"Tarantula" is obviously an attempt by Universal to cash in on the commercial success of "Them!"...or maybe the "giant insect runs amok" movie was an idea whose time had come. Anyway, the design sense isn't in the same league as "Them!", and the cast isn't as strong, but to its credit "Taratula!" has enough original elements to stand as a solid bit of sci-fi monster movie making.
It seems to me that John Agar was better in this movie than he was in his previous role in "Revenge Of the Creature". I don't for a moment think that a "Ken Doll" actor type like Agar is believable in the role of a small town country doctor...but he's just sharper and more human somehow. Maybe it was the director, maybe it was the nature of his part. Nestor Paiva (another "Creature" and "Mole People" alumnus) surprised me with his part as an American country sheriff - I didn't expect the level of energy he put into his lines and how well he moved from Latino accent to western American boom. And Leo Caroll was the Gene Hackman of his day. You're not sure why you find him so interesting, you just do. His characters are almost always diffident and utterly civilized, but he improves any scene he is in somehow with his utter class, even when he's acting behind a big rubber mask.
The story is pretty decent, though the structure is a little weird. As Bill Warren points out, Universal seemed to hate incorporating flashbacks in the movies they made at the time, and so the sequence of events seems a little odd and less compelling than it ought to be. The struggle and fire in the lab seems to come too soon, and really should have been shown as a flashback.
Another problem: the arachnid is simply too big to be really compelling - it seems to me that it should have been the size of, say, a semi truck, not the size of an office building. Bigger is not necessarily scarier. "Them" creeped the viewer out with dozens of bus-sized ants, not one ant the size of King King.
The biggest problem is actually in the ending - four Air Force jets shows up and napalm the beast from the air, and the movie just stops dead with the creature's destruction.Rather than the epic feel of "Them", the ending feels more like a Warner Brother's "Roadrunner" cartoon.
Still, there are lots of things to enjoy about this one.
It seems to me that John Agar was better in this movie than he was in his previous role in "Revenge Of the Creature". I don't for a moment think that a "Ken Doll" actor type like Agar is believable in the role of a small town country doctor...but he's just sharper and more human somehow. Maybe it was the director, maybe it was the nature of his part. Nestor Paiva (another "Creature" and "Mole People" alumnus) surprised me with his part as an American country sheriff - I didn't expect the level of energy he put into his lines and how well he moved from Latino accent to western American boom. And Leo Caroll was the Gene Hackman of his day. You're not sure why you find him so interesting, you just do. His characters are almost always diffident and utterly civilized, but he improves any scene he is in somehow with his utter class, even when he's acting behind a big rubber mask.
The story is pretty decent, though the structure is a little weird. As Bill Warren points out, Universal seemed to hate incorporating flashbacks in the movies they made at the time, and so the sequence of events seems a little odd and less compelling than it ought to be. The struggle and fire in the lab seems to come too soon, and really should have been shown as a flashback.
Another problem: the arachnid is simply too big to be really compelling - it seems to me that it should have been the size of, say, a semi truck, not the size of an office building. Bigger is not necessarily scarier. "Them" creeped the viewer out with dozens of bus-sized ants, not one ant the size of King King.
The biggest problem is actually in the ending - four Air Force jets shows up and napalm the beast from the air, and the movie just stops dead with the creature's destruction.Rather than the epic feel of "Them", the ending feels more like a Warner Brother's "Roadrunner" cartoon.
Still, there are lots of things to enjoy about this one.