme and either sleepwalk their way through the film or ham it up interminably in their stereotypical hee haw redneck roles. A happy exception to the rule is the highly engaging performance of veteran character actor Robert Easton (who also co-wrote the film) as sleaze ball farmer Dan Kester whose land the black hole crash lands upon. The central protagonist for much of the film, Easton is a hoot as he slimes across the screen even attempting to talk his perpetually naked or semi-naked teenage sister-in-law Terry (played by the sexy Diane Lee Hart) into bed. Former Golden Globe nominee Leslie Parrish also makes a solid impression as Kester’s alcoholic white trash blonde wife Ev. It is therefore something of a shame that the Kester couple are more or less the first characters to be killed off once the giant spider finally scuttles onto the scene as Easton and Parrish’s enthusiastic performances and the comic value of their openly contemptuous relationship in many ways carries the film up until this point.
Far less engaging are the dull as dishwater has-been duo of Steve Brodie and Barbara Hale (best known for her long running role as loyal secretary Della Street in the popular Perry Mason TV series and film spin-offs) who become the films default leads as the two out of town scientists who arrive in order to investigate the black hole phenomena and end up leading the battle against the monstrous arachnid. It is fortunate that despite their top billing Brodie and Hale are relegated to the sidelines up until the final act as they contribute a lifeless presence and thanks to the inane script the scenes in which they are involved tend to bog the film down in a lot of tedious babble about collapsed stars, gamma ray showers, Geiger Counters and whatnot. By contrast American television buffs will no doubt be amused to note the presence of Alan Hale Jr as the town’s resident Sheriff. Amongst children of the sixties Hale will always be synonymous with his long-running role as Skipper Jonas Grumby in the much loved US comedy series Gilligan’s Island. Hale is clearly there to provide comic relief and to his credit the rotund stars deliberately overbearing presence proves to be quite engaging. All in all while the majority of the acting is totally amateurish and the redneck stereotyping viewed in retrospect often cringe inducing, Rebane’s offbeat hee haw characterisation lends the film much trashy entertainment value.
Of course Rebane also takes advantage of the fact that the less censorious climate of the seventies allowed him a lot more leeway as regards to lurid content than what the likes of Jack Arnold and Bert I. Gordon had when they were making their similarly plotted B-pictures back in the fifties. While not especially gory by seventies exploitation standards The Giant Spider Invasion certainly has a definite sleazy vibe about it and boasts the occasional pleasantly gruesome shot of the spiders bloodily mangled victims. Rebane also serves up one truly stomach churning gross out shock in the form of a memorable scene where Leslie Parrish’s drunken housewife inadvertently mixes and drinks a Bloody Mary cocktail unaware that a tarantula had found its way into the food blender. Her reaction is pretty much what you might expect of someone who discovers diced up pieces of dead spider in their drink. The fact that the gore is relatively restrained by the standards of the time would not however prevent The Giant Spider Invasion from encountering censorship problems here in the UK where the British Board of Film Censors demanded that heavy cuts be made to both Diane Lee Hart’s fleeting semi-nudity and the scenes of the spider devouring its victims before granting the film an “A” rating (the equivalent of a modern day PG or 12 certificate) for its original UK theatrical release.
Once the giant spider of the title finally makes its appearance The Giant Spider Invasion accelerates into an all action final half hour which will surely satisfy those tuning into the film for good honest B-movie monster thrills. However, while Rebane handles the ensuing carnage with a capable hand it is impossible to look past the fact that the creature effects – if they can even be described as such – are horrendously shoddy as the cast flee from a ridiculously spindly and fake looking model spider that resembles a magnification of the sort of thing us Brits are used to seeing knocked up on Blue Peter. Unbelievably the giant spider was in actual fact an old Volkswagen Beetle which the enterprising props people wrapped up in black fur and attached fake furry legs onto. The fruit of their labour is an absolutely pathetic imitation of something resembling a gigantic spider sporting legs that are far too long for its body. It should also be noted that the creatures slowing red eyes are actually just the vehicles headlamps cunningly integrated into the monsters makeshift design. To his credit Rebane does try to make the best of a bad lot by shooting the titular spider from creative angles but whenever the action cuts to shots of the Volkswagen Spider trundling across the landscape in plain view in pursuit of its victims the blatant phoniness is obvious. However, rather than detracting from the film the cheesy awfulness of the spider “effects” actually make the later scenes of the monster arachnid highly amusing to watch.
However, interviews conducted years later would reveal that Bill Rebane was not amused. Holding seemingly little regard for the film – which he rather wryly refers to as The Giant Spider Disaster – Rebane would bemoan the fact that of the $300,000 budget he had to work with only a paltry $10,000 could be allocated to designing and engineering a model. Obviously this was nothing like enough money to finance the creation of a halfway convincing giant mechanical spider from scratch, so for the want of any other feasible option Rebane and his cronies were forced to resort to the sorry looking exercise in makeshift Volkswagen Beetle modification seen in the finished film. Rebane also claims that the production encountered another difficulty in this regard due to the fact that the technician in charge of operating the spider had a severe drinking problem and would be constantly inebriated on set.
Say what you will about the hysterically crap spider effects, but no one can deny Rebane of allowing these glaring constraints from raining upon his sense of spectacle. Indeed the films final half hour lays on the mayhem pleasingly thick starting in suitably outrageous fashion as sleaze ball Dan Kester finally gets his as the rampaging eight legged beast literally swallows him whole. From here the film swiftly moves on to further carnage as the giant spider demolishes the Kester family home with poor Terry trapped inside and causes mass hysteria by rudely gate crashing a little league baseball game in perhaps the films most memorable scene. The jaw-dropping mayhem is complemented nicely by a simple yet suitably ominous musical score composed by Rebane himself. Viewers should also keep their ears peeled for an extremely funny reference to Jaws which is actually quite topical when you consider that Spielberg’s classic was still rocking the international box-office at the time The Giant Spider Invasion was scripted and produced. Unfortunately the films blatant cheapness and shoddy production values come back to haunt him it at the conclusion which is both too dark and clumsily shot for it to be discernible what exactly is going on as the spider is melted into a steaming pile of psychedelic, multicoloured gunge bringing The Giant Spider Invasion to a rather unsatisfying end.
By any conventional standard The Giant Spider Invasion is a terrible, terrible movie. The narrative is laughable, most of the acting stinks and the giant spider of the title is one of the most hilariously inept creations you’re ever likely to see. Yet against all odds The Giant Spider Invasion is blessed with that intangible “so bad its good” quality as every facet of the films ineptitude from the inane cornball dialog to the pathetic excuse for a monster only adds to its irresistible bad movie charm. At the end of the day how many other films offer you the sight of the fat skipper from Gilligan’s Island being devoured alive by a fifty foot spider from another dimension? Ladies and gentleman rest assured when I tell you that cheap seventies trash cinema doesn’t get much more compulsively entertaining than this.
Also Try… Kingdom Of The Spiders / Tarantula / Earth Vs. The Spider (1958, Bert I. Gordon) / Eight Legged Freaks / The Food Of The Gods / Empire Of The Ants / Squirm / Frogs.
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