Earth vs. The Spider (DVD)
APPROX. 90 MINS. - PROD. YEAR: 2001 - MPA RATING: R
" Though there’s no earth versus anything, only Aykroyd poking around like a paunchy Columbo, the production values are decent
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Do not be deceived. The worst thing to come out of the Cold War era was not a Ronald Reagan budget, or even a Ronald Reagan film. It was the slew of B-movies that preyed upon our fears of nuclear testing by showing us the giant dinosaurs that could be awakened from deep in the ocean, or the giant mutant whatevers that might result from particle fallout. Yet, those movies were so bad they were as campy as Jellystone. They were also so much in synch with the comic book world that had reached its zenith during those years of A-bomb shelters (and held an unprecedented hold on American children not matched today), that they were lovingly embraced, flaws and all.
That seems to be the spirit of the Creature Features revival of those B-movies from a by-gone era. The temptation is to parody something that deserves it, because why would you deliberately make a bad (I mean, "B") movie, clichés and all? But just as HBO shocked us with "Sex and the City" and "The Sopranos," they set about the bold business of reacquainting America´s youth with those old B-movie horror classics, updated, with straight faces, no less.
In the case of "Earth vs. the Spider," it´s not so much an update as it is a total make-over. Or rip-off. The original 1958 film was typical of the genre, because the premise was outlandish. A giant spider (what else?) was discovered in a cave, and for some inexplicable reason (in B-movies, logic never prevails) it´s put on display in, of all things, a high school gym. Then comes a sock hop, and the loud rock ´n´ roll music brings the creature back to life. Before you laugh too hard, you should know that the previous year we were treated to a very young Michael Landon in "I was a Teen-age Werewolf," and as late as 1966 the B-machine was still cranking out bad, goofy horror "versus" stuff like "Billy the Kid vs. Dracula." In the "earth versus" category, you could always count on scenes of our military lined up like dragoons of old, firing missiles and bazookas at these giant creatures until the militia was stomped or overrun. There was, of course, lots of screaming, and shades of any small town bureaucracy, there was only one expert who knew enough to be able to tell the U.S. government how to stop the creature.
The 2001 TV-remake has no military in it, and cynics might suspect it´s because it costs more these days to use so many extras in full soldier regalia. There´s also no scientific expert or, for that matter, rock ´n´ roll. The new version is a mutation itself: a cross between "The Fly" and "Spider-Man," with a doo-wopless dollop of "Little Shop of Horrors" thrown in for good measure. Quentin Kemmer (Devon Gummersall, from "My So-Called Life") is the quintessential nerdy nice guy who works as a security guard at a lab complex, though he and his screen-watching companion are only armed with a small container of Mace (B-MOVIE ALERT, suspend all logic!). He has the hots for a hot-looking neighbor, Stephanie (Amelia Heinle, from "The Limey"), and of course when he walks the streets with her he´s unable to protect her from neighborhood riff-raff. Quentin is a comic book freak, the biggest "Arachnid Avenger" customer that Han (John Cho) has at his little shop of comics. At the lab, he peers through blinds with his partner to soak up the sight of quasi-scientists extracting fluid from one tarantula and injecting it into another. "So, what is it about you and those comic books?" his partner (Mario Roccuzzo) asks. "My kid used to read that crap when he was ten." Quentin openly talks about wishing he could be a hero of the arachnid sort. Then, one day, there´s an attack on the lab, and something bad happens to his partner and five others. At that point, he´s inexplicably fired (huh?) for not figuring out how to use Mace against guns, and even more inexplicably a bad cop who thinks he kept him from helping his partner is allowed to punch and kick him. The bad cop has just as little respect for his superior, Jack Grillo (Dan Aykroyd), and shows it by attempting an affair with Grillo´s boozy, floozy wife (Theresa Russell). Meanwhile, shades of Jeff Goldblum sprouting more than ten o´clock shadow, the serum starts to take effect.
