Entertainment
 

The Giant Spider Invasion

From MST3K

810 - The Giant Spider InvasionFile:810.jpg
Air Date May 31, 1997
Running Time 92 Min.
Movie Director Bill Rebane
Year 1975
Cast Steve Brodie, Alan Hale Jr., Robert Easton, Barbra Hale
Preceded by 809 - I Was a Teenage Werewolf
Followed by 811 - Parts: The Clonus Horror



Contents

The Movie

Synopsis

Some sort of a meteor shoots out of the Crab Nebula and makes its way to Earth, where it lands in the back pasture of a family of hillbillies. A giant spider emerges and starts laying rock-like eggs all over the place from which hatch a bunch of creepy tarantulas. Now it's up to a NASA scientist and an astrophysicist to figure out a way to destroy the monster before it and its children manage to ravage the whole countryside. There's hillbillies, bumpkin sheriffs, a teenage reporter, and a whole town full of drunken lumberjacks facing off against The Giant Spider Invasion. Who will win the final battle?

Information

  • Alan Hale Jr. greets Davey (Kevin Brodie) in the opening scene with the line, "Hi, little buddy!" This is an obvious reference to his role as The Skipper on "Gilligan's Island".
  • Cost about $250,000 to make.
  • Dan and Ev have a conversation which includes the exchange: Ev: "I'm sorry I missed the sermon. What was it about?" Dan: "Sin." Ev: "What did the minister say about it?" Dan: "He was against it." That referred to a famous (or infamous) conversation former President Calvin Coolidge - nicknamed "Silent Cal" - and his wife once had.
  • There was supposed to be a dramatic shot of the giant spider crushing the house by having the spider dropped from a crane onto it while a bulldozer chained to the back of the house would pull away. However, when the shot was filmed, the spider's legs all went straight up into the air! The crew inside working it's arms were nearly killed when broken wood from the destroyed house came up through the spider and came close to impaling them.
  • There was supposed to be a shot of a big spider in a tree bursting into flames. To achieve this, the director covered a large prop spider with gunpowder and had two crew members sitting above it in the tree who would drop a match on the spider. The director got the camera up to a very fast fps to achieve a slow motion look, and had them drop the first match. Nothing happened, so they dropped a second. Still nothing happened, so they lit the entire book of matches and dropped it on the spider. With nothing happening, the director turned off the camera - and immediately afterwords a huge explosion and fireball shot up, burning the hair off of the crew members and starting several small brush fires. The director was furious that he wasn't able to get the shot on film.
  • In a scene depicting the "giant spiders" attacking a little league baseball game, the "spiders" are obviously Volkswagen Beetles with puppet legs attached. Tread marks from the VW's tires can actually be seen in several camera angles.
  • This film is listed among the 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made in Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson's book THE OFFICIAL RAZZIE® MOVIE GUIDE.
  • In an interview director Bill Rebane said that shooting the film began before the script was even done. However, Rebane added that the script was re-vised numerous times throughout the shoot.
  • According to Bill Rebane the two writers on the film each approached the story from different directions. Richard L. Huff wrote the original story and kept a very serious tone to the first draft of the script. Robert Easton on the other hand lent the film a comical tone, writing most of the colorful dialog for his character and the other locals. The films rather infamous jokes are credited to him as well. Combining both writers material resulted in an odd-ball tone for the script.
  • Bill Rebane said that the hot summer temperatures were quite tough on the cast and crew. At times the temperature on location would be 100 degrees and on the sets it would reach 120 degree at times, thanks to the studio lighting.
  • Director Bill Rebane once dubbed the film "The Giant Spider Disaster" in an interview, referring to how problematic the production was.
  • Nearly all of the night scenes were shot day-for-night. The scenes were darkened in post production, though some of the footage was darkened too much to be clearly seen it was still used in the film.
  • In May 2005 there was a Bill Rebane film festival in Madison, Wisconsin that featured this film. Hosting the festival were Michael J. Nelson and Kevin Murphy. Nelson and Murphy said despite their lampooning of the film on MST3K they actually admired Rebane because he was able to make the film with such a low budget.
  • David Hoff, who provides the radio voice of the helicopter pilot, was an actual pilot for the Wisconsin Air Guard.
  • Stars Steve Brodie and Barbara Hale pulled in family members to play supporting roles in the film. Brodie's son Kevin Brodie played Dave Perkins and Hale's husband Bill Williams came in to play the role of Dutch.
  • It took nine people to work the fake spider legs on the Volkswagen Beetle that was used for the giant spider. The people would have to huddle together on boards nailed to the inside of the stripped vehicle.
  • Since the driver of the infamous spider-car obviously couldn't see where the vehicle was going extras would often have to push the vehicle to guide it, while at the same time having to pretend they were fleeing from the 'giant spider'.
  • Originally the spiders in the film were suppose to be only about 10 feet in length but the producers insisted that if the film were going to compete with Jaws (1975), which was released around the same time, the size of the spiders would have to be increased to pose more threat.

The Episode

Host Segments

Servo as a Cheerleader

Prologue: - Tom Servo's got spirit and wants to be a cheerleader. Mike and Crow give him a M, an R, a small x, and one L. Servo's got MRxL!

Segment One: - Pearl and her goons catch a bunch of fish, and discuss eating shrooms and the fish. Pearl proceeds to show some "wild flowers" they found, which prove later to be mind controlling aliens. Servo explains "portage", whilst managing to smack Mike and Crow with the canoe on his head ala three stooges style. Pearl and Brain Guy become controlled by the pods, and offer M&TBs some of the pods. Mike becomes suspicious, meanwhile Pearl sends him the movie.

Segment Two: - Gypsy becomes controlled by one of the pods. She tries to convince M&TBs to sleep, but Mike can see something is wrong with her. Tom and Crow satirically say that she seems no different.

Segment Three: - Mike and Tom struggle to stay awake so they don't have their minds taken over. Crow decides to consume a large quantity of caffeine. Mike calls Bobo, and discovers that he has not been taken over. Mike convinces Bobo of the pod's plan eventually, but it's too late as the mind controlled Observer and Pearl tie him up.

Segment Four: - Mike and Crow attempt to determine the original Tom from the alien clone. The clone is successfully scared away when Tom proves himself by rattling off his underwear collection.

Segment Five: - Mike ends up the only one not replaced by a clone. He calls Bobo and convinces him he can save the day. Bobo escapes and kills the mother pod, destroying the clones. Pearl, realizing she missed Mike and the Bots watching the movie, forces them to watch the movie again.

Stinger: "Pfffft!" (Jeweler guy makes a raspberry with his tongue)

Obscure References

Menards is a chain of home improvement stores in the upper Midwest, headquartered in Mike Nelson's home state of Wisconsin.
  • "Aryan...Nation...rules."
Aryan Nations is an American-based neo-Nazi group.
  • "Free Mumia!" "Free Bobby Seale!"
Mumia Abu-Jamal, the former "Information Minister" of the Black Panthers, has been in prison since the early 1980s for the murder of a Philadelphia police officer, but is believed to be innocent by many people. Bobby Seale, the Black Panthers' co-founder, was tried and acquitted on charges of murdering a fellow Panther in 1970.
  • "SUUUUURGE!"
The advertising slogan for Surge, a heavily caffeinated soft drink marketed by the Coca-Cola Company during the late 1990s.

Video Release


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