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Tarantula
Classic Sci-Fi
Ultimate Collection
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U.S.A.
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1955
Directed by Jack Arnold
Starring
John Agar
Mara Corday
Leo G. Carroll
B&W
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81 Minutes
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Not Rated
Format:
DVD (R1 - NTSC
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3-disc set)
Universal Home Video
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2008
Reissue - Combo Box Set
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7
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8 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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Replaces
EC's April 2001 review of the VHS edition |
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One of the films in the Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate
Collection
• DVD Rating is for entire set |
All
the hoary '50s sci-fi movie clichés are trotted out like clockwork
in Jack Arnold's Tarantula,
but don't let that put you off seeing it if you've never had the
pleasure. Rictus-grinned B-movie stalwart John Agar (Brain
From Planet Arous,
Invisible
Invaders) plays Matt Hastings, the town doctor of Desert Rock,
a small Arizona community. A true American male of the Eisenhower
era, he wears a suit and tie even in the scorching desert heat.
(And doesn't sweat either.) Upon returning to his office from
a house call, Hastings is phoned by local lawman Sheriff Andrews
(Nestor Paiva) about a dead man found lying by the highway. The
body looks strange. Andrews has never seen anything like it. Could
Doc take a look?
Though the corpse resembles a follicly-challenged
gorilla in striped pajamas, the sheriff seems to think it's the
body of Eric Jacobs, a research scientist who's lived in the area
for years. Hastings is puzzled. The body exhibits distinct signs
of a rare pituitary disorder which takes years to produce such
drastic symptoms, yet Andrews saw Jacobs only a few days earlier
and the scientist appeared healthy. The doctor's suspicions are
further raised when Jacob's associate, Prof. Deemer (Leo G. Carroll),
arrives to claim the body. Strangely evasive, Deemer refuses to
permit an autopsy. The obsequious sheriff drops the matter and
mocks Hastings' uneasiness.
That night, at Deemer's house outside of town,
the professor is attacked by another man exhibiting the same physical
distortions as the late Dr. Jacobs. Paul Lund, a graduate student
assisting Deemer and Jacobs, has somehow
transformed into a berserk mutant bent on destruction. During
the fight Deemer's lab catches on fire. Lund knocks Deemer unconscious,
injects him with a hypo, then collapses to the floor, dead. Deemer
revives just in time to put out the fire, but not before a number
of prize lab specimens — animals which have grown to incredible
size after being fed a radioactive nutrient — are destroyed. (Deemer
is unaware that one of his experimental subjects was missed by
the flames, and during the struggle with Lund escaped into the
desert night...) Instead of calling the police he drags Lund's
body outside and buries it in a secret grave.
Doc Hastings suspects something's not right.
When Lund's replacement, attractive grad student Stephanie "Steve"
Clayton (Mara Corday, The
Giant Claw)
arrives in town, he's able to question the professor further when
he drives her out to the Deemer house. Genial and talkative about
his research, Deemer clams up when prodded about Jacobs' illness
and the missing Lund. Matt's inquiry is put on the backburner,
however, when a series of mysterious deaths begin plaguing the
area. The skeletons of cattle, then people, are being found without
a shred of flesh on them...
Tarantula
is 1950s giant monster movie-making strictly by the numbers, but
done quite effectively. The small cast of skilled B-movie actors
is great. In addition to Agar, Corday, Carroll and Paiva, Hank
Patterson — Green Acres' Mr. Ziffel — is on hand as comic
relief Josh, the hotel clerk. Raymond Bailey (Mr. Drysdale on
The Beverly Hillbillies) appears in the ubiquitous expository
role of an Ag institute scientist to whom Hastings brings a sample
of spider goo for analysis. He shows an Animal Planet-style
film clip to Hastings, telling us all we need to know about the
monster in two minutes. (It's "fiercer, more cruel and
deadly than anything that ever walked the earth," apparently.)
This type of scene is quintessential giant bug movie stuff, and
with Bailey and Agar it's one of the best examples.
Capable players aside, this relatively short
flick takes some time to get going. Though our behemoth arachnid
makes a few cameo appearances prior, the real giant spider
action doesn't kick in until the 63 minute mark. In one
of the movie's coolest scenes, two tramps are B.S.-ing around
a campfire when the monster appears over a hillside, coming straight
for them. A terrific, scary moment is then undermined when one
of the fleeing hobos takes the clichéd
stumble and fall... not once, but twice! Couldn't the spider
simply have caught them? (At the rate of one fall every 10 yards
or so, Kharis the mummy could catch these guys with his legs sawed
off.) Of course, there's
a car that suddenly won't start — scratch two state troopers
— and the predictably chauvinist
dialog about women common to the era. Stock studio music, with
queues lifted from Creature
From The Black Lagoon's score (itself a composite),
will only add to the viewer's sense of nostalgia.
For
their time, the special effects in Tarantula
are remarkably good. They still hold up today. There's only one
truly bad FX shot in the movie, when one of the spider's legs
seems to 'vanish'
into thin air. (Two seconds of film that could've easily been
cut.) The ending, though rushed, is certainly spectacular enough;
a flight of Air Force jets swoops from the sky to stop the spider
with napalm bombs just as it's reaching the defenseless town.
The flight commander, by the way, is played by a very young Clint
Eastwood. Barely recognizable beneath his oxygen mask, Eastwood
only has four lines in the film. But he does get the last word:
"Dump 'em all!"
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After
a long, long wait, Tarantula finally
arrives on DVD as part of Universal's new Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate
Collection. This 3-disc set also contains four other beloved
'50s genre pics: The Mole People (1956),
which shares Disc 1 with Tarantula;
The Incredible Shrinking Man and The
Monolith Monsters (both 1957) on Disc 2; 1958's Monster
On The Campus gets the third disc to itself. The films are presented
1.33:1 fullframe except for Shrinking Man,
which is letterboxed at 1.78:1 (16x9 enhanced). Each title is supplemented
with its original theatrical trailer. I haven't yet had the time
to watch all of them, but a quick scan through the set leads me
to conclude that the other four titles are about on par with Tarantula
in terms of audio/visual quality — they look and sound as good as
one could realistically hope for (i.e., clean, undamaged prints
with strong, clear mono audio tracks). Expect varying degrees of
graininess, which is perfectly natural given the vintage of these
movies. I must note, however, that the nighttime scenes in Tarantula
look noticeably darker than they do on my old VHS pre-record copy.
In the not-too-distant future we hope to review
more of the films in this terrific set, which, while lacking extras,
simply can't be beat in terms of price. (As of this writing it's
retailing for around $20 — four bucks per film!) Universal, in a
questionable marketing decision, has unfortunately issued the Classic
Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection as a "Best Buy exclusive"...
Right now, the only way to get it is at Best Buy retail stores or
via the merchant's website. (It'll become more widely available
sometime in 2007.)
9/21/06 |
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After a year of being OOP — fetching $100+ on eBay — Universal is
re-releasing this set on May 13, 2008, in a nicely priced combo
package with the five-film Classic Sci-Fi
Ultimate Collection, Vol. 2 (for a total of 10 movies on
6 DVDs). |
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