Tarantulas

Trailer—Tarantulas

source: Tarantulas

Tom Atkins(Horror film veteran) and Howard Hesseman play two rogue cargo plane pilots who are transporting coffee beans and three illegals from South America to the U.S., who also unknowingly carry stowaways: a group of Ecuadorian killer tarantulas hidden among the coffee bean sacks, who infest a town in California after the plane then crash lands following a storm. The local inhabitants(led by Claude Akins, Pat Hingle, among others) try to kill these spiders before more deaths occur, and prevent them from infecting their Orange crop at the processing plant... TV movie isn't bad, but is still far too contrived and predictable.

Two guys, looking to make a quick buck, buy a plane load of Ecuadorian coffee to resale in the United States. On the way to San Francisco, their plane develops engine trouble and goes down in a field near Finleyville. But there's more than coffee on this plane. Unfortunately for the people of this small town, the coffee is infested with killer tarantulas. And now they're loose. Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo is another in the long line of nature vs. human movies that were so popular during the 1970s. This one was made for TV so it comes with the limitations of that medium. Namely, other than a scene where a boy is killed, it's all pretty tame. The movie is also poorly paced and, at about 95 minutes, it's about 20 minutes too long. You could cut out a lot of the talk about shipping oranges and no one would miss it. Most of the acting isn't too bad. Claude Akins and Howard Hesseman (using some sort of crazy accent) are probably the best known members of the cast. But, I suppose my biggest problem with Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo is that it's just not fun. I'm all about entertainment and I wasn't entertained. If you want to see a cheesy spider movie that's also entertaining, check out The Giant Spider Invasion. As bad as that movie is, at least it's fun! Finally, there's a scene near the end of the movie where the characters are scooping up the spiders by the bucket-full. Well, that's just not possible. There weren't anywhere near that many spiders on the plane when it left Ecuador. In the beginning, the movie shows a few stowaway spiders getting on the plane – not enough for an army. Besides, there wouldn't have been room for coffee on the plane for all the spiders.

Two would-be coffee exporters / human traffickers (Tom Atkins and Howard Hesseman) run into trouble when they discover some unexpected, eight-legged stowaways on their cargo plane. It seems that the hairy arachnids of the title have decided to forfeit their native Ecuador for the good old USA. Going from bad to worse, the ill-fated flight crashes just outside of the small town of Meadowmere, California. When the tiny, fanged passengers fan out on their mission of destruction, it's up to the crusty town doctor (Pat Hingle) and cranky fire chief (Claude Akins) to combat this horde of creeping doom. There's also a big orange crop that simply must be harvested, or it's greedy owner will have an aneurysm. His blindness to the unfolding tragedy around him is reminiscent of that exhibited by the soulless mayor in JAWS. As made-for-TV movies go, TARANTULAS: THE DEADLY CARGO isn't bad, though the cheeeze-factor is quite high. Some of the death scenes are surefire chuckle-inducers! Of course, several unbelievable / absurd events take place for no discernible reason, including the explosive "motorcycle jump" sequence. Still, it's all a lot of fun to watch, as long as you have a hankering for enjoyable nonsense...

Yet another in the well-worn genre of the man vs nature flick. Here, a couple of ne'er do well smugglers (Hesseman and Atkins) decide to fly several thousand pounds of aged coffee beans out of Ecuador so that they can sell them for a profit in San Francisco. Sadly, the beans are infested with an army of big, furry spiders (which none of the dazed laborers seem to notice as they are shoveling the beans into bags!) When the spiders affect the plane, forcing it to crash into the outskirts of a small California town, the locals find themselves battling for their lives and livelihoods as the spiders kill off anyone who's in the path of their trek to a nearby orange packaging plant. All of the town's officials, including fire chief Akins, mayor Remson, sheriff McPeak and doctor Hingle convene to find out how best to combat them. Leading the way is local airstrip owner Frank who, with his pilot girlfriend Winters, does the most to figure out what is wrong and how best to deal with it. This film follows a tried and true formula, utilized in "It Happened at Lakewood Manor" and many other feature and television films. The plot is sketchy at best and the acting is weak. However, what really makes this one ridiculous is the fact that HUGE spiders seem to crawl around unnoticed (not to mention travel great distances in a short amount of time) and also that virtually every action sequence is handled in the most inept way possible. Rescuers take as long as they can to do anything with the plane and then a speed-freaking buffoon careens into the scene, causing mass chaos. Later, when the people have begun to figure out a way to deal with the little creepers, they go about it in such a needlessly slow and methodical way (while idiotic local extras look on) that it's instantaneously laughable! The tarantulas are definitely creepy for those who dislike that sort of thing, but the presentation here is mostly so banal and ridiculous that it becomes unintentionally funny. A rather staggering assortment of familiar television character actors fills out the cast list, many of who are still finding work today. Frank is cute as a button and approaches his role in this turkey with sincerity, as does Akins. "Trapper John M.D.'s" Seibert turns up as the town rotter, carrying on an affair with McPeak's wife and trying to thwart the extermination effort at the climax. Windust, as McPeak's adulterous wife has one roll down a hill that is screamingly hilarious. Nonetheless, the film tries to be quite serious, even exposing ubiquitous 70's child star Laborteaux to considerable danger. Another young 70's actress North, shows up in a really reprehensibly bad performance as a tarty teenager. The movie is no good, but it remains entertaining on a humorous level. It also features inexplicably jazzy (and ear-splitting) credits music by Mundell Lowe. Stay tuned for the bizarre ending in which the surviving participants' lives are shown carrying on while the closing credits pop up over them.

A bunch of nasty poisonous variety of tarantula come up from Ecuador in a plane piloted by Tom Atkins and Howard Hesseman. The eight legged critters snuck aboard their plane with a cargo of coffee, and three illegal aliens. But the tarantulas do their dirty work on the plane and it comes in a ghost ship, just like Renfield and those rats in Dracula, a much better movie. The creatures which seem to multiply exponentially upon arriving in California farm country make for the warehouse where the oranges are stored. As the towns people discover what has descended upon them it's Fire chief Claude Akins has to figure out a way to kill the bugs without destroying the oranges in this one crop economy town. After all can't let the Department of Agriculture know. They might just kill all the oranges and the mayor of this place Bert Remsen says that just can't be. I'm not sure of the science in all of this. All the actors including some very known players besides those already mentioned just seem to be sleepwalking their way through this gobbler.

A plane carries South American coffee beans, and crash lands because of stowaways aboard. Not hijackers or terrorists...tarantulas. The furry eight-legged critters hiding in the coffee beans also have attraction for the oranges in the small California town, where the cargo plane goes down. This MADE-FOR-TV fare is pretty tame. Plenty of tarantulas, and they do look harmful to your health. The towns folk worry about the roaming arachnids destroying the towns main industry as well as taking bites out of human flesh along the way. The story meanders a bit and you could even say that the creepy crawlers are more lively than some of the actors. And that isn't saying much. The kills are limp and lame; there are some comical situations. So don't fear, just chuckle and have fun with this one. The cast includes: Claude Akins, Pat Hingle, Charles Frank, Deborah Winters, Charles Siebert, Howard Hessseman, Penelope Windust and Bert Remsen.

This merely okay 70's made-for-TV killer animal fright feature centers on a horde of lethal poisonous tarantulas who run amok and attack folks in the heretofore sleepy little California hamlet of Finleyville after a cargo plane containing the deadly critters crashlands in a nearby field. It's up to take-charge two-fisted fire chief Claude Akins, diligent doctor Pat Hingle, and cranky mayor Bert Remsen to stop the evil arachnids before things get too out of hand. The story has the potential to deliver a suitably creepy nature-turns-nasty yarn, but alas Stuart Hagmann's pedestrian direction, a by-the-numbers script co-written by "The Candy Snatchers" director Guerdon Trueblood, sluggish pacing, infrequent and blandly staged spider attack scenes (although I have to give the film a couple of points for killing off a little boy), and a silly subplot concerning the town's orange crop doom this one to mediocrity. However, the sturdy cast do their best with the generic material (Tom Atkins and Howard Hesseman are especially engaging as the two cargo plane pilots), both Robert Morrison's crisp photography and Mundell Lowe's funky jazzy score are up to snuff, and the last twenty-five minutes with a bunch of people trapped in a warehouse infested with the dangerous buggers makes for a genuinely gripping and nerve-wracking set piece. All in all, this one sizes up as a strictly passable, but altogether rather blah and unexceptional timewaster.

Some animals just lend themselves to horror movies, and as movies such as Tarantula, Kingdom of the Spiders and Arachnophobia have proved; big spiders are one of them. Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo was made for television, so it's probably unfair to expect great things from it; and while the film does have its moments, I really wouldn't add it to the list of films that prove spiders are prime candidates for having horror films made about them. The plot is pretty simplistic, which isn't really surprising considering the television origins and basically focuses on a bunch of tarantulas from South America being released in a town in California. We focus on a small airplane carrying coffee beans that have spent a lot of time in storage. Unbeknown to the crew, these particular beans have become infested with huge spiders that kill some of the crew and cause the plane to crash in the aforementioned Californian town. It's not long before the spiders have got off the plane and begin killing local residents; causing the authorities to take action. Most horror films about spiders have the antagonists with something about them - perhaps they're genetically modified, a new type of spider, absolutely huge or maybe there's just thousands of them - this film doesn't bother with all that, all we get is just a bunch of pretty average looking spiders, and it's really not all that menacing - I constantly wondered why the lead characters didn't just put on a big pair of boots and go round stomping on them all. The film was obviously a pretty cheap production as there is no special effects and the sets are very minimal. Unfortunately it would seem that they couldn't afford to hire someone to write an imaginative screenplay either, as despite some standout moments - there aren't a lot of them, and the main sequence in a warehouse, while well done, is really too silly to take seriously if you take a minute to think about it. The conclusion to the film includes an interesting method of getting rid of the spiders - I have no idea whether or not it would work in real life, but one thing is for sure - a big pair of boots would have worked better and wouldn't have involved so much messing about. If only I were there to lend a hand