- Original theatrical poster - image courtesy of ImpAwards
While far from the greatest cautionary mad scientist movie ever made – heck, it isn’t even the best movie ever made about a giant carnivorous insect – Tarantula is nevertheless among the most proficient of its kind in storytelling and, ultimately, pure entertainment, unfolding with satisfying efficiency and brutal ease.
The somewhat dichotomous, tongue-in-cheek tone would foreshadow another monster movie set in the desert, the nearly unsurpassed 1990 throwback Tremors. Tarantula stands on a different level of accomplishment, for sure (it's like comparing a good pickup truck to a convoy of Macks), but for sheer date night quality, I suspect few other movies from 1955 came close.
Rather than spoil specifics of the story, it’s better to describe Tarantula as a collection of reliable genre tropes familiar in form but fresh in execution: mysterious deaths, an unseen menace, mad scientists, atomic experiments, physical deformities, evidence of the impossible and a dollop of implied romance, shaken and stirred. It's a minor film, but an accomplished one considering its modesty.
The expert construction of the plot is enough to render things more than sufficiently watchable, but the real stars here are the special effects, an excellent combination of matte images and miniatures used to simulate the largeness of the titular arachnid, which eventually grows to many times the size of an average house. Through perfection of simplicity, they’re some of the most seamless of their kind. The spider is less overtly scary than the giant ants of the previous year’s Them!, but it proves far more convincing in presence.
The 50s continued to pummel out similar ditties, and with a title like The Wasp Woman, almost anyone would expect the movie in question to prove more or less the same as its camp fellows with insect-associated monikers. In a rudimentary manner, this comparison is apt, but this punchy little flick by Roger Corman was way ahead of the thematic curve, taking the essence of a science fiction premise and applying it to something almost oppressive, almost byzantine. Though it sprouted from an industry wing that hawked its fair share of junk, but even Corman’s junkies (like the amusing but not very good Creature from the Haunted Sea) were usually smarter than the competition.
Watching the film from the perspective of a 21st Century in which Barbie dolls, fashion magazines and impossibly-thin Disney princesses continue to wage ideological war on our collective unconscious (and that’s just half the battle, as men are objectified too), The Wasp Woman is a downright revolutionary act of scathing commentary. Like most good satires – Network and Gremlins 2: The New Batch come to mind first – it represents a once exaggerated scenario that has since passed into reality.
Susan Cabot plays Janice Starlin, the middle-aged founder and owner of a once successful, now-flailing cosmetics company, their profits and popularity having declined since she retired from the role of company image. Promised the chance of youth anew by the somewhat mad but well-meaning Dr. Zinthrop (Michael Mark), she invests in his experiments, which have already been successful in reversing the growth of animals, who were injected with chemicals extracted from wasps. Janice’s hubris is impatience, however, and when she begins to up her regular dosage, she develops a nasty habit of killing and dismembering her company with little in the way of notice.
The cheap look of the film befits its exploitative approach, while the addition of practical, crude makeup effects in the mix contributes to the generally nightmarish tone. The Wasp Woman is more concerned with the causes than the effects at work; the long-gestating drama simmers in the insecurity of this woman who is clearly better than the societal yardstick she’s judging herself against.
In this capacity, Cabot is a small wonder of frailty and feigned stregnth. Corman’s reputation has been frequently diminished of the decades by skeptics and prudes, yet his cinema is often admirable, and sometimes superior, if only for the fact that he makes you care.
The Wasp Woman is available in its entirety on YouTube ( click here).
Tarantula. Dir. Jack Arnold. Perf. Leo G. Carroll, John Agar, Mara Corday, Nestor Paiva, Ross Elliott, Edwin Rand, Raymond Bailey, Hank Patterson, Bert Holland, Steve Darrell, Clint Eastwood. Universal Studios, 1955. Running Time: 81 min. 3 out of 5 stars (no halves).
The Wasp Woman. Dir. Roger Corman, Jack Hill. Perf. Susan Cabot, Anthony Eisley, Barboura Morris, William Roerick, Michael Mark, Frank Gerstle, Bruno VeSota. The Filmgroup Inc., 1959. Running Time: 73 min. 4 out of 5 stars (no halves).
