The Giant Spider Invasion * (1975, Steve Brodie, Barbara Hale, Alan Hale Jr, Robert Easton, Leslie Parrish, Bill Williams) – Classic Movie Review 2903

Co-producer/director Bill Rebane’s unintentionally hilarious 1975 sci-fi horror monster movie features giant 15-meter spiders from another dimension. Upset by a meteor that lands on a North Wisconsin farm and subsequent nuclear fallout, the spiders leap from a black hole that has opened a door to other dimensions. The spiders have an appetite for human flesh, and invade, menace and wreak havoc and death on the hick small town in Wisconsin.

Rebane’s entertaining sci-fi flick is totally dumb and utterly risible, with hilariously bad dialogue and atrocious special effects. The FX consist of live tarantulas, unconvincing puppets and VW Beetles complete with long furry legs. The spiders are big and little, varying in size, allowing for the film’s best effect, those VW Beetles with legs and eyes that are being used for the monster spiders!  Talk about The Love Bug!

It stars Steve Brodie and Barbara Hale as Dr Vance and Dr Jenny Langer from NASA, who arrive to try to save the world. Alan Hale Jr (as the sheriff), Bill Williams as Dutch and Robert Easton (as a farmer) are among the other humans fallen on hard times. The decent veteran actors carry on in serious performances that unfortunately for them only serve to help to make the movie even funnier.

You could easily assume that this was a Fifties low-budget So Bad It’s Good movie, but it was actually made in 1975 – and actually in Wisconsin. It is certainly great for lots of good big laughs at its expense, though that’s about all it is good for.

Barbara Hale (born on 18 April 1922), for ever Della Street in Perry Mason, married actor Bill Williams (who died on 21 September 1992) in 1946, and they had son, actor William Katt in 1951.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2903

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com