Richie-67-485852 Nothing beats the 1950's creature-feature experience especially when all those flicks starting coming out. You paid your .50 cents to go see a double feature while munching away on popcorn, snacks and tasty drinks perhaps with a date or with friends this was a good night out. Tarantula was a good effort to bring chills right to your face, make the girls scream and have you forget that you were watching a movie. Great innocent entertainment for its time and of course for any lovers of the classic Sci-fi and creature flicks. They typically start-out with a premise and lead up to the star of the movie which is the monster and then watch as the creature rules and feasts while the people in the movie haven't clue but the audience is going wild. Then, when discovered, you have different people telling others just trust me and do this or that or we are toast. No time for answers now. You will find out soon enough and they do! This movie does it quite well. Back then, they actually made the audience part of the movie and movie-goers reciprocated by going to see these flicks more than once too. One thought always crossed my mind when watching these little gems is why don't they try to capture the creature instead of killing it? The emphasis was on saving lives rather than making a buck or doing scientific experiments is what we tell ourselves. As these movies evolved, they did attempt capture and more thus bringing my current wondering to a close. Strap yourself in for an hour and half worth of movie watching here and wonder what the world would be like with Giant Tarantulas roaming around. Fun stuff. Recommend sunflower seeds to keep the tension under control and the nails from being bit...enjoy

Leofwine_draca TARANTULA is one of those classic '50s monster movies that are beloved of anybody with any affection for the genre whatsoever. These films all had the same template: a huge beastie, brought about by scientific experiments gone wrong, a natural disaster or simply from outer space, wreaks havoc across the world to the desperation of the army who are powerless to stop it. This film ticks all the boxes and remains a camp gem despite having a distinctive lack of 'monster action'; indeed the first hour is all build up, with the giant spider hijinks restrained to the last fifteen minutes. But what a great fifteen minutes they are!Even though the effects are poor (the giant tarantula is clearly see-through) they make one heck of an impact as we watch humans and vehicles chased by the absolutely massive marauding insect. There's death aplenty, along with plenty of explosions and a cameo from a pre-stardom Clint Eastwood as a fighter pilot called in to bomb the beast. Who knew that Eastwood began his career by bombing the heck out of a tarantula? The first hour retains interest thanks to the storyline surrounding misguided scientist (are there any other?) Leo G. Carroll, who's attempting to devise a means of feeding an increasingly growing global population (just think, he tells us: by the year 2000 there will be six billion people on the plant! Yeah, tell me about it!). In effect this means he's injecting the hell out of all manner of critters, turning guinea pigs into the side of pigs. Then there's one of those laboratory brawls that I love; this one reminded me of the one in THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN, as Carroll is attacked by a deformed colleague. He ends up being injected with his own serum, which causes his face to swell and distort rapidly in some pioneering, horrifying special effects work glimpsed towards the climax.Investigating the mayhem is B-movie staple John Agar, who delivers his lines with aplomb and proves to be a solid leading man. Pretty Mara Corday is the female lead, who naturally strikes up a relationship with our handsome hero and proves to have a bit more about her than most leading women of the period. Carroll is excellent as the doomed scientist. The proceedings are helmed by Jack Arnold, no stranger to the genre for his Universal classic CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, and he does a fine job at crafting suspense and choreographing the mutant mayhem. This is a B-movie gem and what the '50s were all about.

skybrick736 I went into Tarantula without some of the expectations that I've had from other classics giant monster movies and it took me by surprise. I dug the characters being the doctor, professor, sheriff, and the main lead actress named "Steve". Yes you heard that right her name was Steve. Anyway, the movie has a great premise and really takes its time to develop with good filler scenes before it gets to the meat and potatoes about the giant tarantula. The tarantula scenes gave me the heebie jeebies knowing that it was a real spider with zoomed in shots. Tarantula coming out a year later after Them! might have outdone it which I'm surprised to admit, it's a must see.

AaronCapenBanner Jack Arnold directed this science fiction horror yarn that stars John Agar as Dr. Matt Hastings, who is investigating a mysterious death of a man who was suffering from a disfiguring disease. He worked at the Arizona lab of Professor Gerald Deemer(played by Leo G. Carroll) who was working on growth hormones to increase the food supply of a growing human population. Unfortunately, they were working with a tarantula that outgrew its enclosure and escaped after a fire. Now it is terrorizing the countryside, killing cattle, before it turns its attentions on people... Rather silly film has an unlikely premise and inadequate giant spider F/X, though the acting is fine, and film well-paced. Look for a young Clint Eastwood as the fighter pilot napalming the tarantula at the fiery climax!