Earth vs the Spider

Somehow I'd missed seeing this AIP '50s monster flick, so I recently gave the new Lions Gate R1 DVD a spin. It's rightly considered a rip of Universal's TARANTULA, but this still turned out to be brisk and enjoyable, and a lot of cheesy fun. When a young girl and her boyfriend search for the girls' missing father, they stumble across a giant spider's cave and, naturally, the monster eventually crawls around town. Better-than-average special effects for this type of cheapie, with some surprisingly vivid shock moments and the required helping of some typical teenage 1950's rock n roll music. Gene Roth is a hoot as the doubting sheriff, and there are some shameless plugs for some of Bert I Gordon's other pictures like THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN and ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE. *** out of ****