Fig 1, Earth vs the spider (1958)
The film tells the tale of a small-town arch-attack by a
jumbo spider living inside a local cavern. The title is misleading as it’s a
small local town who fights against the spider instead of the whole of
earth. the film starts with a couple walking home. the Girl Carol has something
on her mind, while the boy Mike is trying to flirt with her asking if
they would both go back to her house.
As her father has gone missing and never came back. After
school, Mike and Carol go to their friend Joe to borrow his hot rod, and drive
off in search of her father, out in the hills. They find what looks like a
thick, sticky rope lying across the road, surrounded by broken pieces of glass.
Carol then notices a wrecked pickup truck in the trees at the bottom of the
hill, a truck much like her father’s. They come across a cave in which
they even though Carol is not particularly interested in going inside. However,
when Mike suggests that her father might have gone inside for shelter from the
cold last night, she follows him in. Back home, a strange and amazing
thing happens to Mike and Carol, the adults believe their story. They had the
presence of mind to bring a piece of the giant spider’s silk home with them as
proof, and it’s enough to convince Mr. Kingman that there may be something to
their tale, and he in turn convinces the kids’ parents and the local Sheriff to
round up a posse to check out the cave, the spider attacks the party! Not only
that, they find the body of Carol’s father, killed by a gigantic spider.
this is a summery of what the story is about.
Fig 2 Cave scene (1958)
Its a B-movie because of how low budge it is. the effects
are not to a good standard and it needs improvement. its funny for how bad it
looks but probably in that time it was a good movie for its effects. The
giant spider is mostly visualized as a real arachnid macro-enlarged to appear
massive. On a few occasions, a feeble live-action spider leg is used in close
ups. as CGI was known in them days many of the films would use real life
objects and animals and enlarge them to make them seem big in the film. misleading
title, the film is another example of a poorly executed ‘giant-bug’
movie. The spider is hardly pitted against the Earth, in fact, it is
defeated by a high school science teacher…hardly a threat to the world as a
whole. The special effects are awful, of course. Not to mention the spider
itself has a strange characteristic of being enraged by rock-n-roll music.
(Grisbeck, 2006)
some positive quality's of the film are the scenes are
exciting and mildly creepy for such an antiquated production. It had a remake
in 2001 with the same name and the noises of the spider are funny and amusing
to listen too its so bad its good, as spiders don't say anything.
The size of the spider keeps changing throughout the
movie. For instance, at one point the spider is small enough to be dragged
into the school auditorium, later it is as big as the Kingman's' house. A
minute later it is chasing Kingman, and is only slightly bigger than his car.
(Sandys, 1996)
Its a terrible movie with terrible effects but that's
why it is good and fun to watch. its a laugh and that's what makes it a B-movie
in the first place. maybe with a bigger budget it could have been a bit better
but that takes away the fun in it. Well, this movie was bad, but it could have been so much
better. Bert certainly did his best to cut as many corners he could in the
special effects department (as usual). At least he actually made a fake
spider-leg in this film, which is more than I can say for "Beginning of
the End". (Grisbeck, 2006)
Bibliography
Grisbeck, Dennis (2006) Earth vs the Spider.
At: http://www.monstershack.net/sp/index.php/earth-vs-the-spider-1958/
(accessed on 15.12.2017)
Grisbeck, Dennis (2006) Earth vs the Spider.
At: http://www.monstershack.net/sp/index.php/earth-vs-the-spider-1958/
(accessed on 15.12.2017)
Sandys, John (1996) Movie mistakes.
At: https://www.moviemistakes.com/film7186
illustration
Fig 1, Earth vs the spider (1958) [poster]
At: www.scifi-movies.com/english/poster-0000153-0-earth-vs-the-spider-1958.htm
Fig 2, Cave scene (1958) [picture]
At: www.coolasscinema.com/2013/07/earth-vs-spider-1958-review.html
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