Dean,

My favorite sequence in 'Earth vs the Spider' is the one in which the
beast is apparently dead and its corpse is in the gymnasium at the
high school. When Hugo the janitor lets the rockabilly band into the
gym to rehearse, it's predictable that the savage rhythms of first
generation rock and roll will revive the Spider. I particularly like
the fact that Joe is the leader of that band and actually leads them
by waving a baton. Granted, the "teenagers" are all a bit long in the
tooth but you also see the same thing in other films from the era
featuring teenagers (I'm thinking of 'The Giant Gila Monster', 'The
Invasion of the Saucer Creatures', 'Attack of the Puppet People' and
so on). Teenagers, a giant spider, and rock 'n' roll, what a deadly
combination.

Take care,
Jon

--- In sonsofkong@y..., sonofvulcan <no_reply@y...> wrote:
> 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