KISS OF THE TARANTULA (1975)
Label: VCI Entertainment
Region Code: A
Duration: 84 Minutes
Rating: PG
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.851)
Audio: English PCM Mono 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Director: Chris Mung
Cast: Eric Mason, Suzanne Ling, Herman Wallner, Patricia Landon, Beverly Eddins, Jay Scott Neal, Rita French
Synopsis: Mommy and Daddy operate and live in a mortuary with their daughter, Susan, who collects tarantula spiders and has always been ostracized by her friends because… well she’s a little bit strange. In true schlocky b-movie horror fashion, this is a real All-American Dysfunctional Family! So when Susan discovers that mommy dearest is plotting to have dear old dad killed… well this puts sweet little Susie over the top and she pulls out all the stops, making good use of her father’s mortuary and her creepy little playmates to exact horrendous revenge! A 70's drive-in classic!
Susan is a young daughter of a mortician (Eric Mason, Grave of the Vampire) who is right obsessed with furry, eight-legged arachnids, but her bitchy mother Martha hates her pet tarantulas with all her might. One night Susan overhears her mother plotting with her lover John - who just happens to be Susan's uncle - to kill her husband. Young Susan and her hairy-legged friends aren't about to let anything happen to dear old daddy, so Susan sneaks into her mother's room that night and drops a tarantula onto the sheets while her mother is sleeping. When the cold-hearted cheater wakes up to the sight of the fuzzy eight-legged crawler it scares her to death, while little Susan gleefully watches from shadows.
The film then moves ahead a few years when Susan is a teen in high school, she's a bit awkward and still obsessed with her tarantulas, which might explain why she doesn't seem to have a lot of friends. That she's the daughter of the local mortician might also be a bit awkward for the teen. When Susan's left alone for the weekend while her father is away on a business three teen hooligans beak into the mortuary and terrorize poor Susan, killing one of her beloved tarantulas! The rest of the film plays out in proper b-movie fashion with her and her creepy-crawly friends stalking and killing those teen punks in a way that seems above and beyond what the squashing of a spider would merit, but that exploitation folks, you don't question it, you just watch it and enjoy the show!
My favorite scenario in the film plays out at the local drive-in, with a scene that must have been fun to watch while at the drive-in back in the 70s! At the drive Susan catches up with a pair of the teen offenders who are on a double-date, all four young people are crammed into a Volkswagen Bug and making out. While the teens are busy hooking-up she saunters up to the car unseen and throws a handful of tarantulas into the car. The creepers proceed to crawl all over the foursome without notice for what feels like ten-minutes, eventually they take notice and the shit starts to hit the fan. The teens panic like you just wouldn't believe, unable to flee the vehicle because they are sandwiched in between the drive-in speaker-boxes! During the frenzied panic one teens throat is crushed against the steering wheel, while another is strangled by the car door, and a third one's throat is slashed open on the jagged edge of a broken window - leaving the last young girl, the only survivor, in a fear-induced catatonic state.
The local cops are baffled by these bizarre deaths till Suzanne's uncle John, whom I neglected to mention earlier is a detective, finds a tarantula leg on a victim's corpse and starts to put the pieces together. The super-sleazy uncle uses this knowledge in an attempt to extort sexual favors from his niece, which is just gross, Don't worry though, when you mess with the daughter of a mortician you're going to end up in the ground one way or another, and he definitely gets what's coming to him in the end!
Audio/Video: Kiss of the Tarantula (1975) arrives on Blu-ray+DVD Combo from VCI Entertainment presented in 1080P widescreen (1.85:1), advertised as being a 2K scan from the original negative. It starts off a bit shaky, the opening title credits are very soft and have very poor contrast levels, but a few minutes in things improve considerably. It still has that low-budget 70's drive-in patina, but overall the image is solid, and there's some excellent fine detail by way of loose threads on sweaters, clothing textures and the hair on the tarantulas. The color scheme is autumnal with a greenish tinge seeping in throughout, brown is the dominant color, with red and greens occasionally showing some favor, but generally it's drab looking slice of exploitation. The viewing experience here was quite nice though, a very nice improvement over VCI's previous standard-definition release on DVD.
Audio comes by way of an English PCM Mono 2.0 track that clean and well-balanced. It shows some source limitations throughout, with some of the dialogue not having been captured all that well, optional English subtitles are included, and the score from Phil Bishop (Messiah of Evil) sounds good in the mix.
The only extras on this disc are a theatrical trailer for the film and a newly recorded commentary from David Del Valle and David DeCoteau. This paring of film and historian (Del Valle) and director (Decoteau) is always a good listen, with both having done quite a few commentaries for VCI properties the past few years, offering lots of insight about the film and comparing it to similar sub-genre flicks from the 70s.
The single-disc release comes housed in a standard Blu-ray keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork featuring the familiar illustration from the posters and home video releases. Inside are a Blu-ray and DVD with the same main feature and extras, the artwork for both discs is an excerpt of the same key art as the wrap.
Special Features:
- New 2018 Audio Commentary from David Del Valle and David DeCoteau
- Original Theatrical Trailer (2 min)
- VCI Trailers: Blood and Black Lace (2 min), Don't Open the Door (2 min), Bruce's Deadly Fingers (4 min)
Kiss of the Tarantula is a fun 70's drive-in schlocker along the lines of Willard (1971) and Stanley (1972), though not as good as either, but still a solid 70's gem. VCI's Blu-ray looks solid, not perfection by any means, but this is the best I've seen the film look yet, but it still has that drive-in patina.
