Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo
by Stuart Hagmann
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Actor: Bert Remsen, Charles Frank, Claude Akins, Deborah Winters, Sandy McPeakDirector: Stuart Hagmann
Cinematographer: Robert L. Morrison
Editor: Corky Ehlers
Producer: Alan Landsburg
Producer: Paul Freeman
Writer: Guerdon Trueblood
Writer: John Groves
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); French (Original Language); Spanish (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Running Time: 100 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-07-11
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Direct Source Label
DVD Reviews of Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo
DVD Review: Tarantulas: Are Deadly Silly.
Summary: 2 Stars
Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo (Stuart Hagmann, 1977)
It says pretty much everything you need to know about American television in the seventies that this turkey was nominated for two Emmys. (Thankfully, none of them were for acting, writing, or directing.) Not only that, but like many disaster movies, no matter how bad, it attracted a surprising wealth of talent.
The plot, which you probably guessed form the title if you've seen any Irwin Allen movie: a bunch of deadly spiders hitch a ride on a plane from South America (because all small killer animals must come from South America). When the plane crashes (for the spiders have attacked the pilot, who's played by Tom Atkins), the spiders get out and lurk around attacking the inhabitants of the nearby town, which happens to contain a fruit-packing plant. Coincidentally, these spiders are big fruit fans, despite having been all over coffee beans for the first half of the flick, so they make a beeline for the oranges-- which are, of course, the town's livelihood, and since the town's in a drought, this shipment of oranges is critical to the town's survival.
Watching this now, thirty years after I first saw it, makes me wonder whether those actors I so revered back then are actually all that good. Tom Atkins, who graduated to big-screen fame a few years later, turns in a decent performance, but he gets killed off very quickly. Claude Akins, as the town's fire chief, gets top billing, but has all the personality of a wooden post here. Pat Hingle does a great job as the retired town doctor who must cope with the crisis (the regular doctor is out of town, naturally), but others I would have expected to turn in great performances are just awful; Howard Hesseman is so unmemorable I'd forgotten he was in the movie between seeing his name in the opening credits yesterday and going to the IMDB page to look stuff up this morning. Deborah Winters should have been nominated for an overacting Emmy. Bert Remsen should have been arrested for Impersonating a Hal Holbrook. And it only gets worse from there.
The acting is, of course, not the only travesty to be found here. Guerdon Trueblood's script, probably cranked out in the same weekend that spawned the other four killer-bug movies he wrote (including, to my knowledge, the only killer-bug sequel from the glut of killer-bug movies, Terror Out of the Sky), is so bad it makes The Swarm look like Oscar material. (Oh, wait. The Swarm WAS Oscar material, which should tell you everything you need to know about American film in the seventies.) Hagmann's direction is lackluster at best; it may not be coincidence he never worked in Hollywood (or anywhere else that we know of) again.
All that said, you don't go searching out killer-bug movies from the seventies unless you're on a nostalgia trip, I don't think. Anyone seeing this now for the first time is going to think it's absolutely awful, and I'm not going to argue with that assessment. If you caught it for the first time before puberty, however, this is pure nostalgic gold. So what if it's dumber than a box of hammers? **
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