Earth vs. the Spider

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Earth Vs. the Spider are two horror-thriller films one filmed in 1958 and the other in 2000. The 1958 original movie involved a giant spider attacking a small southwestern town similar to the 1955 film Tarantula. The film was directed by Bert I. Gordon. The hero of the film was played by Ed Kemmer who earlier had starred as Commander Buzz Corey in the early 50's sci-fi television show Space Patrol. Skip Young who played a high school student in the film had a reacurring role as Ricky Nelson's friend Wally in the television show The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Hank Patterson the actor who plays Hugo the school janitor in the film went on to gather fame as Fred Ziffell in the hit television show Green Acres. The 2000 version starred Devon Gummersall as the lead, working alongside Amelia Heinle, Theresa Russell and Dan Aykroyd, and directed by Scott Ziehl. It is considered by some to be a weak remake of the 1958 cult film that sometimes is simply titled "The Spider."

[edit] Plot

The original film starts out with a man driving down a country road at night looking at a ring in a box when suddenly he hits something and his vehicle crashes. Later a teenage girl named Carol reports her father didn't come home last night and she and her boyfriend Mike go looking for him. They find his crashed car and the ring but not his body and thinking he crawled into a nearby cave they investigate. In the cave they fall onto a giant spider web and soon the spider attempts to get them but the manage to escape and make it back to town. They have a hard time convincing the Sheriff about the giant spider but with the help of their science teacher played by Kemmer they go take a look and when they are at the cave again the missing man's body is discovered drained of fluid. The spider attacks again and kills a deputy. The Sheriff orders large amounts of DDT to kill the giant spider and appears successful at first. The lifeless body of the spider is taken back to town to the high school gym where Kemmer wants to study it. A group of teenagers enter the gym to practice rock and roll they are going to play for a school dance. As other teenagers enter the gym they begin dancing and the giant spider that was only stunned begins to come alive and the kids run out of the gym screaming. The spider breaks out of the gym and terrorizes the town killing a number of people before it heads back to its cave. The Sheriff along with Kemmer decide to blow up the cave sealing the spider in but discover Carol and Mike are in the cave looking for the ring her father had bought her that she had lost the first time in the cave. The spider chases them out onto a narrow ledge and Kemmer gets a couple of large electrodes and they run cables outside to some power lines and as the spider is descending on a strand of web to get at the trapped teenagers Kemmer throws Mike one of the electrodes then they turn on the juice and electrocute the spider who falls impaling itself on stalagmites at the bottom of the cave. After Carol and Mike are rescued the sheriff goes ahead and blows up the entrance to the cave for good measure. The 2000 story involves a comic book obsessed and shy Quentin Devon Gummersall who works as a security guard at a science faculty building which is close to a breakthrough in various research serums that are being tested on spiders. One night a group of thieves break into the faculty to steal the research and Quentin's partner, along with a police officer, are killed by the burglers. After Quentin is fired, being blamed, he injects himself with the experimental serum and soon finds himself surrendering his human side and following the basic instinct of a spider.