Earth vs. the Spider - Region 2 DVD

Video Description
Whilst looking for her missing father, a girl and her boyfriend stumble over an inhabited cave, occupied by a deadly giant spider. After being captured and enmeshed in the eight-legged beast’s giant web they manage to escape and raise the alarm. Convincing people proves to be tricky but eventually the sheriff and the school’s science teacher help them kill the monstrous spider and take it back to town. They put it in the school hall and hold a dance but is the spider really dead?

Samuel Z. Arkoff started producing movies with his partner James Nicholson in 1954 when they set up American International Pictures and capitalised on the trend of teenagers being the main cinema audience of the time. AIP made pictures about teenagers for teenagers and The Spider has all the essential ingredients for a drive-in horror classic. High schoolers as the primary cast driving really cool cars, together with sceptical adults (the disbelieving sheriff), a rock’n’roll band (to wake up the spider) and a big scary monster (the spider.) Whether the spider is a freak of nature or a mutant is never determined as it escapes leaving many more questions. Why did they hold a dance with a spider in the corner of the school hall? Shouldn’t they be hunting for the spider’s possible offspring? What has it been living off the past few years? How will they stop it? Now you can find out in The Spider!

The Spider is co-written by George Worthing Yates who also wrote Earth vs the Flying Saucers and Them!, and directed by Bert I. Gordon, nicknamed Mr Big for his initials and his fondness for the big monsters in his films. His special effects of producing giant monsters on screen were achieved by ingeniously using rear projection enlargements.