Line #42 Film/TheGiantSpiderInvasion


1	[[quoteright:310:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_giant_spider_invasion.jpeg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:310:[[CoversAlwaysLie "Group 1's Amazing New Super Sensation!"]]]]
3
4	->''"Giant puppet invasion!"''
5	-->-- '''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S08E10TheGiantSpiderInvasion Crow T. Robot]]'''
6
7	A low-budget 1975 SciFiHorror film directed by Bill Rebane which dares to show that, yes, there are [[DeepSouth rednecks]] living well north of the Mason-Dixon line, and no, covering up a Volkswagen with fake fur and sticking legs on it does not make a convincing giant spider.
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9	A meteorite crashes in Merrill, Wisconsin, leaving behind an ominous "wormhole" in the impact crater and a bunch of geodes scattered across a really unappealing farmer's property. Between belittling his alcoholic wife Ev, visiting the local prostitute, and [[{{Squick}} threatening to spank his wife's teenage sister]], Dan Kester attempts to sell the extraterrestrial rocks to his equally unappealing cousin Billy, but is miffed when the jeweler informs him that they don't have much value. Dan is distracted from these monetary woes when it turns out that the "geodes" are actually eggs, which hatch to release first a swarm of tarantulas, then badly-made, dog-sized spider puppets, and finally the ''[[GratuitousGerman Volkswagenspinne]].''
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11	While the assorted arachnids do their best to clean up northern Wisconsin's gene pool, a pair of scientists wander around ineffectually before airdropping a device that manages to close the wormhole and melt the spider-car. There are a couple of B-plots, including a fire-and-brimstone preacher's revival, a missing motorcyclist, and a young couple's quest to find a place to make out, but that's about it.
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13	The movie was filmed primarily on location in the towns of Merrill and Tomahawk, while the spider's rampage at a fair was shot during a Gleason Heritage Days event in Rebane's hometown of Gleason, Wisconsin. The cast is populated by famous has-beens including [[Series/GilligansIsland Alan Hale Jr.]] as a dumpy sheriff, [[Franchise/PerryMason Barbara Hale]] as a lady scientist in a pantsuit, and [[Film/TheWildWorldOfBatwoman Steve Brodie]] as a morbidly obese NASA scientist. Robert Easton, who not only starred as Dan Kester but cowrote the screenplay -- aside from being a 60-year acting veteran by the time of his death -- was famous for his ability to do ''two hundred'' convincing regional accents. He became known as "The Man of a Thousand Voices" and was [[http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/22/local/la-me-robert-easton-20111222 the best Hollywood dialect coach]].[[note]]The only major Hollywood actor he never trained was Creator/MerylStreep.[[/note]] One might wonder why Bill Rebane was able to hire them for his BMovie -- the simple reason was that all of those actors were born-and-bred Wisconsinites who knew Rebane very well, and [[VacationDearBoy used the film as a way to visit their families]].
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15	That said, it was one of the top grossing films of 1975. With a budget of $300,000, the film has grossed ''over'' $15 million in domestic box office since its release.
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17	Bill Rebane has decided to turn ''The Giant Spider Invasion'' into a stage musical, and why not? [[IncrediblyLamePun He hopes it'll have legs.]]
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19	For the ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' version, please go to the [[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S08E10TheGiantSpiderInvasion episode recap page]].
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21	----
22	!!Tropes:
23	* [[WriterOnBoard Actor on Board]]: Robert Easton, who played Dan Kester, also co-wrote the script. Apparently it had a very serious tone until he added jokes.
24	* ActuallyIAmHim: In a painfully unfunny bit of humor, Dr. Vance is surprised to learn that Dr. Langer is of the feminine persuasion.
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26	* ActorAllusion: One of [[Series/GilligansIsland Alan Hale's]] first lines as the sheriff is "Hey, [[CatchPhrase little buddy]]!"
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28	* TheAlcoholic: Ev evidently subsists entirely upon liquor and bitterness.
29	* AliensInCardiff: We can only assume the alien spiders didn't land in Wisconsin on purpose.
30	* ArtisticLicenseBiology: Spiders do not actually eat their victims, especially not swallowing them whole. Instead, they drain their victims dry. Then again, these are alien spiders.
31	* ArtisticLicenseSpace: A black hole in a meteor lets the spiders into our dimension! Our only hope is to bombard it with science! Believe it or not, not only would a black hole probably not be a portal to the spider dimension, it would just kinda compress everything within the local area, which would be dangerous enough. And you can't just feed it until it's full. A small black hole ''will'' dissipate after time, however, as micro-black holes do in colliders, unable to sustain themselves.[[note]]Had the film gone with a wormhole, it would have been marginally more believable.[[/note]]
32	* AssholeVictim:
33	** Dan is an adulterer, hits on his underage sister-in-law, and verbally abuses his family. He becomes one of the spider's victims.
34	** Cousin Billy also sees little problem with coming on to Dan's younger sister-in-law. He becomes one of the first victims of the spiders.
35	* AsTheGoodBookSays: Though he plays no point in the plot besides an excuse for Dan Kester to visit a whore, the hellfire-flinging preacher is a recurring character who even gets to rant over the closing credits.
36	* AttackOfTheTownFestival: The titular menace attacks during the town festival and kills a bunch of people, which prompts the town to whip itself into a bloodthirsty frenzy and go after the spider... getting ''even more'' people killed.
37	* BreakingTheFourthWall: After the sheriff tells a caller to use the phone book to call someone else, he looks directly into the camera and says, "That's funny. I wonder why she hung up on me?"
38	* CoversAlwaysLie: Applies to movie posters too: The poster promises at least two giant spiders attacking what seems to be a reasonably sized city, not one giant spider wandering through redneck country.
39	* {{Fanservice}}: Gratuitous shots of Ev and Terry in their undergarments. Terry even gets a topless scene in the un-MST'd film. Helga has a scene early with a see-through robe and no bra; unfortunately, it also coincides with...
40	* FanDisservice: We also get to see gratuitous shots of Dan Kester in ''his'' dirty, stained long underwear. Also, safe to say ''no one'' wanted to see Alan Hale Jr. with the top buttons of his shirt undone.
41	* GiantSpider: The titular monster is a fur-covered Volkswagen pretending to be a giant spider.
42	* GlowingEyesOfDoom: The giant spider's eyes are actually the taillights of the Volkswagen from which it's built.
43	* IAteWhat: When Ev realizes an alien spider got blended into her Bloody Mary, she freaks out and spits the drink everywhere.
44	* INeedAFreakingDrink: Ev justifies [[TheAlcoholic hittin' the booze again]] by saying it's the only way she can cope with the filthy state of her home. Because obviously cleaning is too much to expect.
45	* {{Jerkass}}: Dan Kester. Terry remarks that he drove [[TheAlcoholic Ev to drink.]] Probably the only person in the movie who actually ''likes'' him is the town hooker, and that's likely because he's a frequent customer.
46	* LeftHanging: The two scientists manage to bumble their way into killing the giant spider using science. As it melts into goo, they wonder if this will happen again. Of course the answer is it will, since all of the tiny spiders are still out there, and presumably have the power to grow big as well, and they never actually closed the wormhole that brought them here either. Also, the town is still in a state of anarchy and outrage, [[spoiler:especially now that the sheriff is dead, not that he was all that great at keeping the peace anyway]].
47	* LeftYourLifesaverBehind: Doctor Vance forgets the flares and needs to run back to the car and get them.
48	* MaleGaze: We're treated to a zoom-in on Terry's cleavage when she talks about [[ShesAllGrownUp how she's an adult]], and another when the camera zooms in on her panty-clad butt for no reason after she shoos Billy out the door in the [=un-MST'd=] version.
49	* MockGuffin: The diamonds found in the geodes that the spiders come out of. Ev and Dan Kester think that the diamonds will make them rich. Cousin Billy says that they aren't worth much; but then again he also shows interest, implying that he might have been lying about their true value. In any case, they don't factor into the plot other than having Dan go out and gather more of them to get killed by the mother spider.
50	* MrsRobinson: Ev not-so-subtly hits on Dave, saying if she were younger, she'd "jump" him. Judging by the tone of her voice and seductive posture, it's not a prerequisite anyway.
51	* NuclearMutant: A couple of early scenes with Drs. Vance and Langer imply that radiation causes the spiders' abnormal size, since the meteor crash coincided with (and probably caused) the disappearance of a B-52 carrying a nuclear weapon. On the other hand, this tidbit isn't mentioned after the first twenty minutes or so, which leads us to believe that these alien spiders naturally grow to huge sizes.
52	* ObfuscatingStupidity: The sheriff loves to be a {{Troll}}. He actually gets Dr. Vance to describe what the function of Geiger counters are, listening with false rapt attention. Dr. Langer stops Vance from making a complete fool of himself by stating the sheriff is aware of what radioactivity is.
53	* OurWormholesAreDifferent: They're full of spiders, for one thing.
54	* ParrotExposition: "What's that? Repeat what you say to provide exposition?"
55	* PreacherMan: There are brief moments when a local revival is shown, and the preacher's sermon also briefly plays right before the end credits.
56	* TheSeventies: ''And HOW''. Especially disturbing when Alan Hale Jr. sports a mod haircut, making him look like Gertrude Stein.
57	* ShesAllGrownUp: After Ev gets eaten and Dan and Terry don't know or worry where she is, Kester remarks that maybe he should have married Terry, who quickly reminds him that she was only 11 at the time. Dan remarks she's not 11 anymore, while checking her out. She replies, along with a [[MaleGaze closeup on her cleavage]]:
58	-->'''Terry:''' Now I'm 35-24-35.
59	* ShownTheirWork: Small geodes aren't worth much. Baseball sized geodes value at most $10, usually as low as $4.
60	* SoleSurvivor: [[spoiler:Almost the entire Kester family gets killed. (AndThereWasMuchRejoicing) The only Kester who ''doesn't'' die is [[MsFanservice Terry]] (and there was even ''more'' rejoicing), and even then she sits the last third of the movie out due to being put into a coma (no rejoicing there).]]
61	* SpitTake: Ev's reaction when she finally does taste the Bloody Mary with a blended spider as a surprise ingredient.
62	* StallingTheSip: In one of the film's nearly effective scenes, a tarantula sneaks into Ev's morning booze while she's blending it, creating a few tense seconds as she and Dan pass the spider-smoothie back and forth before Ev tastes it.
63	* StealthPun: Combined with ShoutOut. Vance asks Langer if "your local sheriff will support us," a gag on the western movie ''Film/SupportYourLocalSheriff.''
64	* TakeThat: The sheriff remarks that the spider "makes that shark from ''Film/{{Jaws}}'' look like a goldfish!"
65	* TalkingToPlants: Dr. Vance does this to his office plants.
66	* {{Technobabble}}: Whenever Vance and Langer try to figure out where the spiders are coming from.
67	* TooDumbToLive: [[spoiler:The Sheriff's Deputy at the end of the movie runs out of bullets shooting fruitlessly at the spider. Instead of fleeing like a sensible person, he throws his gun at the spider... then pulls off his gun belt and tries ''whipping'' the spider with it. Two guesses what happens to him next, and the first one is replaced with "remember TooDumbToLive is a death trope".]]
68	* {{Troll}}: The Sheriff seems to be one. He feigns ignorance on Geiger counters and is fully prepared (with an impish grin on his face) to listen to Dr. Vance explain radiation (and possibly all of physics) 'til Jenny tells him that the Sheriff is pulling his leg.
69	* WeHaveForgottenThePhlebotinum: An excuse to have the heroes backtrack to discover some hatched geodes.

Context Film / TheGiantSpiderInvasion