TARANTULA (1955)

On the outskirts of a desert town in Arizona, we see a bloated, disfigured mutant collapse and die. The police identify the man as an associate of Dr. Deemer (Leo G. Carroll), a research scientist who works in relative isolation outside of town. Deemer tells Matt Hastings (John Agar), the local doctor, that the man had an advanced case of acromegaly, a progressive disease that causes body tissues to grow abnormally. Matt is suspicious because normally the disease takes years to progress whereas Deemer says the man's condition had begun only a week earlier. In Deemer's laboratory, we see giant animals (a rabbit, a hamster, a tarantula), all as big as or bigger than dogs, kept in cages. It's Deemer's work on a growth nutrient that has caused this, and also caused his assistant's condition, and we soon see that a second assistant, Lund, is suffering from the same problem. In a rage, Lund begins destroying the lab by setting a fire. Most of the animals are killed but we see the tarantula escape. Just before dying, Lund injects the growth serum into Deemer as he lies unconscious. The next day, graduate student Stephanie 'Steve' Clayton (Mara Corday), arrives as a live-in assistant to Deemer. Matt takes a shine to Steve, and vice versa, and soon, when people and cattle start dying, they investigate, with a sheriff and a local reporter, what Deemer has gotten up to. As per the title, there is a giant tarantula on the loose—electricity and guns can't stop it, but maybe the military can.

This is one of my favorite monster movies, partly because I saw it in my youth, and photos from it were featured frequently in the monster movie magazines I read—the tarantula is definitely scary, but Leo G. Carroll in what looked like flesh-melting make-up was even scarier. All these years later, it still holds up pretty well, with the effect of the giant tarantula stalking the desert still generating chills. Even the giant rabbit and hamster are done well. The screenplay doesn't get particularly philosophical in terms of the "God's domain" aspect of Deemer's experiments, and the characters aren't fully dimensional, but neither of those aspects harm simple enjoyment of the movie. Agar is a little stiff, Corday is quite appealing, Carroll is a little sluggish; in support, Nestor Paiva and Ross Elliott are good as the sheriff and the reporter. Clint Eastwood has a couple of lines of dialogue as a bomber pilot in the final scene. Even though it has its weaknesses, this is fun, and in my mind, along with the giant ant movie THEM!, the archetypal 50s monster movie. A must-see. [DVD]