S
ubgenre mash-ups are nothing new in horror. You got your devil-worshipping redneck car-chase caper (Race with
the Devil); you got your desert cannibal survival- ist socio-political allegory (The Hills Have Eyes); you got your gory, feminist-enraging slasher film-as-character study (Maniac); you got your zombie comedy (too many and too tedious to name); you got your underwater Nazi zombies (Shock Waves and more – seriously!) and you got whatever the fuck your own personal take is on any given Troma film. And buried somewhere far beneath all of these, you got your 1975 über- cheeze, el cheapo hillbilly horror love poem to 1950s giant bug movies, hereafter known as The Giant Spider Invasion. “Yer so dumb ya wouldn’t know rabbit turds
from Rice Krispies,” goes the film’s most mem- orable line, courtesy of beady-eyed redneck swine Dan Kester (Robert Easton). Though it may also go a long way toward explaining what the screenwriters truly thought of their target audi- ence. Dan spends about half of his screen time in stained long johns and a back brace, berating his boozehound wife, Ev (Leslie Parrish, who at one point zings the abusive asshole with, “Sometimes the only way I know you’re alive is when I hear you flush the toilet!”). The set-up: Meteorite crashes to Earth on
Dan’s farm just outside of a Wisconsin hick town, releases multiple geodes, which in turn release multiple tarantulas, several of which grow well past standard-issue size (one ulti- mately grows to resemble a Volkswagen cov- ered in brown fun-fur with giant, flailing brown pipe cleaners sticking out of its sides and two glowing red eyes). The only hope for the denizens of Shitfuck, Wisconsin lies with scien- tists Dr. Vance (TV and B-movie veteran Steve Brodie) and Dr. Langer (Barbara Hale of Perry Mason fame), plus some good old-fashioned po- lice work from the local sheriff. (Yep, that’d be
the perpetually loveable, rotund Alan Hale from Gilligan’s Island, whose first line in the film is “Hi, little buddy!”) Of course, the atomic honey- moon was long over by 1975 – most folks were willing to forego the miracles and conveniences of nuclear science, all in the name of not gettin’ blowed up real good – but true to GSI’s ’50s roots, the good doctors Langer and Vance soon realize atomic fuckery is the only way to squash this pesky arachnid, and appropriate steps are taken. Director Bill Rebane, whose dubious credits
also include Invasion from Inner Earth (1974), The Alpha Incident (1978) and The Capture of Bigfoot (1979), is no stranger to aficionados of schlock horror, and yet he could scarcely be described as a hard-luck case along the lines of Ed Wood or Don Dohler. By the early 1970s, the Estonian- born, German-and-American-bred Rebane had enjoyed considerable success as a producer and executive with various independent film compa- nies in both North America and Europe, and in 2002 made an unsuccessful run for governor of Wisconsin. Perhaps his political ambitions were karmically doomed, what with having turned down Ronald Reagan for a role in the 1963 sci-fi film Terror at Halfday on the grounds the Gipper
was a has-been. (The film was later completed by Herschell Gordon Lewis and retitled Monster a- Go-Go.) A bit of rudimentary Googling will reveal to the
curious that Rebane himself has serious misgiv- ings about GSI, referring to it as “Giant Spider Dis- aster” and recalling that the special effects supervisor was in fact falling-on-ass drunk dur- ing most of the shoot. But that’s hardly a deter- rent, is it, my malodorous minions? Hell, the sheer novelty of a heavily ’50s-influenced movie from the ’70s – hence enriched with profanity, a bit of gore and even the odd tit – is more than enough incentive to cram this one into the player for as long as the Mary Jane holds out, so I suggest you get on it. Of course, I would be remiss (and possibly fired)
if I didn’t close out this column with a hearty con- gratto to Rodrigo, Dave and the entire Rue Crew – past, present and future – on this, our 100th issue. Hard to believe I first met ol’ Rod when he was just a crazy kid with a dream; I’m proud to have made him what he is today. As for the rest of you, the party’s starting, so get the hell out of my base- ment and don’t forget to pick up your compli- mentary hot towel, commemorative Rue Morgue Snuggie™ and bat-scented air freshener.
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