Jan 7, 2019
Tarantula (1955)
"No footprints! No blood! No sign of a struggle! The bones just stripped clean like peeling a banana!"
#tarantula#tarantula!#spider tw#tarantula tw#1955#films i done watched#american cinema#monster movie#creature feature#jack arnold#john agar#mara corday#leo g. carroll#nestor paiva#ross elliott#edwin rand#raymond bailey#hank patterson#steve darrell#bert holland#and an uncredited clint eastwood in one of his very first screen roles as the pilot that blows the poor tarantula to hell#it's a sort of opposite ending to king kong. tisn't beauty kills the beast but a fuckton of napalm#anyway this is a pretty fun film and one of the better creature features from the era. carroll is a very interesting#take on the mad scientist figure as he's not really that mad and actually means well. he still messes up (see giant tarantula) and#is a little sinister in early scenes. also the film is surprisingly grisly in places. the effects work on carroll and his fellow scientists#is impressively unpleasant and the spider scenes really stand up for a 50's b movie#agar is a likable lead and corday a plucky scientist. and most importantly i can cross another film off the 'mentioned in rhpc' list#ie. i wanted to watch all the films mentioned in science fiction double feature. i think now i only have doctor x left to see!#the main down side to this as a horror film is that i find tarantulas pretty adorable so i was rooting for the little fella#i mean they're fuzzy and foolish and got too many legs