Curse of the Black Widow (1977) An amiable private investigator (Tony Franciosa) and cranky police detective (Vic Morrow) clash while attempting to learn more about a series of strange deaths in which the victims suffered two large puncture wounds on their chests, with their bodies completely drained of blood. Meanwhile, a mysterious dark-haired woman lurks in the shadows, luring men to their doom. It almost feels like an extended Kolchak the Night Stalker episode, minus Kolchak (no big surprise, since director Dan Curtis worked on the second Kolchak TV movie, The Night Strangler). While far from perfect, Curse of the Black Widow features some suspenseful scenes and a sense of playfulness, making this one a cut above the usual made-for-TV fare.
Rating: ***½. Available on Prime Video
Earth vs. the Spider (aka: The Spider) (1958) Bert I. Gordon, who’s no stranger to depicting enlarged creatures with his usual home-grown subpar effects, brings us his bargain basement answer to Tarantula (1955) After Carol’s (June Kenney) father goes missing, she starts a search with her boyfriend Mike (Eugene Persson). They learn the awful truth when they discover his desiccated corpse inside a nearby cavern. The culprit turns out to be an enormous spider, which almost makes them its next meal (oddly enough, no one seems to pay much attention to the skeletons of former victims littered around the cave floor). After a truckload of DDT fails to kill the supersized arachnid, the authorities rack their brains for another solution. Some highlights include the oldest “teenagers” you’ve ever seen, a high school dance around the spider’s not-so-dead corpse, and spelunkers who can’t be bothered to bring a flashlight (Who knew caves were so bright?).
Rating: ***. Available on Blu-ray, DVD and Tubi
Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo (1977) When ill-fated business partners Buddy and Fred (Tom Atkins and Howard Hessman) crash land their DC-3, carrying coffee from Ecuador (along with a bunch of killer spiders) in a small California town, mayhem ensues. Yet another flick that rode the wave of tarantula-sploitation movies (perpetuating the myth that the much-maligned spiders are far more venomous than they really are), Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo boasts a strong cast, including TV movie stalwart Claude Aikens as a fire captain and Pat Hingle as a small-town doctor. Thanks to the aforementioned pests, a big plot point is whether or not the latest orange harvest will go to waste (No, really!). You could do worse than to spend a lazy Saturday afternoon watching hordes of spiders, shaky science and a pat ending (hint: It’s bad for spiders but good for oranges).
Rating ***. Available on Blu-ray and DVD
Mosquito (1994) An alien spacecraft crashes into a swamp in rural Michigan, and mosquitoes feast on the remains of the extraterrestrials’ bodies, resulting in giant mutant creatures. A park ranger, her alpha male boyfriend, and an Air Force scientist team up to combat the monster mosquitoes, along with a pair of crooks (Gunnar Hansen and Mike Hard). The effects range from quite good (the full-size mosquito) to terrible (animation depicting the swarm). One highlight is seeing Mr. Hansen wield a chainsaw again (20 years after a certain movie from Texas). Unfortunately, most of the movie is uninspired, with lackluster acting and mostly lame attempts at humor.
Rating: **½. Available on Blu-ray and DVD
Ticks (1993) Seth Green stars as Tyler, a disaffected youth sent to a camp to straighten out his life. Soon, he finds himself fighting for his survival, along with his fellow campers and counselors when some giant mutant ticks (resembling a bad first draft of an Alien facehugger) are inadvertently unleashed in the wilderness by pot growers (including Clint Howard as the first victim) using a new potent fertilizer. It’s not the worst way to spend 90 minutes, although there are better bug films out there.
Rating: **½. Available on Blu-ray, Prime Video and
Tubi
Ants! (aka: It Happened at Lakewood Manor) (1977) A construction crew unwittingly stir up a colony of deadly ants, which spread to an adjacent property, the 100-year-old Lakewood Manor. A construction foreman, fire chief and coast guard race against time to save the remaining guests before the ants take over the place. A good cast (including Robert Foxworth, Lynda Day George, Bernie Casey, Brian Dennehy and Myrna Loy!) are mostly wasted in a movie that, despite the lurid subject matter, manages to be surprisingly tedious.
Rating: **½. Available on Blu-ray and DVD
Mesa of Lost Women (1953) Reportedly cobbled together
from an unfinished film with scenes added in (It’s two, count ‘em, two
confusing movies in one!). From his hidden desert laboratory, mad scientist Dr.
Aranya (Jackie “Uncle Fester” Coogan) attempts to create a master race of
superwomen, fortified by spider hormones. He also experiments with supersized
spiders, just to spice things up. It’s a big mess, good for some unintentional
laughs, a Chinese character who only seems to speak in trite aphorisms, and a repetitive
score that hoped to do for flamenco guitar what zither music did for The
Third Man. You’ve been warned.
Rating: **. Available on DVD and Tubi
The Giant Spider Invasion (1975) For reasons unknown, a wormhole to another galaxy forms a portal on a rural Wisconsin farm owned by a hateful bumpkin and his self-esteem-challenged wife. Some rocks resembling geodes appear with diamonds and spiders inside. The spiders start to grow rapidly, threatening to take over the town (as freakishly large spiders will do). A NASA astrophysicist and a local cosmologist try to figure out a way to close the wormhole before more spiders are unleashed. Other than some goofy dialogue and Alan Hale as the sheriff (he even calls someone “Little Buddy”), there’s not much to recommend.
Rating **. Available on Blu-ray, DVD and Tubi
The Bees (1978) The Bees tries to do for bees what Phase IV did for ants, but without the introspection. John Carradine (attempting a German accent) plays a researcher studying a new strain of intelligent South American killer bees. Co-star John Saxon does his best, given the flimsy material, but even he seems lost. There’s also a brief scene with a Jimmy Carter impersonator and an assassination/conspiracy subplot that comes out of left field. Add one of the worst film scores in recent memory into the mix (with wacky TV movie-caliber action music that does nothing to punctuate the horror), and you have a movie that’s guaranteed to raise eyebrows and make you question your life choices. See The Swarm (1978) instead.
Rating: *½. Available on Blu-ray, DVD, Tubi and Kanopy
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