Cardboard Science: Spins A Web, Any Size

Year: 1958
Director: Bert I. Gordon
Cast: Ed Kemmer, June Kenney, Eugene Persson
Run Time: 1 hour 13 minutes

It's time for the second entry in our annual Great Switcheroo with Hunter Allen of Kinemalogue, in which I task him with tackling three 1980s slasher reviews and in exchange he assigns me three 1950s B-movies. Hunter is now bringing us The Spider (previously known as Earth vs. the Spider, which is a much less accurate but much better title). After all, it's not truly Cardboard Science without a movie helmed by the notorious Bert I. Gordon (The Cyclops, Beginning of the End, and so many more).

The plot of The Spider is just as simple as its updated title: high school student Carol (June Kenney of Attack of the Puppet People, which was at the time Gordon's most recent of three 1958 directorial features) ropes her reluctant, gaslighting boyfriend Mike (Eugene Persson) into helping her find her missing father. When investigating a cave near where they find his car abandoned on the side of the road, they discover the lair of a giant spider. Said giant spider emerges from the cave to rampage about in their small town of River Falls for a bit. Then it returns to its cave, where special effects are cheaper, for a final confrontation with the unlikely duo of Professor Art Kingman (Ed Kemmer) and Sheriff Cagle (Gene Roth of Attack of the Giant Leeches).

They're gonna need a LOT of rain to wash this spider out.

Now, cheap movies can be great fun. I can appreciate that. I did give It Conquered the World 7 out of 10, after all. But Roger Corman knew how to wield a shoestring budget like a lasso. Bert I. Gordon may have gotten it right every couple movies or so, but more often than not, he ended up accidentally tying both hands behind his back.

This is one of those pictures, unfortunately. There's just not a lot of spark here, at least when it comes to finding creative ways of bringing its core premise to life. In a movie like this, it's wise to tap into gut-level emotions rather than appealing to the rational side of the brain with convincing special effects. The effects used to supersize the spider do look somewhat decent, but said spider mostly just ambles around, waggling his legs in a friendly manner. It doesn't exactly keep you on the edge of your seat.

Nor do the majority of the spider-related deaths, which mostly involve people cowering as the camera slowly approaches them (a very traditional, but boring approach).

The best way to overcome a low budget is with a sharp script and compelling actors, which don't tend to cost quite as much money as, say, a giant rampaging spider. This movie has neither a sharp script nor compelling actors, alas. The screenplay is tedious as all get out, doling out endless expository dialogue (hardly unusual for a 1950s sci-fi movie, but I can't pretend to love it) and relying on Carol and Mike to supply The Spider with its most intense moments of pathos.

Unfortunately, Carol and Mike are outrageously miscast. It's hardly shocking to see a Hollywood movie where high schoolers are played by people who actually look like teenagers. Plus, Kenney was 25 and Persson was 24, so they're nearly a decade younger than Stockard Channing was in Grease, at least. But an actor in this position needs to do their best to play a teenager, and both of them look and act like a newlywed couple who are bickering about their plans for an upcoming dinner party.

Don't even get me started on their classmate Joe, who is weeks away from getting his pension.

Carol and Mike's sniping drags down a subplot where they get lost in the spider's cave during the climactic battle. This is deeply troubling, because that subplot was actually clever enough to have covered up the holes in the movie's budget if they had pulled it off. 

For one thing, the cave does look pretty neat, especially when it comes to the expressionistic diagonal slash of a stalactite-covered ceiling that marks one of its first chambers. It's one of the only things in the movie that feels like it was designed with cinematic aesthetic in mind (unlike the spiderwebs, which are clearly made of rope that the actors must pretend is sticky - at least spray paint the rope white or something!).

The other thing is that "we're trapped in this cave" could have been a compelling low-budget subplot that takes some of the pressure off the more expensive spider mayhem. However, in practice it just traps the viewer with Carol and Mike, who are irritating and have long since ceased to have any sort of plot function.

Pictured (left to right): Carol, Mike, The Movie's Momentum

I've been mean to The Spider for long enough that I should probably point out some things it does right, because those do exist! It sometimes slips into campy time capsule mode in a way that is satisfying (the teens having a sock hop in the restricted room that contains the supposedly dead giant spider is an indelible scene). And it has quite a few moments that are more intense and ooky than horror films of this vintage usually boast.

I'm a sucker for any scene featuring an air raid siren, but there are other moments that effectively crank up the horror atmosphere out of nowhere. For instance, Carol discovering the desiccated corpse of her father, or the casual shot of a lonely toddler on the street covered in what is heavily implied to be his mother's blood. The Spider quite frequently goes a bit harder than was strictly necessary, and I respect it for those instincts.

So all in all, the movie isn't terrible. It's charming just often enough to prevent that. And most of what it contains is just tedious rather than bad. Except the music. The score is awful oooooWEEEEEEoooo horseshit that makes it sound like the spider is seconds from being abducted by an alien at all times.

That which is indistinguishable from magic:

*Professor Kingman tells us quite a bit about how spiders operate, including injecting their prey with venom to stun them and sucking all the juices out of its victims. So it's weird how he neglects to actually explain the science behind this particular spider's M.O., which is mostly to smack people about the face with one of its legs.

The morality of the past, in the future!:

*When the kids inform Professor Kingman that they have discovered a giant spider, the first thing he says is "the man to see about it is the sheriff." If you say so, Artie...
*Speaking of, the first thing the sheriff does when he arrives in the cave (which is known to have stalactites so delicate that a mere shout can knock one from the ceiling) is shoot a bat to death by firing multiple rounds into the ceiling.
*I'm so sad that the 1950s are over and I've missed my chance to stop by River Falls to shop at Gay Mattress Company.
*At the end of the big rampage sequence, the filmmakers linger on a shot that they clearly view to be a potent metaphor: a U.S. Mail box has been tipped over. The horror!

Sensawunda:

*Mike's dad's movie theater is heavily advertising Bert I. Gordon's The Amazing Colossal Man and just got in Attack of the Puppet People. In fact, the latter title is so new that Mike tries to excuse himself from a second cave adventure so he can stay and watch it. If only he had. I certainly wish I had gotten to watch Attack of the Puppet People rather than spending more time with Carol in that cave.

TL;DR: The Spider is a reasonably affable B-picture, but it doesn't have a whole lot of gas in its tank.
Rating: 4/10
Word Count: 1331

Cardboard Science on Popcorn Culture 

2014: Invaders from Mars (1953) The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) Them! (1954)
2015: The Giant Claw (1957) It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955) The Brain from Planet Arous (1957)
2016: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) Godzilla (1954) The Beginning of the End (1957)
2017: It Conquered the World (1958) I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958) Forbidden Planet (1956)
2018: The Fly (1958) Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman (1958) Fiend without a Face (1958)
2019: Mysterious Island (1961) Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964) Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)

2020: The Colossus of New York (1958) It Came from Outer Space (1953) Rodan (1956)

2021: Robot Monster (1953) Queen of Outer Space (1958) The Cyclops (1957)

2022: Tarantula (1955) The Amazing Colossal Man (1957) Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)

2023: Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957)
2024: Attack of the Puppet People (1958)

2025: X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes (1963) The Spider (1958) The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953)

Census Bloodbath on Kinemalogue
2014: My Bloody Valentine (1981) Pieces (1982) The Burning (1981)
2015: Terror Train (1980) The House on Sorority Row (1983) Killer Party (1986)
2016: The Initiation (1984) Chopping Mall (1986) I, Madman  (1989)
2017: Slumber Party Massacre (1982) Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987) Happy Birthday to Me (1981)
2018: The Prowler (1981) Slumber Party Massacre II (1987) Death Spa (1989)
2019: Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge (1989) Psycho III (1986) StageFright: Aquarius (1987)

2020: Night School (1981) The Fan (1981) Madhouse (1981)

2021: Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 (1986)

2022: Hell Night (1981) Return to Horror High (1987) Cutting Class (1989)

2023: Blood Rage (1987)

2024: Sleepaway Camp (1983)

2025: Superstition (1982) The Carpenter (1988) Visiting Hours (1982)

Census Bloodbath: Lost In The Woods

Year: 1983
Director: Andrew Davis
Cast: John Friedrich, Adrian Zmed, Ernest Harden Jr. 
Run Time: 1 hour 24 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

Considering how long I've been doing this project, the criteria for something to be a Big Title is pretty low at this point. But nevertheless, The Final Terror is one of them. It's a movie that is constantly brought up in the same conversation as classic "youngsters in the woods" slashers like Friday the 13th and The Burning. Now, I'm no fool. 1981's Just Before Dawn is often brought up in those same conversations, and I was massively underwhelmed by that movie. But when you're staring down the barrel of a bunch of movies that were shot on video and nobody's ever heard of, you'll grasp at any straw sticking out of the dung pile.

So yes, I was excited to check out The Final Terror.

Two guesses how that worked out for me.

We do need a plot to get these particular youngsters into these particular woods, so here it is. A crew of forest rangers from Redwood County have decided to go camping out at Mill Creek with a group of civilian girls for a vacation filled with sexy shenanigans and outdoorsmanship. They are driven there by Eggar (Joe Pantoliano!), who has been roped into being their chauffeur despite the fact that he's not invited to actually camp with them, he hates them all, and they all hate him.

The campers all display a staggeringly varied set of vivid and layered personalities. There's Mike (Mark Metcalf, the father from the "We're Not Gonna Take It" music video and also he was in Animal House or whatever), who's kind of the ringleader; Melanie (Cindy Harrell), who is his girlfriend; Nathaniel (Ernest Harden Jr.), who is Black; Vanessa (Akosua Busia, who only had to wait a couple years to get out of the slasher muck when she appeared in The Color Purple), who is also Black and miraculously not automatically coupled up with Nathaniel; Windy (Daryl Hannah, like, the Daryl Hannah), who has beaded braids like she just got back from a Caribbean vacation; Zorich (John Friedrich), who is just a little psychotic and obsessed with survivalism; Marco (Adrian Zmed), who isn't part of the ranger crew and is kind of a third wheel; Margaret (Rachel Ward of Night School) who is a girl who exists; and Boone (Lewis Smith), who is a guy who exists, or at least that's what the credits tell me.

The campfire story that inevitably turns out to be true and right behind you holding a knife is this: years ago, in these very woods, a woman was molested by her uncle and had a kid after being institutionalized. Now she lurks around the woods defending her territory.

And really, what IS more sinister than the victim of a sex crime?

One thing that I never expected was a film that I would like even less than Just Before Dawn, but life loves to throw us curveballs. The Final Terror is a top-down failure on every level I can think of, which is shocking considering the sheer amount of qualified people with actual careers that have gathered to make this film (in addition to the cast full of familiar faces, I haven't yet mentioned director Andrew Davis - of The Fugitive! - or producer Samuel Z. Arkoff - of The Amityville Horror, Dressed to Kill, It Conquered the World, and so on).

Let's take a look at the acting first. Joe Pantoliano doesn't embarrass himself, though his character is assembled from nothing but scraps of manic, contradictory doggerel. But everyone else ranges from bland to shrill, and no higher. Strangely, the reliably vacant Rachel Ward gives one of the best performances here, perhaps because at least two other cast members also share her "dead-eyed and inexplicably British" performance style and both of them are worse. 

Also failing us is the score, the main theme of which was inspired by Billy Idol's "White Wedding" (this is not a joke), except for when it randomly wings a naked Friday the 13th rip-off into the mix in one random moment. As is the cinematography, which will rouse itself occasionally with a fun, capable camera move or canted angle, but mostly just struggles to distinguish the outlines of the poorly lit characters from the poorly lit trees surrounding them.

I would get down on my knees and weep with gratitude whenever the sun rose.

The thing that is super special about the slasher genre is that it can survive all kinds of flaws as long as it throws in some creative kills with half-decent blood. Guess what The Final Terror doesn't have? I don't even know where to start with the list of ways this film fails as a slasher, but here goes. (SPOILERS abound for the rest of the review)

Of the giant victim pool this film provides for us, which comfortably sits at 9, only three of them die. Three. We get to spend time with six whole characters who neither separate themselves as distinct personalities nor have the decency to expire and rid us of the burden of having to deal with them. The film is so anemic with kills that they had to do reshoot to shove two more random deaths in the intro, or else people wouldn't have known it was a slasher at all. Plus, there's a handful of scenes that promise to lead to kills, then inexplicably pull back at the last moment. Indeed, the character Marco gets two of these scenes, the first when he vanishes after being abandoned in the middle of the woods on the first night, and the second when he is unsuccessfully garroted with a rope.

The kills we do get commit the two worst sins of slasher murders: most of them take place offscreen, and the ones that don't are very nonspecific (ie. knife slashes somewhere, blood smears everywhere, nobody is sure what actually happened). Instead of these campers being picked off one by one, we're just forced to watch them bicker with one another in survivalist scenarios as the men become increasingly less shirtless the further we get into the run time (the opening scenes were promising a Girls Nite Out level of unmotivated barechested men, which would have knocked the movie up the scale at least one extra point).

The experience of watching The Final Terror is more akin to sitting through a barely tolerated acquaintance's Instagram stories about their camping trip than a bona fide slasher film. At least the film accurately recreated a survival scenario, given the way my note taking quickly devolved into stuff like, "It's been 80 minutes, no sign of anything interesting."

Killer: Eggar (Joe Pantoliano) and his mom (Anthony Maccario)
Final Girl: Pretty much everyone
Best Kill: The only kill that is in any way inventive, even if there aren't any actual gore effects involved, is the moment where Lori springs a trap that sends two tree branches covered in sharp tin can lids flying into her face. 
Sign of the Times: The film was shot in 1981, but shelved until 1983, when producers decided they had to capitalize on the rising star of... Adrian Zmed.
Scariest Moment: The campers are hiding in the bus when the killer starts smashing the windows from the outside with an axe.
Weirdest Moment: The killer dresses Melanie in a cute little Steve Irwin hat before throwing her body onto the raft with the other campers.
Champion Dialogue: "What the hell do you think they're gonna do out there in the woods with girls, huh? Pray?!"
Body Count: 7

1. Jimmy has his throat slit (probably) offscreen.
2. Lori is hit with that classic branch/tin can lid trap offscreen.
3. Mike is macheted in the back mid-coitus.
4. Melanie is killed offscreen.
5. Zorich has his ankle hooked by a blade and falls to his death.
6. Eggar is beaten to death.
7. Eggar's Mom is impaled on a spiky log trap.

TL;DR: The Final Terror is a movie seemingly tailored to draw out your disappointment for as excruciatingly long as possible.
Rating: 3/10
Word Count: 1357