Earth vs the Spider

Earth vs. the Spider (1958)

Runtime: 73 minutes

Directed by: Bert I. Gordon (RIP)

Starring: Ed Kemmer, June Kenney, Eugene Persson, Gene Roth, Hal Torey

From: AIP

RIP Bert I. Gordon

He’s a director who I’ve only seen three movies of-including this one-yet as I happen to note his 100th birthday in a review of his Necromancy this past September, it wouldn’t feel right not to note his passing away several days ago. Even if his entire output was B-movie schlock, that output did well enough in terms of earning money where he made films off and on for about 3 ½ decades. This film was chosen in part because I hadn’t experienced one of his 50’s pictures before.

The titular spider is in fact the size of about a city bus; it’s found in a cave by some youths. In a moment that only became creepy years after the fact, the gas DDT (not just an awesome pro wrestling maneuver) is used to kill the astronomical arachnid. DDT was a pesticide which was effective… of course, cancer was also an effect and it is believed that almost caused the bald eagle to be extinct. It wasn’t until 1972 that it was in essence banned.

The creature (which actually isn’t from outer space so why it’s sometimes called Earth vs. The Spider is a little strange when the spider only rampages across a small California town) transported to the high school so the carcass can later be transported to the appropriate scientists. As this is a popular MST3K episode, revealing that the spider is revived by some teens practicing their rock and roll will be revealed by me; besides, that plot point is hilarious.

There is as much silliness, contrivances and plot points barely addressed as you’d expect from a 1950’s genre B-movie. Yet, despite that and easily figuring out most of the time how the photographic effects were done where a tarantula was made to look gigantic (the defining director’s trope for Gordon), at least this B-movie wasn’t bad. The teens looked rather old for their alleged age-no kidding, one of the “teenagers” was THIRTY FIVE years old!-yet were (mostly) tolerable while there weren’t too many stupid adults; even the sheriff quickly figured out not to doubt what sounded like poppycock once he saw some evidence & actually acted competently instead of a stupid villain. Plus, there are even a few gruesome moments by late 50’s standards.

It's the sort of movie where the town’s cinema shows two other Bert I. Gordon movies (Attack of the Puppet People & The Amazing Colossal Man), some meme-worthy “right before impending death” faces, the spider often makes loud noises, the “starring” credit is spelled as “starrring”, and the main heroes are the likes of a high school science teacher & a power line foreman… the last part is mentioned as a compliment instead of a diss. Point is, while not great and this was an AIP production clearly meant as cheap fare for teenagers to see at a drive-in, the end product could have been FAR worse or intolerable. It was an easy watch of less than 75 minutes and not the worst day to tip my cap to a director from the past who used to specialize in a unique genre of its time who made it until early 2023.