# Giant Spider Invasion, The (1975)

### reviewed by
Richard Scheib

    The Giant Spider Invasion

USA. 1975. Director - Bill Rebane, Screenplay - Robert Easton & Richard L. Huff, Story - Huff, Producers - Huff & Rebane, Photography - Jack Willoughby, Music - Ito Rebane, Special Effects - Richard Albain & Robert Millay. Production Company - Cinema Group 75/Transcentury Pictures. Robert Easton (Dan Kester), Leslie Parrish (Ev Kester), Steve Brodie (Dr J.R. Vance), Barbara Hale (Dr Jenny Langer), Alan Hale Jr (Sheriff Jones), Kevin Brodie (Davy Perkins), Dianne Lee Hart (Terri), Christiane Schmidtmer (Helga), Paul Bentzen (Billy Kester), William W. Gillett Jr (Paul Rider), Tain Bodkin (Preacher)

Plot: A miniature black hole comes crashing to Earth on a farm in Northern Wisconsin. A host of spiders hatch out of crystal geodes which quickly overrun everything and then produce a spider the size of an entire house which rampages through town.

This has a reputation as one of the genre's truly terrible films. Although one finds upon viewing it it isn't really as bad as is claimed. Far be it from one wanting to defend it, but rather than truly terrible it is no more than a routine giant bug movie. Its greatest crime is really having been made twenty years too late, of being a 1950s giant bug movie in an era where the subgenre had moved to `Birds'-styled eco-revenge and killer shark ripoffs.

There are two aspects of the film that every writer who derides it points to as clear evidence of its Golden Turkey status - one being that the giant spider is played by a Volkswagen, the second being the scientifically preposterous notion that the giant spider was created by a black hole that crashed to Earth. But in both cases these are pieces of evidence that have been distorted out of proportion to make the case. The black hole explanation probably comes from the fascination with black holes that was just starting to enter the public paradigm at the time the film was made and gives the appearance of having been appropriated as a handy grab-all explanation. To its credit the film gives a lecture on what black holes are where it appears to have actually gone and looked the material up in an encyclopedia, even if it is thrown in a boiler-plate info-dump. And, while it never ties the idea of black holes and doorways to alternate dimensions as an explanation for giant spiders in any way that could be remotely regarded as scientific, one should at least place the notion in perspective - in the real world some have tried to seriously argue that a black hole falling to Earth was the cause of the Tunguska explosion, so the notion is not as entirely laughable as it might seem.

The same with the Volkswagen spider. One suspects that what it is everybody laughs about is simply the __notion__ of the spider being played by a Volkswagen. One looked closely throughout and failed to find any occasions upon which you could see wheels or car bodies showing beneath the spider. Certainly the effect is not as terrible as say the carpet monster with visible feet underneath in `The Creeping Terror', and the giant spider effects are at least comparable to those in the highly regarded giant ant film `Them!'.

All in all it is distinctly average, rather than a terrible, film. The pace is slow - not much happens at the start of the film - but director Bill Rebane does creates one or two occasional frissons, mostly in the scenes with the small actual-size spiders crawling over and pursuing people. The acting is at least up to a professionally competent standard and there is the odd amusing line: "I'm not eleven anymore - I'm 35-23-35," says the strumpet of the show.

Screening at the Christchurch 1998 Incredibly Strange Film Festival Reviewed by Richard Scheib

Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

The review above was posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due to ASCII to HTML conversion.

Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews