Dean,
Without question, THE SPIDER is my favorite Bert Gordon movie. It
might even have been good if anyone else had done the special effects,
but it has lots of guilty pleasures nonetheless. We do see the spider
early and often. The spider's screaming is ludicrous, but then no
more so than the roaring of the title beastie in THE DEADLY MANTIS.
It's hard to dislike a movie where rock'n'roll--even if performed by,
as you say, grossly overage teenagers--revives the monster. And
Gene Roth IS terrific as the pig-headed sheriff (You might also want
to see another movie from around this time entitled SHE DEMONS. In it,
Roth plays the gleefully sadistic henchman of a crazed Nazi scientist
mutating women on a Pacific island. They don't make films like that
anymore...). One gets the feeling that any moment he's going to turn
to the camera and ask us if we believe this stuff.
When I saw first THE SPIDER as a little kid, what impressed
me most--fueling nightmares even--were the ghoulish dummies
representing dessicated victims of the monster. When that deputy's
body is dumped practically onto the camera, I must have leaped two
feet!
OK! You've done THE SPIDER! I dare you to do Bert's THE BEGINNING OF
THE END and maintain a straight face. I double dare you! (I've gotta
give him credit. Others were wiping out New York or L.A. He decides
to threaten...Chicago! A helluva town...)