"Tarantula" is another really good '50s Sci-Fi flick. The spider grows to be gigantic and a lot of the time it looks great. Many of the longer shots give the impression that the thing is actually crawling around the desert. But the closer the camera, gets the blurrier the arachnid gets. This isn't entirely about a giant spider, though. The scientists who are to blame for the eight-legged freaks, were so confident in their work that they injected themselves with the nutrient that grew the tarantula. I was thrilled to get a classic reveal of a deformed Professor Deemer. He has his back to the camera late in the movie and when he turns around, we see his grotesque visage. It looks pretty cool and the trumpeting horns of terror that accompany the reveal make it even better.

The tarantula is massive by the time fighter jets arrive to try and napalm the critter into oblivion. Even the final shot of the tarantula is impressive for its time. There is a scene near the beginning of the movie that I enjoyed because of how ham-handed it is. Prof. Deemer is checking the progress charts of his lab animals. The charts are shown to us in an over-the-shoulder fashion and are so hilariously simplistic that it has to be one of the funniest exposition dumps of a plot that I've seen. What's even better is when the Professor hangs the charts back on the animals' cages, the charts are clearly not the same ones we just saw. Its funny because it is such an obvious oversight. Regardless of that little detail "Tarantula" is no doubt another classic from Sci-Fi's Nuclear Age.