Matrixston Wow! Such a good movie.

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

Scott LeBrun Near the small town of River Falls, a bird spider that's grown to enormous proportions is discovered inside a mountain cave. It's supposedly killed by the authorities, and taken to a temporary holding spot in a high school gym in preparation for transportation elsewhere. Wouldn't you know it: the beast hears the strains of some groovy rock 'n' roll and comes back to life! Among the intrepid heroes who must destroy the monster for good are the local sheriff (Gene Roth) and know-it-all science teacher Art Kingman (Ed Kemmer).Considered by some to be one of director Bert I. Gordons' best "giant thing on the loose" sci-fi thrillers, "Earth vs the Spider" benefits from a fairly snappy pace, and special effects that aren't TOO, too bad. Even though his character should know that spiders are arachnids and not insects, Kemmer is a decent enough lead. Roth is an absolute hoot as the lawman who is understandably skeptical of the idea of a giant spider. Eugene Persson and June Kenney are reasonably engaging as the kids who get themselves into tons of trouble by heading back to the caves to retrieve a bracelet. Hal Torey is good as Perssons' dad, as are Jack Kosslyn as Mr. Fraser, June Jocelyn as Kenney's mom, and Hank Patterson as Hugo the janitor. The eight legged menace is appropriately creepy, and it's amusing that these filmmakers have the thing screaming like a banshee.One effective, unnerving touch is to see two dead bodies that are victims of the creature. And another is a tracking shot that shows some of the devastation wrought by our villain, ending on a crying child.After this, Mr. B.I.G. wouldn't make another special effects, size oriented picture for several years, until he made "Village of the Giants". The man sure knew how to promote himself: posters for his past work can be seen at a theatre.Seven out of 10.

ofpsmith It's fun to make fun of how stupid this movie is but there are a lot of other movies where that's more fun. Earth vs. The Spider has your general monster movie set up. Monster attacks on person, one person declared missing, police and witness investigate death, monster attacks again, town fights monster in big showdown. That's pretty much the movie for you. The acting is funny, the story is the usual formula, and the spider effects are obviously superimposed. The film is a good target for MST3K when they riffed it and most people could probably find lot's of things to make fun of. But that's really about it. There's nothing more to say.

Woodyanders A giant mutant arachnid goes on a destructive rampage in a small town. Director Bert I. Gordon, working from a tight script by Laszlo Gorog and George Worthing Yates, relates the entertaining story at a steady pace, makes effectively creepy use of the Carlsbad Caverns, further spruces things up with a few fairly gruesome touches (the spider sucks out the juices from its victims and leaves dried-out pruney corpses in its lethal wake), maintains a serious tone throughout, and builds a reasonable amount of tension in the thrilling climax. June Kenny as the fetching Carol Flynn and Mike Simpson as the likable Mike Simpson make for an appealing teen couple. Edward Kemmer does well as smart and helpful high school science teacher Professor Art Kingman. Familiar character actor Gene Roth has a neat part as the initially skeptical Sheriff Cagle. Granted, the special effects aren't so hot (or convincing, for that matter), but they do add to this film's considerable innocent charm. Jack A. Marta's crisp black and white cinematography does the trick. Albert Glasser's spirited shuddery score hits the robust'n'rousing bull's eye. The concise 73 minute running time ensures that this picture never becomes tedious or overstays its welcome. Moreover, this movie possesses a certain sweet and inoffensive wide-eyed sincerity that's impossible to either resist or dislike. A fun little flick.

zardoz-13 Despite its lack of credibility, "Earth Vs. the Spider" is an entertaining monstrous arachnidan horror movie which appeared three years after director Jack Arnold's "Tarantula." This low-budgeted American International Pictures release takes place in a small, isolated town. Unlike most of the giant monster movies made in the 1950s, this Bert I. Gordon helmed hokum neither explains the origins of the gigantic spider nor does it blame it on nuclear radiation testing. Instead, the county sheriff and a high school science teacher acquit themselves admirably in taking care of this eight-legged menace. Basically, all Gordon has done is use rear-screen projection and blown up footage of a real-life spider. Indeed, there is a scene in the sheriff's office when a spider like the giant one is crawling across a desk and the sheriff knocks it on the floor and stomps on it.Basically, Gordon and scenarists László Görög and George Worthing Yates play this larger-than-life action in a thoroughly straightforward fashion. Like his later outing "War of the Colossal Beast," Gordon opens the film with a man, Jack Flynn (Merritt Stone of "The Magic Sword"), driving his pick-up truck home late one night when something mysterious (which we're never shown) gets in his way on the highway and then hits him. The following day, Jack's daughter Carol (June Kenney of "Teenage Doll") worries about the disappearance of her dad and persuades her boyfriend Mike Simpson (Eugene Persson of "Bloodlust") to help her search for the old guy. Mike has to borrow a jalopy from one of his friends so he can take Carol to look for her father.Eventually, they find the truck off the side of the road, but nobody is in it. Nearby is a cave with a warning sign posted to keep intruders from entering the cavern. Our teenage hero and heroine enter the cave, prowl around, and then fall into a giant net that turns out to be a spider web. Not long afterward, they are attacked by a huge spider. Miraculously, they manage to escape, but skeptical Sheriff Cagle (Gene Roth of "Young Dillinger") does not believe the teenagers. Carol and Mike approach their high school science teacher, Professor Art Kingman (Ed Kemmer of "Calyso Joe") and he convinces Cagle to investigate. They discover the giant spider and spray down with DDT and kill it. At least, they believe that they have killed it.Professor Kingman persuades Cagle and his men to help him move the giant spider out of the cave and mount it in the high school gym. Kingman uses some of his savings to get the critter moved and he hopes that a university will take it off his hands to study it. Later, our hero learns to their shock that the spider was only knocked out. The spider hears some early rock and roll music, recovers, smashes its way out of the high school, goes on a rampage through the town, attacks the home of Professor Kingman, and scrambles back to the cave. Sheriff Cagle and company assemble a team to blast the cave entrance to seal the spider off. Little do they know, however, that Carol and Mike have gone back into the cave looking for the necklace that Jack had brought for his daughter before he died.Altogether, "Earth Vs. the Spider" is not a bad as it could have been. The spider certainly poses a threat to the community, and it seals off the community from the outside world by knocking down long-distance telephone service so our heroes must fend for themselves against their adversary. They never get a call through to the National Guard or any kind of higher authority, even though a sheriff deputy takes a motorcycle and rides out of town. The spider waylays him and sucks the moisture out of his body. Professor Kingman, Cagle, and other open a hole in the top of the mountain and descend into the cave. Mike and Carol are trapped by the spider. Kingman has arranged for electric cables to be taken into the cave and they catch the giant spider between the cables and fry it. This 73-minute, black and white feature is good fun, with decent performances. This is better than most of its kind. Incidentally, if you look closely, you will see a movie poster one-sheet at a movie theater for "The Amazing Colossal Man."