Director: Bill Rebane
Year: 1975
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Giant Monsters
Plot:
Living in a small Wisconsin town, the residents living inside are trying to go about their lives when a large meteorite crashes in the area just outside of town. Soon inundated with a slew of strange experiences and accidents, they discover that the meteor has opened a galactic black hole that has allowed a giant spider to cross over and begin attacking the town forcing them to band together to stop the creature before it spreads.
Review:
Overall, this one is better than expected but still quite cheesy and silly. The initial setup here is quite fun with the concurrent storyline involving the crossover of the various storylines at play, starting with the lives of the townspeople trying to go about their lives which gives us an idea of the people within the community. The incidents ranging from weather phenomena to unexplained physical encounters surrounding the impact of the crashed meteor, the inclusion of both the astronomical forces and the military feels quite warranted and instituted quite nicely. Even the interactions in the town are quite nice, from the discovery of the dead animals to the diamond-filled eggs that house the spiders for the interstellar travel that all gives the film a lot to like with the way it all showcases a strange mystery that comes about.
Once this establishes that the spiders are the culprits and their arrival from the meteor, the initial attacks featuring the creatures venturing out and attacking the town are pretty solid genre encounters using the unnatural size and presence of the creatures to deliver some fun shocks. With the first scenes featuring the creatures being normal-sized but wandering around the farmhouse taking out the visitors or the family in several generally chilling encounters, it sets the stage for the appearance of the massive spider that’s as big as a house and responsible for the majority of the fun cheese in the finale where the town is forced to deal with the monstrous creature. Managing to feature some solid cheesy sequences with the big interactions that take place in the finale, these all manage to provide some fun aspects to this one.
That said, there are some issues to be had with this one. The main problem with the film is the immensely cheesy effects featured here, with the massive spider being the main culprit. Obviously looking way too goofy and clumsy to be a real thing and instead being a giant model manipulated to appear gigantic, the effect is not even close to believable and adds an immensely cheesy atmosphere that the rest of the film never really utilizes so it sticks out even more in these scenes. As well, there’s also a somewhat troublesome first half where it takes a while to get going focusing on too many characters and not nearly enough of them are enjoyable. The use of so many interconnecting stories around the family is a big factor, and with the amount of time it devotes to this does end up holding this one down somewhat.
Overview: ***/5
A fine and generally enjoyable cheesy monster movie, there’s not much to dislike with this one other than the generally obvious cheese level that runs throughout this one. Those who appreciate this kind of genre effort or are fans of the creative crew will want to check this out while those who aren’t into these factors should heed caution.
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