The Giant Spider Invasion (1975) Reviews

• There were giants in those days.

  gein2000-02-02

  I try to watch this movie every year or so. It reminds me of my youth when I didn't have any preconceived notions about what a film should or shouldn't be. A time when I had total suspension of disbelief. I remember when my ten-year-old eyes first caught a glance at the greatest horror movie poster that ever hung in the hallowed foyer of our local movie theatre, The D&R in Aberdeen, Washington. The poster featured a gargantuan spider bearing down on a group of terrified people. Suspended in the air above the monster were three helicopters and lying crumpled at the spider's legs were a couple of burning cars while spotlights filled the sky. One of the terrified was a busty young blonde wearing only a negligee. I was sold. Every kid in town must have seen the `coming soon' poster because the next day in school all halls were abuzz with nervous anticipation of what was going to be the greatest cinematic experience of our young lives: THE GIANT SPIDER INVASION! Our local newspaper (The Daily World) had a beautiful half-page advertisement featuring the glorious poster art. I cut it out and hung it on the refrigerator so my mom wouldn't forget. After a torturous week of school, the opening day finally arrived. Packs of kids, with parents in tow, rushed to secure a place in line at the D&R. The line wrapped around the block. Aberdeen hadn't seen this much excitement since Jaws played there the previous year. Once inside the lobby, ushers showered the crowd with little black plastic spiders. Kids scrambled everywhere – clawing and climbing over each other to get their hands on these rare collector's items. I snagged a few off the ground and then rushed into the theatre to secure a seat for my Mom, my brother and me. The theatre was filled to capacity. Those who did not make it in for the first show were forced to wait until the 9:00 p.m. show. Back in the seventies there were only two show times during the weekdays: 7:00p.m. and 9:00p.m. It was truly Darwin's `survival of the fittest' in action. At precisely 7:00p.m., the theatre grew dark and the screen was illuminated with the coming attraction: Squirm! The theatre was filled with whoops and screams as slime-coated killer worms with fangs tore into flesh, but soon a collective kid-groan could be heard as the rating `R' flashed after the preview. Thankfully, our attention was focused off the fact that most of our parents would not permit us to see the `R' rated film when the title: The Giant Spider Invasion filled the screen. For the next 85 minutes, we were treated to a town exposed to a `miniature' black hole' that creates a `space warp' inviting in alien-spiders that grow to mammoth proportions. The film really delivered the goods! A grungy farmer discovers a half-eaten body whose rib-cage is partially exposed, a girl comes out of the shower baring her breasts and, in a glorious shower of blood, the spiders suck up a couple of people into their puckered-festering mouths! Cries of horror and disbelief could be heard throughout the auditorium. A couple of ushers had to remove a bawling friend of mine after he saw the partially eaten remains of one of the victims – too much for his delicate sensibilities. I sat transfixed. This was the greatest movie ever made. The next day, I dragged a few of my friends to watch the matinee – we stayed for the remaining showings and returned the following day. The movie played in Aberdeen for only a week, but I must have seen it a dozen times. Years later, I found The Giant Spider Invasion at a video store and immediately purchased it. I watched it with the same glee I did back in 1975 and the fond memories I held came flooding back. Watching it now I chuckle as Alan `The Skipper' Hale delivers lines like, `He's a strange man and he's building up a big head of steam.' But, seeing the spiders, which seemed so real back in the good old D&R, crawl over the beautiful Wisconsin countryside, still gives me a small thrill. Even though it's obvious the spiders are badly made up VW Beetles, it still takes me back to a time when all movies I watched were magical. There were giants in those days.

• What did you expect?

  kinojunkie2005-07-29

  Giant Spider Invasion is a low budget monster movie reminiscent of the giant bug invasion pictures of the 50's but it was actually shot in the 70's. It's all very predictable, these giant spider eggs travel to earth on board some meteorites and land in a small Wisconsin town. People start disappearing, cattle are found mutilated and things just aren't quite right. Needless to say, it's up to the local Sheriff, astronomer and out of town NASA specialist to find out and ultimately confront the source of the strange things going on. Of course it's all being caused by these giant spiders that are running amok, devouring everyone in sight. The effects are pretty bad and the acting is very hammy but it's all part of the fun. Amazingly, they actually built full sized giant spiders for this film and although they look terrible, it's wonderful to see these massive creatures roaming the Wisconsin country side wreaking havoc where ever they go. Giant Spider Invasion is good mindless fun that's better than 90% of the horror/sci-fi films being made these days.

• Red Dwarf or Red Giant? Tarantula or Station Wagon?

  GroovyDoom2004-05-09

  Early on in "The Giant Spider Invasion", Dr. Jenny Langer (Barbara Hale) is lecturing a group of bored students about different types of stars. What she doesn't know--and really, how could she?--is that an unprecedented celestial event has just taken place where she lives in Wisconsin: a black hole has come crashing down to Earth! Even worse, the black hole has opened a doorway to another dimension, and thru this doorway has emerged...a horde of malicious spiders of varying sizes! And it's all going on right in her back yard! Well, actually it's going on in the back yard of a common dirt farmer who presides over a household of lowlifes who give new meaning to the term "white trash". They find some of their "cow" partially eaten (it seems that interdimensional spiders chew their food instead of the traditional sucking of vital fluids). A bunch of normal-sized tarantulas emerge from geodes that also contain diamonds, but nobody really notices the spiders until one medium-sized spider jumps out of a sock drawer, and really, how did it get in there in the first place, we wonder? Then we get a peek at the purveyor of our titular "invasion": a giant-sized tarantula that looks suspiciously like a motor vehicle covered in furry carpeting and legs. In one fell swoop, Wisconsin has become a dangerous place to live. It's enough to make a decent spider become a recluse! (har har) NASA's answer to this unprecedented phenomenon is one Dr. Vance, a mildly sexist scientist who investigates the strange disturbance with Dr. Langer. You'd think a horde of giant spiders would be pretty easy to spot, but somehow our heroes manage to avoid the reality of large hairy arachnids until they run smack dab into one coming up the other side of a large grassy hill. The spiders seem to have no trouble at all acclimating to our dimension, and begin doing what giant spiders do--spinning webs and trapping people. One unfortunate guy is foolish enough to try and drive his car right through a giant web--talk about a bug splattering on your windshield! I don't understand the problem some sourpuss people have with this movie. What in the cosmos did you think you were getting into by watching a movie called "The Giant Spider Invasion"? It is a cheap drive-in movie with a goofy title. This isn't a James Cameron production. It has very little budget to speak of and no first-rate actors, but the actors here really do enjoy hamming it up. The filmmakers clearly understood that they were in "B" movie territory (well, actually it's more like "T" or "U" territory), and the dialogue is appropriately hilarious. The truth is, I think "TGSI" deserves to be in its own category. Although it is a poor film on almost every level, it does not deserve to be considered a truly awful cinematic experience. Nay, this film actually did a great deal of box office business in its day, and for good reason, too. There are truly well-made films that are nowhere near as entertaining as this one. Although the "MST3K" commentary is also hilarious, you don't really need it, I'm confident that you will not need anybody else to point out what's funny in this movie. By now you probably know that this movie also stars Alan Hale Jr, aka Skipper from "Gilligan's Island"--and yes, there IS a reference joke in the film. Leslie Parrish makes a big impression as the boozy farmer's wife who finds the black hole on her property. Unfortunately for her, this black hole leads to a dimension full of giant spiders, and she becomes spider chow early on (after enjoying a delicious tarantula-flavored bloody mary). A few other actors you might recognize are caught in this webby mess (hey, ya gotta pay the bills somehow, ya know?), but it's Barbara Hale who delivers the goods. Steve Brodie plays her male cohort scientist, but he simply looks bored. Barbara really gets into the part and plays it to the hilt, doing the faux intellectual bit, screaming in mock horror at the tarantulas, and dashing left to right in some cockamamie plan to undo the junk science that has turned Wisconsin into a smorgasbord for cheesy spiders. At one point she lets out a banshee-howl that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand on end. She's even game enough to roll down a hillside for real. I bet she looks back on "The Giant Spider Invasion" and giggles. A lot.

• A multi-faceted gem of 70's B-Horror!

  darth_paul-12004-10-21

  The Giant Spider Invasion is a superb piece of 1970's B-Horror. Of course, by today's synthetic, digitally enhanced, multi-billion dollar, pseudo-artistic, technologically dependent standards it is a poor film, but remember that 'Spider Invasion' only cost $250,000 to produce. It is full of small, creepy spiders, developing into mega-bohemoth spiders and laying waste to anything that gets in their way! Oh sure you can label it cheesy! You can label it hokey! Label it sub-par! B ut isn't that why people watch B-horror? And is not 70's B-horror the true pinnacle of the genre? And did not Mystery Science Theater think it a worthy piece to cover on their show? Me thinks in the affirmative on both questions! This movie is a worthy effort...dealing with such diverse topics as Alien Invasion, to greed & evil in the social context...to even what Camus referred to as the Existential Dilemma (or something like that)...oh you can find almost anything in any piece of art, but my point is that this is a good movie! It's cheesy, but good; and when I saw it at the age of 6, I thought it was very horrifying! I still...to this day...cannot drink tomato juice...Thank-you Giant Spider Invasion!

• Invasion of the giant alien spiders

  chris_gaskin1232005-11-17

  The Giant Spider Invasion was one of the many 1950's type movies (giant bugs, animals etc) that was made in the 70's and I enjoyed this despite reading a lot of bad reviews. A strange meteor lands in a small town in Wisconsin and a load of strange looking eggs are found by it. Some of the locals take them home with them and spiders and tarantulas start hatching from them. Rather small at first, these creatures grow into giants and to make matters worse, are radioactive. After eating several people including the town's Sheriff, the hole where the meteor landed is blown up and the spiders are killed. This movie gets going after a fairly slow start and is clearly done on a low budget. The cast includes Barbara Hale (Perry Mason), Steve Brodie (The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms), Alan Hale Jr. as the Sheriff and Leslie Parrish. The Giant Spider Invasion is a must for all sci fi and bad movie fans. Fantastic. Rating: 3 and a half stars out of 5.