Spiders in Film

WHEN SPIDERS ATTACK:
A FILMOGRAPHY



Giant spiders often appear in films because they’re relatively easy to enlarge photographically when one is already “blowing up” iguanas and salamanders. Despite Charlotte’s Web and Grandmother Spider in Kiowa mythology, despite the arachnids’ patience and weaving skills, they still prompt enough weirdness in people for “arachnophobia” to be a fairly well-known neurosis. Yes, they suck blood, but from flies! The large hairy tarantulas so often demonized in films do not kill people nor do they spin webs. Admittedly, they do bite you and make your hand swell up most unpleasantly, so be careful; but one usually has to go far out of one’s way to find oneself entirely dead from vicious bloodthirsty spider bites. Yes, they are better off not showing up inside our houses, but it is recommended that you find a way of flinging them live outside rather than idiotically smashing them like Garfield the cat in what is supposed to be a “comic” strip. Medieval Europe was superstitious about cats, killed a lot of them, and was overrun with rats carrying plague. I’m perfectly happy that spiders like to catch insects.


King Kong(1933) — scene cut from final version.
Cat Women of the Moon (1954) (a.k.a. Rocket to the Moon)
Tarantula (1955)
World Without End (1956)
The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
Missile to the Moon (1958)
Earth vs. The Spider (1958 & MST3K)
The Lost World (1960)
Valley of the Dragons (1961)
Horrors of Spider Island (1962)
One Million Years B.C. (1966)
Kiss of the Tarantula (1972)
The Giant Spider Invasion (1975) — but just Wisconsin.
Kingdom of the Spiders (1977) — William Shatner.
Planet of Dinosaurs (1978)
Galaxy of the Dinosaurs (1978)
Arachnophobia (1990)
Spiders (2000)
Arachnid (2001)
Spiders 2: Breeding Ground (2001) — mad doctor with human incubators for spider colony.
Eight Legged Freaks (2002)
Webs (2003) — spider people rule Chicago in parallel world.
SpiderBabe (2003) — College girl bitten by spider battles evil genius Femtilian.
Ice Spiders (2007) — Utah, so fine.