That's What He Said

I woke up this morning with a few of these quotes running through my head. (That happens to me.) Then I thought "what if I made these into a list and it was a quiz?" And just like that it went from being in my head to being real and on this page.

Here's the rules: You get, um, five points for every quote where you know what movie it's from (without looking anything up), and you get double points for every one where you know which character said it. Ooh, and triple points if you know the the name of the actor who played the character, on top of everything else (wow!).

Now this adds up to a lot of points, and you could potentially walk away from this whole thing very highly pointified, and since everybody loves points, I wish you the best of luck. But here's the bad news. Most of these quotes are obscure as hell and not easy to grock. The labels at the bottom of the post might (might) help you out some.

So here we go:

1. "Love to prove that, wouldn't ya? Get your name into the National Geographic."

2. "A naked American man stole my balloons."

3. "Some big, hard-boiled egg gets a look at a pretty face and bang, he cracks up and goes sappy!"

4. "Now I'm going in there to waste some teachers! Are you with me?!"

5. "I don't care if he killed a hundred people! We are scientists not moralists!"

6. "Oh, I wish we'd stuck to the road; these shoes just aren't made for hiking!"

7. "I'm only a head, and you're whatever you are. Together we're strong. More powerful than any of them."

8. "So, you have wounded me. But I must grow a new claw. Well and good, for I can do it in a DAY! But will you grow new lives when I have taken yours from YOU?!"

9. "Sir, I suddenly find your cognac as distasteful as your manner."

10. "Have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have I. Insects... don't have politics."

(Well, well? How many'd you get?)

Spiders (1978) & The Web (1981) by Richard Lewis

UK Paperback 1978

For years and years I've had this vague memory of a killer-spider novel I read when I was twelve or so, but all I could remember was the book's first scene:

A cranky old man in a New York suburb smashes a weird-looking spider in his garden after it bites his arm. That night he wakes up with his arm all purpley-swollen and realizes he's paralyzed, as hundreds of spiders swarm onto his bed and eat him alive. (Yikes! Pretty gruesome.)

Anyway, as an adult I've looked for that book for-ev-er, but since I couldn't remember the title or who wrote it, I never had much luck.

Until I did find it.

Turns out the garden was in England instead of New York. And rather than being a cranky old guy, he was the kind elderly father of the book's protagonist. Also, the spiders didn't paralyze him, but by the time he woke up he was so stuck to the bed by gazillions of spider webs, he couldn't move.

He definitely got eaten alive, though. I had that part right.

And as much as I got wrong, I knew it was the same book because when the old guy first tried to squash that spider in his garden, he didn't quite kill it and it glared up at him from the ground, "thinking hate." Plus, later as he was being eaten in his bed, he saw this humongous spider "the size of a large crab" sitting on his window sill, seemingly giving directions to the smaller ones that were eating him. (I remembered those parts, too. Creepy.)

So yeah. The book was called Spiders, and it was by a guy named Richard Lewis. Actually, it was by a guy named Alan Radnor, who's pseudonym was Richard Lewis. He even wrote a sequel to the book, called The Web, a few years later.

At any rate, the spiders didn't look anything like that glowy-red-eyed tarantula on the cover up top. They were actually, according to the book's scientist-guy protagonist, a hybrid of "Stegodyphus pacificus" and a few other exotics. Apparently the real life Stegodyphus is social, in that it lives and hunts in groups (which is central to the book's plot).

Just for fun I did an image search and got this:

Ack! I know there are plenty of folks who can look at a photo like this and see something beautiful, but with all the killer-spider movies and books I took in during my formative years (and afterward), I'm just not one of them. But I'm working on it.

Anyway, most of the spiders in the book are regular-sized (less than an inch long), but we also get the bigger crab-sized ones I mentioned, and even meet some monstrous six-footers towards the end of the book. And I'm just gonna come right out and say that millions of regular-sized spiders are way scarier than one giant-sized spider. Am I right? (I am so right!)

The plot of the book is pretty standard nature runs amok: These deadly poisonous spiders were all part of some super-secret government experiment, but when the lab coats finished up they only thought they destroyed all their critters, and a few escaped. So the escapees have been living underground and breeding, breeding, breeding, waiting for just the right time to launch spiderpocalypse.

It all starts with a few isolated attacks in the country, but soon more and more people are dying as the spiders make their grisly way toward London. Will the entire continent be over run before scientist-guy protagonist can stop them? Of course not. He saves the day at the last minute (and after a lot of people have died) and we finish up with the obligatory epilogue that raises the possibility for a sequel.

As you read along, the author comes off as a little unsure if these spiders are just average eight-legged joes following their instincts, or whether they have some kind of acrimonious near-human intelligence and have declared war on all us two-leggers. He writes it both ways, depending on the paragraph you're reading.

Near the end of the book, though, he (sort of) clarifies that the spiders are all running on some kind of hive-mind that makes them more intelligent than your average killer-spider, but it's still basically spider instinct and not some "let's annihilate the entire human race" thing going on. At least that's how I took it.

UK Paperback 1981

The Web picks up a few years after Spiders ends, and more or less just continues the story. Yes, a few eight-leggers did escape and they've been hiding out and breeding. 

This time there are a couple of species working together, the ones from the first book and a larger, lighter brown type whose venom drives people homicidally insane instead of just killing them outright. 

But basically it's the same story (spiders march toward London), with some homicidal maniacs running around and a few more giant-spiders mixed in with the regular-sized ones than the last book had.

Well. For a book that made such an impression on me as a twelve year old (and that I searched for, for so many years as an adult), it was actually a little tiresome getting through both these books as my current self. 

It was only the first one I'd read as a kid. I didn't know there was a sequel until I finally figured out the first one's title and author. At any rate, while both books had great creepy-crawly subject matter, the writing was mediocre at best. 

And reading them back to back, it literally felt like reading the first book over again. None of which means they aren't worth a read if you're a nature-runs-amok fan. You just have to head in with all eight eyes open and take them for what they're worth. (Ooooh, that was a zinger! Bada-BING!)

At any rate, these books are only worth TWO CREEPY-CRAWLY BRAINS. (Which then makes me wonder, what would be the monetary value of a brain, anyway? And would a creepy-crawly brain be worth more than your garden variety brain? Hmmm....)

Okay. Nothing to do with spiders now, but I'm always curious when I read older fiction, to see how women and ethnic groups are portrayed. Not much happening ethnically here, but both books definitely got the female stereotypes of the time right. Lots of (I thought) intelligent women stuck serving up coffee and helping the menfolk by typing their notes and so on:

"'I feel so helpless,' she murmured. 'I don't know what to do... what to say.' 'You can get me a drink for a start,' he chuckled."

Spiders was also big on categorizing all (and I mean all) its female characters according to their breast size and shape. I don't know how many times I read something like "her breasts were well-formed, though beginning to sag a little" or "if her breasts were on the small side, at least there was no hint of sagging." But it was a lot. Sagging versus not sagging--very important to this book.

The Web didn't have much (comparatively) to say about breasts at all. I did notice a disproportionate number of insecure and manipulative female characters, who seemed to be at the root of all their men's troubles:

"There was no doubt Jenny was beautiful.... She couldn't bear to think she was anything else, needed to be told all the time. And if [he] wasn't about to tell her, then she found someone who was."

or

"Now, as he sat in prison, he reckoned Mary's jibes and accusations had been the start of his downfall."

Can't say I hold stereotypes like these against an author personally. It's pretty tough seeing past a culture's blind spots when we're all steeping in the middle of it. It is interesting to look back and notice blind spots from the past that are more obvious now, though. Or is that just me?

Okay. That's about it for me on this one. I'll say goodbye with some alternate covers. The Web only ever had the one edition (UK), as far as I could tell. But Spiders ended up with a couple more releases over the years. It was first published in the UK in 1978. It followed that up with a U.S. release (retitled as The Spiders) in 1980, then with another UK release in 1987. Pretty sure it was the 1980 American edition I read back in the day.

US Paperback 1980

UK Paperback 1987

Oh. And let's throw in the back covers for those two first editions (since I actually have 'em to photograph), so you can click through and read the back copy. Always a treat.

Spiders UK Back Cover 1978

The Web UK Back Cover 1981

And now it really is the end of this post.

Kiss of the Tarantula (1976)

Okay. Here's what I have to say about this movie.

First off, it was not more than a two brain movie (and I'm feeling generous here). But here's the thing. After stubbornly sitting through the first 75 minutes (the two brain part), I was suddenly slapped in the face with a FOUR BRAIN climax!

(i know!)

So I had to bump the thing up to an overall THREE, 'cause it had one of the BEST evil-son-of-a-gun-gets-his-in-the-end endings I remember seeing. I mean--looking past the lame acting and poor production values etc, it was very satisfying. I think I may have even giggled with glee while watching said son-of-a-gun-get-his.

Now the lame thing is, I can't TELL you about the cool ending, 'cause what if you decide to give it a rent or something? Pssshh. Like that's gonna happen.

Anyway, the story goes like this: Little girl who is weird--most likely because her dad is a mortician and her mom is an evil cheating witch--looooves spiders. Tarantulas are her favorites. In fact, by the time she's in high school she has several dozen of the little crawlies in cages in her basement. She pets them and talks to them and lets them crawl across her naked belly while fantasizing about boys....

Now, the thing with a weird-spider-girl is, sooner or later, someone's gonna piss her off. And when that happens--look out. And it does happen. Mom pisses her off. And a bunch of high school kids piss her off. And her creepy pedophile uncle pisses her off.... So yeah.

weird spider girl

I'm guessing the reason this movie is called Kiss of the Tarantula, rather than Bite or Fangs of the Tarantula, is because all the tarantulas this girl keeps are those gentle, non-poisonous kind we see all over the Southwestern United States. (Not that I would touch even a gentle, non-poisonous one.) They don't actually bite or kill anyone in the movie. Rather, everyone the girl sics 'em on freaks out and more or less kills themselves out of fright/stupidity.

spider induced heart attack

Let's see... we have one spider-induced heart attack, one suffocation, one throat slit on broken glass, one crushed windpipe.... Now, these are what the people are doing to themselves, trying to get away from the reluctant, non-poisonous spiders. Hmm.

So. I was pleasantly surprised with the little film. I mean, the bulk of the movie is certainly watchable (if a little tiring) but definitely worth it for the payoff at the end. I watched. I enjoyed.

THREE CRAWLY BRAINS

October's Monster Movie of the Month - The Wasp Woman (1960)

This is yet another cult favorite from Roger Corman, who gave us the likes of "Attack of the Giant Leeches", "The Beast with a Million Eyes", and "The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent".

It goes like this:

1. A BEAUTY QUEEN is getting old.
2. She doesn't like that.
3. She knows a SCIENTIST experimenting with age reversal.
4. He has a POTION with wasp venom in it.
5. He gives her some.
6. She gets a little younger.
7. But it's going to slow, so BEAUTY QUEEN steals the POTION.
8. And injects it. She gets a lot younger.
9. But then BEAUTY QUEEN has a problem.
10. Her head turns into a WASP HEAD and her hands turn into WASP HANDS.
11. Now she is young, but very ugly and scary.
12. And she can't stop killing people.
13. Some people find this out and she tries to kill them.
14. But those people kill her instead.
15. The SCIENTIST decides using wasp venom is a bad idea.

The movie's tag line is "A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN BY DAY - A LUSTING QUEEN WASP BY NIGHT!"

We all know what a booming industry Wasp Porn is....

TWO VENOMOUS BRAINS

August's Monster Movie of the Month - Mothra [Mosura] (1961)

So the amazing thing I found out about this movie was that it's based on a novel.

(i know! Me too!)

It seems a fellow named Takehiko Fukunaga wrote a book called "The Luminous Fairies and Mothra", which this movie was then taken from.

That is SO interesting! (Really!)

So I Googled it but got nothing on the book - Couldn't find out when it was written or if it was ever translated into English.

I did find a blurb on the author from the "Japanese Literature Publishing Project" website:

Takehiko Fukunaga（1918-1979）

Takehiko Fukunaga was a novelist and poet. In college he was fond of Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Rimbaud, and Lautréamont, and was especially influenced by Baudelaire. With Shin’ichiro Nakamura, Shuichi Kato, and other writers of his generation, he formed a literary coterie called Matinée Poétique. While striving to introduce the latest European literary trends, he wrote experimental novels such as Fudo (Climate) and Meifu (The Nether World). He also wrote detective novels under the pen name Reitaro Kada.

Major Awards：
1961 Mainichi Publishing Culture Prize, for Gogyan no sekai (Gauguin’s World) (critical biography)
1972 Japan Literature Grand Prize, for Shi no shima (Death Island)

So now I totally want to read that book. Or anything else by the guy.

---

But anyway. The movie is... well, pretty much everybody knows about Mothra - the big giant moth that attacks Tokyo because the little Barbie-sized faerie twins from it's island have been kidnapped and it's coming to rescue them.

I'd only seen this as a kid and thought it was just okay - you know, give a kid a choice between a radioactive dinosaur and a big moth....

But reading about it now (on Wikipedia), turns out the film (and I presume the novel) was actually a commentary on the evils of western capitalism and there was some pretty interesting stuff hidden under it's surface.

Who knew? Not me as a kid.

So It'd be fun to watch it now to see what I think.

THREE WINDSWEPT BRAINS

June's Monster Movie of the Month - The Fly (1958)

The scariest thing about this movie is that I knew what year to put in the review's title without checking anywhere. The movie itself was just so-so.

And while the movie poster warned "FOR YOUR OWN GOOD WE URGE YOU NOT TO SEE IT ALONE!", it wasn't really designed to be scary. Or even creepy. Just kind of sad (you know, because it's sad when you get turned into a flyman and then your life totally goes to hell).

This is your basic "do-gooder-science-type-tries-to-benefit-humanity-but-destroys-self-instead" movie. Here, brilliant but kindly scientist Andre Delambre has invented a teleportation device, that he first tries out on the family cat. Things don't go well for the cat and so, having no more pets, Dr. Delambre tries his invention on himself. (I know! That's what I thought.)

Well, unbeknownst to the good doctor, a wee housefly has zipped into the teleportation chamber with him. So... as - BZZZT * FWEEEP * BINNDDT - the process completes and reintegration chamber door slowly opens, out steps...

Dr. Delambre wearing an unconvincing rubber fly-head mask and a shiny plastic fly-claw over one of his hands! But, of course, in the movie it's a real fly-head and claw. The Doc has been mushed-melded with the fly (and the fly with him) so they've swapped body parts. (Yes, there is also a wee fly sporting a human head and hand buzzing around the house.)

Now from here, the Doc doesn't go out on a rampage scaring and eating people. He doesn't trap his wife and son in the house and terrorize them. He just spends the rest of the film trying to find the fly with his head so he can try to put himself back together. Reasonable, really.

Well, he can't find that fly, even with his wife's help. (She screamed pretty loud when he showed her his head - that's her on the poster.) And to boot, he realizes his human brain - inside his fly-head? - is slowly turning into a fly-brain and so he asks his wife to kill him by smooshing him under a machine press. And she does.

And that's it really.

TWO BUZZING BRAINS

If you wanna see a scary, creepy AND sad movie, you should get the remake with Jeff Goldblum from 1986. Same Fly-Premise, totally different Fly-Story.

Sweet.

Monster Island (2004)

Okay, first of all, let me just tell you that this movie sucked.

It should be avoided at all costs.

It was called "Monster Island" and I couldn't watch more than about half -- even WITH the giant bugs.

The plot consisted of a bunch of kids on a tropical island for a weekend with... Carmen Electra... (they won a contest).

Turns out the island was an atomic research center way back when, and there's a bunch of REALLY BIG insects wandering around. And a Gill-Man or two.

So Carmen gets kidnapped by a giant flying ant, which takes her to it's nest so she can (gulp) ...sing... to the ant-enslaved natives there to keep them happy. Yeah.

A few of the kids go off to rescue her and various shenanigans ensue.

The bugs were done with stop-motion animation and not too badly, but the plot and acting were done using real live people -- and quite badly, I fear. I really did turn it off halfway through.

Which is saying something, because I've sat through movies like "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" and "Cat-Women of the Moon" (though I'm not proud of it).

In it's defense, the movie was obviously made for laughs and didn't take itself seriously at all. Maybe I just wasn't in a laugh-ey mood that night.

But I'd only give this

ONE SAPPY BRAIN.

Ice Spiders (2007)

"Ice Spiders" was oh such a little gem of a B-Movie.

There's a secret government lab (near a fictional Utah ski resort in a fictional Utah county) where giant spiders are being bred for their spider silk. In spite of the team of military guys assigned to keep the spiders locked up, there is an accident and the spiders (GASP) escape.

So the spiders make their way to the ski resort where some Olympic hopefuls are training. Lucky for them, Olympic has-been, "Dash" Dashiell just happens to be working at this particular ski resort.

Not only was Dash almost on the Olympic team a few years back, he also spent a few years as a Marine -- which totally helps when you're trying not to get eaten by giant mutated spiders.

There was a giant Black Widow, jumping spider and four other ones (whose types I don't remember), but they were all quite colorful and each had their own (killer) personality.

The movie is listed as "Horror", but it wasn’t really "scary" scary -- more "fun" scary. It was, however, a totally entertaining flick. A little bad acting and a few plot holes, but those things are to be expected in these kinds of movies. A definite recommend for Giant-Insects-On-The-Loose buffs.

FOUR WEB-ENTOMBED BRAINS.

Mandibles (2003) by Jeff Strand

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HORROR! THRILLS! PLUS-SIZE ANTS!
 

---

I don't know what the psychological ramifications of it are, but I just love a good "Nature Runs Amok" story. There's something about people fighting for their lives against "mutated beasts, carnivorous insects, and normally harmless animals or plants turned into cold-blooded killers" that makes me smile. The only thing maybe a little funner is people fighting for their lives against evil menacing malfunctioning robots or cyborgs.

Anyway, the menacers in this novel are ants. Big angry aggressive stinging ants. And when I say big, I mean the littlest ones are 2 to 3 inches long and go up from there. (Think rat, wolf and living room couch in terms of size.)

I had a hard time categorizing this book. It's a little bit horror and a little bit science fiction and more than a little bit comedic. It's the same kind of novel that "An American Werewolf in London" is movie, if that tells you anything. (So maybe "Comedic Horror" or "Horrific Comedy".)

The plot boils down to a bunch of extremely large and vicious red fire ants on the loose in Tampa, Florida, and the folks who aren't quickly devoured have to figure out how to stop them before the entire city is overrun by the beasties. Much adventure ensues as our heroes work to figure out what's going on and then put a stop to it. And almost everyone you'd expect to make it to the end of the book alive, does.

Almost.

At any rate, I quite liked it. Of course, I'd like pretty much any book with a plot like this, no matter the quality level. But this one was actually pretty readable.

Here's a couple of alternative covers for the book:

It was written by Jeff Strand. You can see he leans toward the comedic side of things by looking at the titles of some of his other novels:

How to Rescue a Dead Princess
Casket For Sale (Only Used Once)
Single White Psychopath Seeks Same

FOUR COUCH-SIZED ANT BRAINS