Directed by
Jack Arnold
USA 1955
This 50's sci-fi staple has all the expected clichés... from the small isolated town (Desert Rock in rural Arizona) to the skeptical Sheriff (Nestor Paiva) - from the suspicious young doctor (John Agar) linked to the ultra feminine heroine (Mara Corday). Plus where would we be without the loner experimenting professor (Leo G. Carroll) whose scientific, but well meaning, intrusion in nature's scheme produces the titled monster. The effects are better than average as the Tarantula was an actual spider manipulated on miniature sets with air jets. This is hokey of course, but it is still fabulous stuff - director Arnold, who brought us The Incredible Shrinking Man among many others, really had these B-movies nailed. The script is competent and the acting believable enough. Ohh... and yes that Jet Squadron Leader is a young Clint Eastwood. How could we not recommend this to fill space on my DVD shelves with such classics as 'This Island Earth' (where Arnold did much of the re-shooting) and 'Creature from the Black Lagoon' (1954)?
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Theatrical Release: December 14th, 1955
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DVD Review: Universal Pictures - Region 2,4,5 - PAL
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| Distribution | Universal Pictures - Region 2,4,5 - PAL | |
| Runtime | 1:16:54 | |
| Video | 1.33:1
Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: 6.91 mb/s PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s |
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NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes. |
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| Audio | English (Dolby Digital 2.0), DUB: German (Dolby Digital 2.0) | |
| Subtitles | English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Czech, Hungarian, Polish, None | |
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Release Information: Edition Details: • none |
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Another above average transfer from Universal Europe. Single layered but with region-coding to flog in Europe, Middle East, Russia and Australia. The image is acceptably sharp, progressive, good contrast and there is some grain and dirt showing through. I enjoy this no-nonsense approach to DVD with a total lack of digital manipulation. No extras at all - consistent with many of the new crop of Universal PAL DVDs. As far as the film goes - I can't extol it much more - one of my favorite of the 'B' sci-fi's. It is such a pleasure to have this in such a relatively pristine digital form - ready for a spin when the mood strikes (and it strikes at least once a year!). |
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| DVD Box Cover |
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| Distribution | Universal Pictures Home Video - Region 2,4,5 - PAL | |
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