31 Days of Horror 2020 Day 31 Tarantula

TITLE-Tarantula!

SOURCE-Svengoolie Airing on MeTV

Well this October has sucked. Between the horrid weather,had a few days when it hit the low 90s. And then the recent Hurricane Zeta coming real close to where I live,just ain't been a good month.

I had planned on doing a bunch of stuff for Halloween day here at the blog. But something out of my control ate up all my free time for most of this month. Been many days were I barely managed to get a film watched and written up. 

So I needed something to watch today. Flipped thru the DVR and saw I had Sven's airing of Tarantula. I hadn't seen this film in over 30 years at least. Plus hey it's Sven. I try to watch him most weeks cause he is one of the few horror hosts left.

Directed by Jack Arnold,Tarantula came out in the mid 50s from Universal. Which is why Sven is airing it. Sven has a deal with Universal to show their films. THis is another of those 50s b/w giant creature cause of that evil science films.

Leo G Carroll,who's not over a barrel,is testing out a serum on various animals and insects. It cause them to grow big. But early on we see some kind of mutanted human/monster attack Leo. Seems Leo tested this serum out on a person and it caused them to mutate horribly. Leo ends up with the serum in his body. So the rest of the film I'm just waiting on him to transform. When Leo gets attacked a Tarnatula! escapes from the hidden lab. Now this spider is like the size of a 10 lb dog. But once it takes to the hills it GROWS!!

The Tarantula! wanders around and does stuff. Looking horrible most of the time cause they used what appears to be rear projection to make the spider look big. And Leo starts to mutate!

Our lead John Agar is out with his woman riding up and down the highways in the desert. There is at least close to 10 minutes of the film that is just those two driving up and down what I think is the same road just shot from various angles.

Leo fully mutates and goes after Mara Corday,the afore mentioned lady. But the Tarantula! attacks the house they are in. Leo is killing by the collasping roof. And John and Mara run off. They run into the cops. But the bullets ain't doing shit to Tarantula! So the Sheriff calls in the Air Force. Who use NAPALM on Tarantula! and kill it.

That is the air force pilot that kills Tarantula! Look closely at him. Looks a bit familiar... It's Clint Eastwood!

The Sven airing was great. I ended up watching this with my mother,been having to help take care of her this month since she just had knee replacement surgery end of September. She liked how Sven would give some history on most of the cast of the film. Cause for people like John Agar and Leo G Carroll she knew their faces but couldn't remember what she knew them from. Well before and after the ad breaks Sven was there to fill in that info.Not bad for a mid 50s creature feature.I enjoyed it and am happy I saw this again after years.

Tarnatula! gets a C+