Quentin Kemmer is a shy, awkward comic book geek who works as a security guard for a research laboratory and has a crush on his gorgeous next door neighbor, Stephanie Lewis. His greatest wish is to become a superhero like his favorite comic hero, the Arachnid Avenger. When a robbery attempt at the lab leaves his partner dead, Quentin is fired. Blaming himself for what happened and wishing he could have done more, Quentin injects himself with an experimental serum, derived from spiders and designed to give some of their abilities to humans, before he leaves.
After a severe fever, he finds that he’s gained super strength, which he uses to save Stephanie from a stalker and become the hero he wished he could be… but the dream soon becomes a nightmare as he begins to mutate further and develops a horrific appetite, and he winds up in the path of Detective Inspector Jack Grillo, who’s investigating several strange murders where people have been drained of their blood and fluids… and where webbing has been found at the crime scenes…
Earth vs. the Spider contains examples of the following tropes:
- Bittersweet Ending: Jack is able to save Stephanie and kill Quentin, but his wife and several people are dead.
- Deconstruction: The film serves as one to Spider-Man, showing a far more realistic and horrific depiction of someone with the abilities of a spider.
- It's All My Fault: Part of the reason Quentin injects himself with the serum is because he feels if he had acted sooner, his partner would still be alive.
- Shout-Out: The Arachnid Avenger is a blatant one to Spider-Man, along with much of Quentin’s plot serving as a darker turn on Peter Parker’s origins.
- Quentin’s surname, Kemmer, is one to Ed Kemmer, the star of the 1958 film.
- The basic plot of the film is either this or a blatant rip-off of The Fly (1986).
- Suicide by Cop: When Jack refuses to kill the Quentin-Arachnid, Quentin lunges at the captive Stephanie, forcing Jack to shoot and kill him.
