Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo (1977)

Excellent but underrated film

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

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.

"Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo" is a critter feature that offers no scares and little thrills. When a batch of Guatemalan tarantulas finds themselves in a sleepy little American town, we have a crisis on our hands! Oh not so much that people might get fatally bitten by these arachnids. The real issue is that they have nested themselves In the shipping centre that contains all of the locally harvested oranges. They can't use pesticides to get rid of them because that would contaminate the fruit, but if they wait too long the produce won't be fresh anymore. Can you feel the terror already?! While the acting and sets are good, the story moves at a snail's pace and the stars of the show, the tarantulas, aren't used in any creative or inventive way. We always see the tarantulas simply crawling on the ground, slowly making it's way in the general direction of the would-be victims. It isn't frightening. Spiders are frightening because they can crawl on walls, hide inside little objects and appear at any moment. By using mostly static tarantulas (which are spiders that are easily recognizable and commonly known to be harmless) the scares simply don't happen. I also found myself restless during the beginning of the film. A long portion of the introduction is wasted on the setup where we meet characters that are simply killed off a few minutes later. This is precious time that could have been used to develop our main characters and make us care about them. Easy mistakes make the whole production look amateurish, particularly when you realize what the "real crisis" is.Overall "Tarantulas: the Deadly Cargo" is dull and audiences won't be scared or excited to watch it. Although there are a few jokes at its expense that can be made, even as a "so bad it's good" kind of film it's not terribly entertaining. (On DVD, November 16, 2012)

Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo starts in Ecuador in South America where two partners Fred (Howard Hesseman) & Buddy (Tom Atkins) are about to fly off to San Francisco with a cargo bay full of coffee beans that they intend to sell for a huge profit, unfortunately they fail to realise that lots of deadly tarantulas have gotten on board... As Fred & Buddy head for San Francisco their plane develops a technical problem which forces them to land in the small Californian town of Finley Ville, however before they get the opportunity Buddy is bitten by a tarantula & the plane crashes in a field. Fire Chief Bert Springer (Claude Akins), Sheriff Beasley (Sandy McPeak) & the town's mayor Jack Douglas (Bert Remsen) are on the scene in no time. As they fight to rescue the trapped pilots the tarantulas make their escape & scatter. Within minutes Frank (Edwin Owens) has become the tarantulas first victim, shortly after Gloria (Penelope Windust) has become the second & Dr. Hodgins (Pat Hingle) soon realises what's happening. However Finley Ville is an orange producing town & unless the oranges go out on time the town will be financially crippled, but can they send out oranges infested with deadly tarantulas? Plus any chemical treatment to them will destroy the unique flavour...Directed by Stuart Hagmann Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo is a pretty obscure & hard to find made-for-TV film & to be brutally honest that's a bit of a blessing as it's rather crap. The script by John Groves & Guerdon Trueblood is painfully slow as it's over half an hour of boring exposition before the tarantulas even start to leave the plane, it's dull as there are very few attack scenes & it concentrates on the deeply uninteresting drama surrounding the oranges more than the fact that these tarantulas are killing people & is stupid as it seems to take itself far too seriously & features a silly climax where a guy holds a cage full of wasp's up to a microphone to scare the tarantulas into a comatose state. As I've already said Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo is a really slow film but I think it needs saying again, for a film that lasts over 90 minutes not very much happens. The character's are clichéd, the hero & his missus, the corrupt official who only cares for money, the local Doctor who tries to warn the town, the annoying kid who becomes involved & the level headed reasonable character who has a plan in every situation. They are all dull, have little personality & there is a brief sub plot about Gloria having an affair which last for about 5 minutes & then completely forgotten about. Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo is a very unfocused & uneven film that doesn't seem to know what it wants to be, is it a horror? A drama? A thriller? I suppose it tries to be all three but fails miserably at being any & doesn't satisfy in any regard. The only good thing I can say about it is that tarantulas are cool, it has some reasonably nice location shooting & while it's dull I suppose it's sort of watchable & it's just a shame it doesn't deliver much in the way of entertainment as it definitely had potential.Director Hagmann does nothing to liven the dull proceedings up, there is no style or visual flair & he fails to create any excitement, atmosphere or tension which is a real killer as far as the film goes. The tarantulas themselves just crawl across things very slowly & we get shot after shot like this which becomes boring as they never do anything else & it's hard to feel scared by something so slow. There is no blood or gore so forget about that. Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo maybe good for one thing though, to stretch the running time out Hagmann pads the film with seemingly endless shots of the orange factory & it's inner workings so if you've ever wanted to know what happens in an (70's) orange factory here's your chance!Technically the film is alright, nothing special but is professionally made although I thought the music was crap & it annoyed me, basically Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo has cheap made-for-TV film written all over it which is not a good thing. The acting was OK as well but that sentimental ending is embarrassing to watch.Trantulas: The Deadly Cargo is pretty crap stuff all the way, it has no excitement, it's slow, it's dull & since Arachnophobia (1990) is ten times better & much more widely available there is no need whatsoever to be wasting your time on this. For die-hard killer spider film fans only, if such people exist.

This movie is so crap, there is no suspense whatsoever, actors seem to perform a repetition, and even the spiders are insipid. The idea was not so bad one could have made a good movie, even a TV movie, unfortunately it is far from being the case. Bad Bad Movie.