Kiss of the Tarantula (1976) Cinema-Vu/Horror RT: 85 minutes Rated PG (violence, terror, teen drinking) Director: Chris Munger Screenplay: Warren Hamilton Jr. Music: Phillan Bishop Cinematography: Henning Schellerup Release date: May 1976 (US) Cast: Suzanna Ling, Eric Mason, Herman Wallner, Patricia Landon, Beverly Eddins, Jay Scott Neal, Rebecca Eddins, Rita French, W. James Eddins, Jared Davis, Stratton Leopold, Mark Smith, Mary Tyree, Ron Prather, William Guhl, Linda Spatz, Art Lane, George Gingell, Susan Eddins, John H. Burrows, R.C. Box Office: N/A
Rating: **
The only memory I have of the schlock horror piece Kiss of the Tarantula is catching the first fifteen minutes or so on one of the local UHF channels one Saturday afternoon in the early 80s. I never knew the name of it; all I remembered about it was it had a little girl that dug spiders. Years later, I found it on a DVD combo pack with two other low-budget horror movies from the 70s- Don’t Open the Door and Don’t Look in the Basement. I watched it and promptly forgot about it until a week ago when I got my hands on a Blu-Ray copy. I decided to give it another go so I could review it just for kicks. It’s far, FAR from a horror classic, but its high weirdness factor makes up for what it lacks in quality.
Directed by Chris Munger whose only other feature film credit is the 1974 blaxploitation piece Black Starlet, Kiss of the Tarantula is basically a Willard knock-off with spiders instead of rats. Suzanna Ling plays Susan, a disturbed teenager in a small rural town whose only friends are her pet tarantulas. The daughter of the town mortician (Wallner), she’s been a social outcast her whole life. As a girl, she lived in fear of her abusive mom (Beverly Eddins) who was deathly afraid of spiders. One night, Susan overhears her plotting to kill her father with her lover Walter (Mason, Scream Blacula Scream), the local police chief and her dad’s brother. To protect her only loving parent, she uses one of her tarantulas to scare her mother to death.
As a teen, she’s the target of ridicule and bullying by her classmates. One night, they take it too far when Bo (Neal, Grave of the Vampire) and his two flunkies break in to steal a coffin for their Halloween party. Susan catches them in the act. They force her into the basement where they kill one of her tarantulas. Deciding it’s the last straw, she sets out for revenge aided by her eight-legged friends.
As if the bullying wasn’t enough, Uncle Walter has taken an unnatural interest in his niece. He’s always putting his hands on her and making inappropriate comments. It makes one wonder what’s wrong with the dad? Is he really so dense that he doesn’t see what’s going on between his brother and daughter. Then again, he didn’t know his late wife was having an affair with him and still doesn’t. In any event, Uncle Walter is another problem that Susan will eventually deal with in her own unique way.
The oddest thing about Kiss of the Tarantula is that we never see the spiders bite their victims. A kill scene typically shows them casually crawling all over their victims until he/she finally notices and freaks out. One victim dies by having his throat cut by a broken car window. Another apparently gets suffocated in an air duct after the critters corner him. One girl ends up having a psychotic break in the hospital. Walter figures out that Susan is behind it all and decides to use it as leverage to have his way with her. That, I assure you, will not end well for him.
Most of the cast of Kiss of the Tarantula haven’t been in anything else. It’s Ling’s sole credit on IMDb. She’s really not all that bad as the deranged teen with a thousand-yard blank stare that would creep out even the most violent psychopath in the lunatic ward. It makes perfect sense casting Wallner as a mortician given his stiff acting style. He’s so wooden in his only movie that the crew probably had to keep him far away from open flames at all times. Mason appears to be going for some kind of world record for the number of times he can say “Susan”. Other than that, he’s not all that memorable. In only a few scenes, Beverly Eddins gives Faye Dunaway a run for her money in the deranged overacting department. Ultimately, it’s no contest, Eddins is no Mommie Dearest. As for the group of teen bullies, I can only say that they must be especially stupid to still be in high school at 25. That’s how old they all look.
I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on Kiss of the Tarantula. After all, it was custom-made to play at drive-ins to teens too busy making out with their dates to pay attention to what’s happening on-screen. Munger keeps it simple which is either it greatest asset or biggest fault. There is no plot or character development. It’s simply a silly movie about a girl who kills people with spiders. It’s neither scary nor suspenseful. The death scenes aren’t all that impressive save for a sadistic twist in the final one. It looks cheap. Nay, it is cheap and also amateurish. Unfortunately, it never sinks low enough to be a memorable bad movie experience. It’s unintentionally funny at times but that’s about it. Kiss of the Tarantula is as minor league as a B-movie can get. Wait, did I say B-movie? That’s too freaking high! Let’s try G or H. Yes, that’s more like it!
