Director Bill Rebane’s The Giant Spider Invasion is beyond a shadow of a doubt, his most popular and well-known movie. Having appeared on ABC television and getting exposure on Mystery Science Theater 3000, plus lots of DVD releases over the years made this big bad bug film his biggest movie ever! It also didn’t hurt to have Alan Hale, Jr., the skipper from Gilligan’s Island in a key role as well as having some ‘name’ actors star in this B-movie classic!
This creepy crawly horror takes place in Wisconsin, where a meteor lands on the farm of Dan (Robert Easton, Pet Cemetery II, Needful Things) and Ev(Leslie Parrish, Daddy Long Legs, The Devil’s 8) Kester, which unleashes lots of spiders of different sizes that attack the farm and later on the town of Gleason. Soon the farm is covered with eaten cows and geodes that have diamonds (and icky spiders!) in them. Sheriff Jones (Alan Hale, Jr., The Crawling Hand, Destry, Angels Brigade) along with Dr. Vance(Steve Brodie, Desperate, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Only the Valiant) from Nasa and Dr. Jenny Langer(Barbara Hale, The Boy with Green Hair, The Clay Pidgeon) have to contend with the spiders and the townsfolk who want to go out on their own and kill the biggest spider of them all.
The Giant Spider Invasion is one of my favorite guilty pleasure movies. The biggest of all the spiders was nothing more than fur and other stuff covering a VW beetle! Watching it “vroom” all over the place is a real hoot! I do believe the movie has more than just the one big spider, as there is a medium sized one that attacks Ev in the barn, which I don’t think is the same spider as the largest one shown later in the movie. There is another big spider that attacks Dan’s cousin Billy. That spider is sitting on a web and after watching the movie again, this to me also could have been a different larger size spider. I am not 100%, as it is just a hunch. I guess we’ll never know!
Screen icon Alan Hale, Jr., who is both comic relief and serious when the film needs to be, delivered a few classic lines, right from his opening line tribute to Gilligan’ Island, “Hey, little buddy” and later comparing the giant spider to Jaws, calling it a goldfish!
Of course, one must wonder how Dan never saw the spiders as he was opening the geodes! And the scene where Ev is supposed to be not looking at the spider that crawls into the blender before she drinks her cocktail is classic!
Dark Force Entertainment, who had released The Giant Spider Invasion on Blu-ray, which is a fantastic release, goes a step further by giving the film a 4K, UHD offering. Presented in 2160p, the picture quality looks even better than the Blu-ray, which already was arguably the best release of the picture. The UHD gives the movie that much more texture to the various scenery in shown the movie. The colors are incredibly rich, especially during the daylight scenes with lots of greenery and blue skies looking marvelous. The cinematography by Jack Willoughby looks incredibly stunning with great location shots now in 4k! The flesh tones look accurate, with lots of details in close-up shots. The black levels look exceptionally strong, and you can clearly see the movie in some parts where it used to be too dark! The film has never looked this clean and is nothing short of a revelation! The evening scenes toward the end when the spider attacks still look the same to me as they did on the Blu-ray. The best parts of the image quality unquestionably occur in broad daylight.
The DTS-HD master audio 2.0 mono soundtrack is clear, easy to follow dialogue and action sounds, music, the screams of the spider’s victims, the spider’s roar, guns firing, all came in perfectly fine and balanced with nothing being too dominating or too timid for that matter. However, I did notice in two scenes where the sound did drop-off just a tad for a couple of seconds. No other audio issues were detected. English subtitles are available.
There are some extras that include Demon Dave & Joe’s “Savage Tracks Volume 3” that feature Doug Dunning (Dark Force Original “Deconstructing Dunning”) and the ever popular and outrageous Randy Cognata (The Young Nurses)! Fun stuff!
The Giant Spider Invasion, one of the great regional low-budget science-fiction horror movies has been given a great 4K UHD release, with the movie looking even better than ever. The movie has come a long way since those lousy DVD releases. This is an easily recommended release for those who love giant bug movies!
The Giant Spider Invasion
Director – Bill Rebane
Cast- Alan Hale, Steve Brodie, Barbara Hale
Country of Origin-USA
Distributor – Dark Force Entertainment
Number of Discs –1
Reviewed by – David Steigman
Date –12/14/2024