Review by Ray Garton

EARTH vs. THE SPIDER
2001
Directed by Scott Ziehl
Written by:
Mark "Crash" McCreery (story)
Cary Solomon (story & script)
Chuck Konzelman (story & script)
Max Enscoe (script)
Annie deYoung (script)
Starring:
Devon Gummersall - Quentin Kemmer
Amelia Heinle - Stephanie Lewis
Dan Aykroyd - Det. Insp. Jack Grillo
Theresa Russell - Trixie

Quentin is "a good security cop at an important research laboratory" (according to his older, wiser partner), but he's kind of a wimpy guy. He gets picked on by the bullies who hang around outside his building and he doesn't have the courage to ask his breathy-voiced neighbor Stephanie out on a date. If only Quentin were as brave and heroic as his favorite comic book superhero, the Arachnid Avenger. In the lab where he works, Quentin gets injected with spider DNA. Suddenly, he's not so wimpy anymore.

I know what you're thinking, but don't. In Earth vs. the Spider, the Spider-Man resemblance ends there. (More than anything else, the movie comes to resemble David Cronenberg's The Fly, but it's not that, either.) If there's any Spidey here at all, it's a Spider-Man gone very, very wrong.

Make sure you've got beer and plenty of junk food. Call some friends over. And sit on the floor — somehow, movies like this are always better when you're sitting on the floor — because that's probably where you were sitting when you saw the first Earth vs. the Spider. It was directed in 1958 by the greatly bad Bert I. Gordon, and co-produced by one of Hollywood's more amiably cynical successes, Samuel Z. Arkoff, a master of exploitation cinema. The late Arkoff co-produces again this time, along with his son Lou, Creaturemaster Stan Winston (who also provides low-rent creature-effects — but low-rent Winston is pretty impressive), and B-movie queen Colleen Camp, among others.

Beyond the title, this movie bears absolutely no resemblance to the original. That makes a kind of goofy sense, seeing how the original movie was based entirely on a poster, which was always Arkoff's first step in the delicate filmmaking process.

Earth vs. the Spider is good-natured, lovable, nostalgic junk. It sets its jaunty tone early on with a series of colorful comic-book images from the pages of The Arachnid Avenger. The retro-noir look and dialogue — reporters in suits and hats with press passes on their chests the size of your front door; lines like, "Baby, you're a piece a work." — is not consistent, but it's cool when it works, and it works best along with the sneaky, jazzy score by David Reynolds.

Everyone is in on the fun and the cast hits just the right notes. Gummersall is especially good, and he and Heinle are surprisingly touching together at times. And what's this? Dan Aykroyd and Theresa Russell? Aykroyd is one of my favorite actors, a guy who delivers unfailingly good performances in roles of all sizes (nobody delivers fast, hard-boiled dialogue better than Aykroyd, although he doesn't get much chance here). And Russell? I'm a long-time fan — I'd drive a lotta miles outta my way for a Theresa Russell sighting.

This movie is one in a series of Arkoff "remakes" originally done, I believe, for one of the premium cable channels. The movies have been released on DVD by Columbia-Tristar in the Creature Features line, and I recommend them.

Earth vs. the Spider is among the best in the series. Like its 1958 predecessor, it was made quickly and cheaply. Although it's got the work of Stan Winston going for it, funds were obviously limited. The spider isn't as big this time, but it's much creepier.

By the way, in spite of the title, at no point in either movie does the population of the entire planet get involved.

What sets this apart from other cheap, quickly-made genre movies (besides, again, the work of Stan Winston) is that it's clearly crafted by people who have affection and respect for the genre and its traditions. They set up the rules, then play fairly by them, and even if they wink at the viewer, they never insult or cheat him. I'd bet good money the people behind Earth vs. the Spider sat on the floor and watched movies like this as kids, too, and enjoyed them as much as we did. And for every one of those movies they loved, they've seen a dozen or more made by people who don't know monster- or horror-movies from foot fungus, who don't give a damn, and who just want to get it over with and make a buck — just like we have. In his book Danse Macabre, Stephen King calls the people who make those movies "morons with cameras." I haven't come up with anything better, so that's what I call them, too.

I hope the Creature Features team will regroup and produce more monster movies. As Scott Sandin always says, "America needs her monsters," and those guys know how to deliver them in a fun package.

There's just one thing I don't understand — why did it take so damned many people to write this one little movie?

[Out of a possible four Bloodshot Eyeballs.]