The Giant Spider Invasion

A black hole hits northern Wisconsin and opens a door to other dimensions. Giant 15-meter spiders emerge from it, who have an appetite for human flesh! Dr. Jenny Langer and Dr. Vance from "the NASA" try to save the world.

First, I must confess it was a huge oversight on my part not to have seen this film sooner. As a fan of "bad movies" and a Wisconsin resident, I should have watched this many years ago. But, I just never did. Sorry, Bill Rebane, you cantankerous old coot.

That being said, this is not a bad film. I mean, you know, it is far from a good film. But the acting is actually quite good, and it is immensely entertaining, which counts for a lot. Is the lighting atrocious? Yes. Are the giant spiders a bit cheesy? Certainly. And there are sound issues. But at its heart, this is a fun creature feature and one I could enjoy on repeat viewings, which is more than I can say for most turkeys.

Meteor lands on Wisconsin farm, opening up a black hole that unleashes giant spiders into a hick community!!

Oh boy. Legendary horror cheese filmed in Wisconsin by B movie director Bill Rebane is the perfect example of a film that's so bad it's good! The Giant Spider Invasion is best remembered as the movie in which a VW Beetle was used for the monster spiders! The special FX consists of live tarantulas, unconvincing puppets, and of course those VW's complete with long furry legs. Between those amusing FX, a ridiculous premise, and some funny dialog this cheap horror film never has a dull moment.

Yet as poor as the quality of the film is the cast (which has a number of veteran actors) isn't that bad. In a way it's their serious, well semi-serious, performances that make the occurrences even more humorous.

The Giant Spider Invasion is one of the most unintentionally hilarious horror films ever made and whether you like it or not, you can't deny that it's entertaining! A definite must-see for fans of campy B horror.

** 1/2 out of ****

The Giant Spider Invasion is a superb piece of 1970's B-Horror. Of course, by today's synthetic, digitally enhanced, multi-billion dollar, pseudo-artistic, technologically dependent standards it is a poor film, but remember that 'Spider Invasion' only cost $250,000 to produce.

It is full of small, creepy spiders, developing into mega-bohemoth spiders and laying waste to anything that gets in their way!

Oh sure you can label it cheesy! You can label it hokey! Label it sub-par! B ut isn't that why people watch B-horror? And is not 70's B-horror the true pinnacle of the genre? And did not Mystery Science Theater think it a worthy piece to cover on their show? Me thinks in the affirmative on both questions!

This movie is a worthy effort...dealing with such diverse topics as Alien Invasion, to greed & evil in the social context...to even what Camus referred to as the Existential Dilemma (or something like that)...oh you can find almost anything in any piece of art, but my point is that this is a good movie! It's cheesy, but good; and when I saw it at the age of 6, I thought it was very horrifying!

I still...to this day...cannot drink tomato juice...Thank-you Giant Spider Invasion!

Giant Spider Invasion is a low budget monster movie reminiscent of the giant bug invasion pictures of the 50's but it was actually shot in the 70's. It's all very predictable, these giant spider eggs travel to earth on board some meteorites and land in a small Wisconsin town. People start disappearing, cattle are found mutilated and things just aren't quite right. Needless to say, it's up to the local Sheriff, astronomer and out of town NASA specialist to find out and ultimately confront the source of the strange things going on. Of course it's all being caused by these giant spiders that are running amok, devouring everyone in sight. The effects are pretty bad and the acting is very hammy but it's all part of the fun. Amazingly, they actually built full sized giant spiders for this film and although they look terrible, it's wonderful to see these massive creatures roaming the Wisconsin country side wreaking havoc where ever they go. Giant Spider Invasion is good mindless fun that's better than 90% of the horror/sci-fi films being made these days.

A very low-budget horror movie (it was shot in six weeks with a budget of $300,000), about a horde of radioactive mutant spiders with a craving for human flesh emerging from the depths of the earth to invade a rural Wisconsin town after a black hole opens up another dimension. Featuring awful special effects, just the one giant spider (which was constructed by covering a Volkswagen automobile with artificial black fur, with the fake legs operated from the inside by seven members of the crew), and a cast made up of a lot of "has-beens," and B movie veterans, it's tacky as hell but a lot of laughs as the spiders go on the rampage at the towns summer fair. The film received a considerable theatrical run and became one of the 50 top-grossing films of that year, even featuring in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Listed as one of 'The 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made' by Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson in the book The Official Razzie Movie Guide.