Earth vs. the Spider

Infobox Film
name = Earth vs. the Spider


caption = Theatrical release poster
director = Bert I. Gordon
producer =
writer = Laszlo Gorog
George Worthing Yates
from a story by Bert I. Gordon
starring = Ed Kemmer
June Kenney
Eugene Persson
Gene Roth
Hal Torey
June Jocelyn
music = Albert Glasser
cinematography = Jack A. Marta
editing = Walter E. Keller
distributor =
released = November, 1962
runtime = 73 min.
language = English
budget =
amg_id = 1:15131
imdb_id = 0051570

"Earth vs. the Spider" (also known as "The Spider" and "Earth vs. the Giant Spider") is a 1958 American black and white science fiction horror film, produced and directed by Bert I. Gordon, who also wrote the story which the screenplay by George Worthing Yates and Laszlo Gorog is based upon. It starred Ed Kemmer and Eugene Persson and June Kenney.

The film's original title was "Earth vs. the Spider" but when "The Fly", also released in 1958, became a blockbuster, the film company changed the name to "The Spider" on all advertising material. The original screen title, however, was never changed.

Plot

Jack Flynn is driving down a highway at night, looking at a bracelet he has bought his daughter for her birthday. Suddenly he hits something and his vehicle crashes. The next morning, his teenage daughter Carol, concerned her "bad-dog" father didn't come home last night, convinces her boyfriend Mike to go looking with her for him. They find his crashed car and the bracelet, but not his body. Thinking he crawled into a nearby cave, they investigate. In the cave they fall onto the gigantic orb web of an enormous spider, a tarantula, which emerges from behind some rocks to get them. They manage to escape and make it back to town.

Carol and Mike have a hard time convincing the Sheriff about the giant spider, but with the help of their science teacher, Mr. Kingman, they go take a look and when they are at the cave again the missing man's body is discovered drained of fluid. The spider attacks again convincing the sheriff, who orders large amounts of DDT to kill the giant spider, and appears successful. The apparently lifeless body of the spider is taken back to town to the high school gym where Kingman wants to study it. A group of teenagers use the gym to practice rock and roll numbers they are going to play for a school dance. As other teenagers enter the gym they begin dancing and the giant tarantula regains consciousness and the kids run out of the gym screaming while the janitor, stopping to call the sheriff, is killed.

The spider breaks out of the gym and terrorizes the town, killing a number of people before it heads back to its cave. The Sheriff along with Kingman decide to use dynamite to seal the spider in, but they discover Carol and Mike are in the cave looking for the bracelet her father had bought her, which she had lost the first time in the cave. The spider chases them out onto a narrow ledge. Kingman acquires a couple of large electrodes. They run cables outside to some power lines as the tarantula is descending on a strand of web to get at the trapped teenagers. Kingman throws Mike one of the electrodes then they turn on the juice and electrocute the spider. The arachnid falls, impaling itself on stalagmites at the bottom of the cave.

Cast

Ed Kemmer "as Mr. Kingman"

June Kenney "as Carol Flynn"

Eugene Persson "as Mike Simpson

Gene Roth "as Sheriff Cagle

Hal Torey "as Mr. Simpson"

June Jocelyn "as Mrs. Flynn"

Mickey Finn "as Sam Haskel"

Sally Fraser "as Mrs. Helen Kingman"

Troy Patterson "as Joe"

Skip Young "as Sam (the bass player)"

Howard Wright "as Jake"

Bill Giorgio "as Deputy Sheriff Sanders"

Hank Patterson "as Hugo (High School Janitor)"

Jack Kosslyn "as Mr. Fraser (camera club teacher)"

Bob Garnet "as Springdale Pest Control Man"

Shirley Falls "as the Switchboard Operator"

Bob Tetrick "as Deputy Sheriff Dave"

Nancy Kilgas "as a Dancer"

George Stanley "as One of the men in the Cavern"

David Tomack "as the Power Line Foreman"

Merritt Stone "as Jack Flynn (Carol's Dad)"

Dick D'Agostin "as The Pianist"

Availability

The film was released on VHS by Columbia/RCA on April 28, 1993. The film was released on DVD in February 2006 along with "War of the Colossal Beast" (1958).