Thanks to AMC, I was able to finally catch the movie which has graced
the club as club pic for months. At least I'm pretty sure this is the
one. Bert I. Gordon movies starring Ed Kemmer featuring giant
spiders can't be all that common...or can they?

It was what you expect from a Gordon production...earnest and fun.
The characters are not playing it tongue in cheek at all, and that
makes the whole thing a lot more fun despite the desparate plotting
in this one. The menace of the spider is actually pretty good by
Gordon standards and the matte shots work for the most part. They
stay pretty unambitious and it helps the overall effect.

The kids do a lot of stupid things, but no more than typical I guess.
One ongoing problem was the apparent ages of the "teenagers" in this
one...several look to be at least thirty, especially "Joe" the guy
they keep borrowing the car from. The girl in particular keeps doing
insanely dumb things, to the point you really don't care if the
spider gets her or not.

The other big hoot in this one is the relative lack of energy of the
police department. The sherrif seems perfectly content to stay in his
office while the spider rampages through town, while getting updates
from the local science teacher and movie owner. He never really seems
to get beyond his original skepticism, even when the spider is
closing in on him.

The hopelessly complicated demise of the creature was clever only in
that it was neatly foreshadowed by the teacher's opening lecture to
his "teenage" class. Like many monsters, the heroes depend on the
spider's incredibly slow mannerisms to survive. If they had been
forced to survive a modern raptor for instance, the entire town would
have been wiped out in minutes.

This one was fun, and I wouldn't mind seeing it again, if only to
savor the sherrif's wonky performance one more time.

Dean