Director: Bill Rebane
Writers: Richard L. Huff, Robert Easton
Producers: Richard L. Huff, Bill Rebane
Cast: Steve Brodie, Barbara Hale, Robert Easton, Leslie Parrish, Alan Hale, Jr., Diane Lee Hart, Paul Bentzen, Kevin Brodie, Bill Williams, Christiane Schmidtmer, Tain Bodkin, J. Stewart Taylor, William W. Gillett, Jr., David B. Hoff, Joe Thingvall (uncredited)
A meteor plummets to Earth landing in North Central Wisconsin. It contains geodes that bust open like eggs to reveal diamonds and hairy spiders. Some of the extraterrestrial arachnids soon grow to giant size and feed on cattle and humans. It’s up to a couple of scientists (Barbara Hale and Steve Brodie) and the local sheriff (Alan Hale, Jr.) to quell the panic and figure out how to destroy the monsters.
The Flashback Fanatic movie review
Nowadays, horror movie titles usually have a the-shorter-the-better attitude. I guess that’s supposed to be more classy or evocative. Jaws (1975) probably set that standard, but it also effectively suggests what you’re getting while using a common word that is unusual for use in a film title. Only just the right word really works for that single-word-title technique. Everyone going to see Jaws already knew that it was a giant shark horror movie. It also helped that it was promoted by a major studio and based on Peter Benchley’s bestselling novel.
In 1975 we also got The Giant Spider Invasion. Now, that’s a title that says it all, doesn’t it? It’s an unforgettable title that tells its audience exactly what they’re going to get. Of course, such explicit titles today are also telling the audience that they’re getting something that is knowingly absurd. Nowadays, everything is so damned self-conscious that when a title spells out the bizarre content of the flick it must be intentionally ironic garbage, right? I yearn for the days when such a title meant unpretentious garbage such as The Giant Spider Invasion.
Garbage may be too strong a word to use from my perspective. I think this film is the movie equivalent of cold, day-old pizza from out of the fridge; nothing fancy or as good as it could have been, but it gives me exactly what I need sometimes. It is also seasoned with plenty of quirks, which always suits the taste of a quirky fellow like me.
According to star Robert Easton, the film’s original script by R.L. Huff was awful and dead serious. Easton convinced director Bill Rebane that he could salvage it by rewriting it as a spoof. However, original writer Huff was also the producer, so he removed a lot of the humor that Easton added with his rewrite. Easton still managed to sneak some gags past the humorless Huff, and it is probably Easton’s input that gives some characters their funny, uncouth edge. Perhaps it is that Easton-Huff conflict of intent that lends the film a bit of irreverent wit without it becoming the snarky kind of stuff that keeps anyone from engaging with the story. There is nothing thematically heavy going on here, but the horror of the situation is dealt with sincerely.
The premise is simple and plays out quite straightforward, except for the two scientists’ double talk to justify what the hell a meteorite is doing here with giant spiders coming out of it. Actors Steve Brodie and Barbara Hale (Della Street from the Perry Mason television series), as scientists Dr. J.R. Vance and Dr. Jenny Langer, strive valiantly to make it sound like there is method to this script’s sci-fi madness. It all has something to do with a black hole spewing out this spider invasion from another dimension. I don’t ever recall black holes getting any sci-fi movie mentions before, so I guess it sounded pretty advanced. Or maybe the sweaty, fire-and-brimstone revivalist preacher’s (Tain Bodkin) rant at the beginning of the film brings about this horrible phenomenon as a way to make those local yokels pay for their sins. Geez, maybe this flick isn’t quite as straightforward as I first thought.
As Sheriff Jones, Alan Hale, Jr. (yes, the Skipper of Gilligan’s Island TV fame), is fun. He is allowed a couple of light moments early on that break the fourth wall with the audience. I usually resent that kind of stuff, but I can excuse it in small doses in a movie that is as rambunctious as this one. I really get a kick out of Sheriff Jones taking an eternity to get away from that damned phone in his office to actually do some sheriffing. When he finally does, the town folk pretty much ignore him, which leads to plenty of casualties.
My favorite scenes are those dealing with the members of the Kester rural household. There is an unsavory aspect to them that really holds my interest. Since the Kester clan is the most interesting bunch of characters in the film, it probably explains why they are also the film’s best performances.
The unlikely bickering couple of loutish farmer Dan Kester (Robert Easton) and his gorgeous, alcoholic wife Ev (Leslie Parrish of 1959’s Lil’ Abner, 1962’s The Manchurian Candidate, and featured in the original Star Trek TV series episode “Who Mourns for Adonis?”) are amusing and sometimes a bit pathetic. That lucky bum Dan Kester landed this beautiful woman and has her cooped up in the middle of nowhere on his farm, but he is stepping out to screw around with a sexy, local waitress (Christiane Scmidtmer), despite his encumbrance of a very unflattering back support girdle. While Dan is out tomcattin’ around, his bored wife calls up the proprietor (Bill Williams) of the local cafe to deliver more booze, and, if he hurries, Ev will make it worth his while.
Ev’s scrumptious, younger sister, Terry (Diane Lee Hart), is living in the same house. When her boyfriend Davey (Kevin Brodie) comes to visit, Ev flirts with him while sucking up more booze. Fair’s fair though, as her philandering hick hubby Dan is soon propositioning Terry. He is trying to win her over with the diamonds he has found at the site of the meteor landing on his farm. Little Terry plays hard to get; she flaunts what she’s got to Dan one second and insults him the next, but she doesn’t outright reject him. She doubts the authenticity of the gem, but seems mighty interested in it just the same.
Upping the sleaze factor even more, Terry’s cousin Billy (Paul Bentzen) also tries to get some from her because, as he points out, they’re not related by blood so they can be “kissin’ cousins.” Because he’s not brandishing diamonds, Terry brushes him off in a hurry.
This film was originally conceived as an invasion of normal-sized spiders, but the distributor dictated that giant spiders were needed to seal the financing deal. Director Rebane managed to arrange for a local welder to help manufacture his monster spider on the fly with only $10,000 set aside for his special effects budget. Once the title menace of this movie shifts into gear, it is courtesy of a Volkswagen Beetle that was stripped down and outfitted with a hairy spider body and eight moving legs manipulated by a bunch of teenagers stuffed inside the contraption. Such is the stuff of low-budget monster movie legend. It looks quite effective during long shots in the hills and fields or behind a fleeing crowd. It’s a fun, gross effect to see victims get sucked up into the spider’s bloody maw, but nothing could be grosser than Ev’s Bloody Mary. Cheers!
While based in Chicago, Bill Rebane had started making his first feature length film in 1963. That sci-fi horror movie was originally titled Terror at Halfday, but when Rebane’s finances ran out, it was finished as Monster a-Go Go! (1965) by the notorious goremeister Herschell Gordon Lewis. In the late 1960s, Rebane purchased farm property near Gleason, Wisconsin and created a film studio he used for producing commercials and industrial films. He returned to feature film production in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Giant Spider Invasion was the second of Wisconsin-based producer-director Bill Rebane’s completed feature films. Although Rebane went on to make more horror movies in Wisconsin, The Giant Spider Invasion is certainly his best remembered one. It probably benefits the most from the writers-at-odds-with-each-other tastes in that oddball Huff-Easton script. Rebane gathering the starring cast of Alan Hale, Jr., Leslie Parrish, and Barbara Hale for a $300,000-budget movie shot in the middle of rural Wisconsin is quite a feat for a regional filmmaker.
As a kid, I lived in North Central Wisconsin when this creature feature was being made. The local media publicized its production pretty well before its local release. A monster movie being shot around my neck of the woods meant that I just had to see it. I was not disappointed. What really put this flick over for me was the delectable Diane Lee Hart’s split second of toplessness. This was pushing the PG-rated envelope, and I felt like I was really getting away with something as a shocked mother nearby hustled her kid out of the theater. I gotta admit that scene still does it for me. I suppose that makes me the world’s oldest 13-year-old.
