Touches You

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

"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)

Yet another in the well-worn genre of the man vs nature flick. Here, a couple of ne'er do well smugglers (Hesseman and Atkins) decide to fly several thousand pounds of aged coffee beans out of Ecuador so that they can sell them for a profit in San Francisco. Sadly, the beans are infested with an army of big, furry spiders (which none of the dazed laborers seem to notice as they are shoveling the beans into bags!) When the spiders affect the plane, forcing it to crash into the outskirts of a small California town, the locals find themselves battling for their lives and livelihoods as the spiders kill off anyone who's in the path of their trek to a nearby orange packaging plant. All of the town's officials, including fire chief Akins, mayor Remson, sheriff McPeak and doctor Hingle convene to find out how best to combat them. Leading the way is local airstrip owner Frank who, with his pilot girlfriend Winters, does the most to figure out what is wrong and how best to deal with it. This film follows a tried and true formula, utilized in "It Happened at Lakewood Manor" and many other feature and television films. The plot is sketchy at best and the acting is weak. However, what really makes this one ridiculous is the fact that HUGE spiders seem to crawl around unnoticed (not to mention travel great distances in a short amount of time) and also that virtually every action sequence is handled in the most inept way possible. Rescuers take as long as they can to do anything with the plane and then a speed-freaking buffoon careens into the scene, causing mass chaos. Later, when the people have begun to figure out a way to deal with the little creepers, they go about it in such a needlessly slow and methodical way (while idiotic local extras look on) that it's instantaneously laughable! The tarantulas are definitely creepy for those who dislike that sort of thing, but the presentation here is mostly so banal and ridiculous that it becomes unintentionally funny. A rather staggering assortment of familiar television character actors fills out the cast list, many of who are still finding work today. Frank is cute as a button and approaches his role in this turkey with sincerity, as does Akins. "Trapper John M.D.'s" Seibert turns up as the town rotter, carrying on an affair with McPeak's wife and trying to thwart the extermination effort at the climax. Windust, as McPeak's adulterous wife has one roll down a hill that is screamingly hilarious. Nonetheless, the film tries to be quite serious, even exposing ubiquitous 70's child star Laborteaux to considerable danger. Another young 70's actress North, shows up in a really reprehensibly bad performance as a tarty teenager. The movie is no good, but it remains entertaining on a humorous level. It also features inexplicably jazzy (and ear-splitting) credits music by Mundell Lowe. Stay tuned for the bizarre ending in which the surviving participants' lives are shown carrying on while the closing credits pop up over them.

Two guys, looking to make a quick buck, buy a plane load of Ecuadorian coffee to resale in the United States. On the way to San Francisco, their plane develops engine trouble and goes down in a field near Finleyville. But there's more than coffee on this plane. Unfortunately for the people of this small town, the coffee is infested with killer tarantulas. And now they're loose.Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo is another in the long line of nature vs. human movies that were so popular during the 1970s. This one was made for TV so it comes with the limitations of that medium. Namely, other than a scene where a boy is killed, it's all pretty tame. The movie is also poorly paced and, at about 95 minutes, it's about 20 minutes too long. You could cut out a lot of the talk about shipping oranges and no one would miss it. Most of the acting isn't too bad. Claude Akins and Howard Hesseman (using some sort of crazy accent) are probably the best known members of the cast. But, I suppose my biggest problem with Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo is that it's just not fun. I'm all about entertainment and I wasn't entertained. If you want to see a cheesy spider movie that's also entertaining, check out The Giant Spider Invasion. As bad as that movie is, at least it's fun! Finally, there's a scene near the end of the movie where the characters are scooping up the spiders by the bucket-full. Well, that's just not possible. There weren't anywhere near that many spiders on the plane when it left Ecuador. In the beginning, the movie shows a few stowaway spiders getting on the plane – not enough for an army. Besides, there wouldn't have been room for coffee on the plane for all the spiders.

Man how could I fell into this? Anyways, the movie is as bad as you can get. I don't know if the director tried to make this movie look like a "real" footage or something but it has a feeling of raw that makes the movie effective for some moments.But overall this movie is very bad. It's poorly done, directed, and I won't even get on the f/x. The idea is not that bad and could've been better with more budget but oh well, you can't have everything. The acting is atrocious but it's good for it's B-movie standard. I'd recommend this movie only if it airs only on cable. Don't waste your money on it please. This is an objective review for a movie this bad.