Earth Vs. The Spider/War of the Colossal Beast (Cult Classics Double Feature) [DVD]

I ordered this because it’s a childhood favorite of mine. My first “scary movie.” Watching it now is just fun, not at all scary. I like the nostalgia.

I was not born when these two movies premiered. My mother, a fan of drive-in 'monster movies' introduced me to these two films. The first, "Earth vs The Spider' is decent monster movie with a giant bird spider discovered in a cave near a small town. Professor Art Kingman (Edward Kemmer) is the hero in the film with help from Sheriff Cagle (Gene Roth). The weirdest parts of of this film is how the spider is huge on the streets but smaller in the cave and in the gymnasium. The second film, "War of the Colossal Beast" is a sequel to the film, "The Amazing Colossal Man." In the sequel, Dean Parkin takes over the role of Colonel Manning. The heavy make-up did disguise the fact that a different actor was playing Colonel Manning, especially since a dream sequence flashing back to the original film featured Glenn Langan, the star of the earlier film. Manning is now a disfigured 60-foot 'beast' with memory loss and anger issues and living in the Sierra Mountians of northern Mexico. This time, the colossal 'beast' is brought to LA where he wrecks havoc before meeting his end. Also in the cast are Sally Fraser as Joyce Manning (Glenn's sister),Roger Pace as Major Mark Baird, and Russ Bender as Dr. Carmichael. Both movies are solid 1950s' grade 'b' horror movies.

Yes, after a long wait, Earth vs The Spider is released on DVD, along with the sequel, War of the Colossal Beast to Bert I Gordons pretty good movie The Amazing Colossal Man.The Spider is my favorite of the two and oddly enough I find it a lot more interesting and more well paced then Universals Tarantula! The story isn't that bad, it involves a giant spider(a tarantula) that lives in a cave and then goes on a rampage through a town. The actors for most part aren't that bad. Sure, they have practically no character development, but their really enjoyble to watch. Ed Kemmer plays a really likeable science teacher, but the star of acting in this little gem is Gene Roth who is an absolute hoot as the doubting sheriff! The effects are basically putting a tarantula next to a postcard and making it crawl over it,or using split screen photography but it works rather well and the spider causes quite a lot of mayham and gets a decent amount of screen time. The spider screams and roars in a creepy sort of way, but I enjoyed it's evil howl! The famous Carlsbard Cave settings are put to good use, and they even have a huge spiderweb in it!(really a net, but again, it looks pretty well). Odd that such a low budget film used a web and not Tarantula..The climax of the film is intense, and for some reason I get a chill when the camera zooms in on the dead corpse of the electrocuted spider impaled on a stalgmite...Anyway, Albert Glasser provides a decent score and the movie is very well paced; there are practically no slow parts. I really like this movie (best giant spider flick, and best Bert Gordon movie)Note:teens in this movie are about 30, so I had a good laugh at that. Also, when the spider comes back to life in the gym, the rock music DOES NOT AWAKEN IT!!! I keep explaining to people, the DDT wore off, and the spider went back to life!Pros- Spider, spider's howl and web, fun characters, good music, interesting set design, good props such as spider victims bodies and giant spider leg, well paced.Cons-none, its pure B-movies Gold!!!War of the Colossal Beast is a good example of an inferior sequel to an original. It seems Colonel Glenn Manning survived his rather big fall from the Dam, but is missing half of his face and is in an entirelly different state. Now living in the desert, he raids unsespecting food trucks. When captured,he frees himself and goes on a rampage. Now characters for the most part suck. Their not interesting and have no charm to them...their just cardboard cutouts. The Colossal Man is played by a different actor, and sounds like a pregnant cow..and is literally quite boring. He does nothing new. On the bright side, the makeup is rather well done, and looks interesting. The matting is rather well done, but nothing we haven't seen in the Amazing Colossal Man. Do yourself a favor and see the originalPros- Good makeup, music, last scene is in colorCons-boring characters, not so good effects, col manning sounds like a pregnant cow

In the 1950's, you took your quarter (or dime) and went to the movies on a Saturday afternoon. They were usually B&W, American International, and you saw the names Nicholson and Arkoff, so you knew you were going to see a fun monster movie. In the 1960'-70's, one saw the same movies on Saturday afternoon televison. Radiation from atomic testing was the recurrent theme, although in this movie, the reason is not explained. Bert I. Gordon did this movie, and many more possibly in competition with Roger Corman, who also did a lot of B movies. The spider screeches, so one knows when it is around, and there are often mismatches with the matte background and the spider (or other monster) effects. People now would find it terrible, but back then that was the state of the art for special effects. This movie is an entertaining B movie, typical of what was produced. Of course, one had to have a high school couple that put themselves in danger, and non-believing police who quickly find themselves against a monster. I saw the movie when it first came out, and it is a lot of fun to watch it again. I thought the spider ‘web’ was really cheesy then, and it still is. A person does not want to get too critical about all the mistakes in the movie. That is all part of the charm of an old B movie. And yes, a tarantula was the typical spider monster in those movies. There are plenty of humorous parts in this movie, and yes predictable in portions but this is really a fun movie to watch. Maybe not as good as Tarantula, and not as much fun as The Deadly Mantis, but still fun.

The re-issuing of those two timeless reiics is a must-buy. It brings to a time when we use to go to the movie theater to be amazed by the filmakers magic. These 2 stories of gigantic beasts are almost interchangeable. Acting is fine for the genre abd special effects (mostly image superposition) were great for the time. Nowadays, we are so jaded with computer assisted imaging that we became too critical. In those days, we did not know better, so we were easily fooled.'Collossal beast" is the better of the two. It is due to the superior scenario and storyline. The melodrama side of it gives it a good twist. "Spider" is a movie about a Southern state sheriff against a godzilla type of animal. Scenario is not exactly tight and you see some of the punchlines coming from far ahead.At this price, it is a great deal.... for a rainy, lonely saturday afternoon.

A great buy.Two classic movies.

...As a fan of old classic films i was looking forward to this and it did not dissapoint..yes the acting is not great and the chracters are as believeable as the poor special effects but..but this film kept me entertained all the way to the end and if i'm honest i'd rather watch something like this than what hollywood make today..the sound and picture quality are not too bad but more or less what you would expect for this type of film.

GOT THIS SET TO REPLACE ONE I HAD AS THE QULITY WAS POOR, THIS SET IS THE BEST YOU WILL GET AND NOT COMPRESSED LIKE OTHER VERSIONS, CLASSIC GIANT MONSTER MAYHEM AND NOT TO BAD FOR THE TIME IT WAS MADE

this is an open call to anyone else that bought this dvd,the print it was taken from is sharp and clear,a beautiful print,......but for some reason any scenes that have fast motion seem to be "jerky" as far as speed sync, the movie is great, the soundtrack is great, but the video speed seems abnormal in fast motion scenes,... i have this movie on tape and do not see the speed sync problem,.....is it my dvd player?....or has anyone else noticed this problem?...my dvd player plays all other pal format discs without this problem,...please let me know if you have noticed the same problem, thank you.