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Rating:  - 2 From Mr. B.I.G.
Folks may scratch their heads when I say this, but Bert I. Gordon is one of my all time favorite movie directors. He is for the simple fact that I have found them all(the "big" ones specifically) thoroughly entertaining, which I assume is what most directors could ever hope for. Gordon's reputation is no more than that of a low budget trash peddler, and his place in cinema history will probably be no more than a mere footnote in the world of Sci-Fi. I feel he's more deserving than that. After all, if Ed Wood can achieve the status he has, why can't Gordon(I find Gordon's films to be consistently more entertaining and fun than Wood's)?
Anyhow, the first on the Gordon double bill is Earth Vs. The Spider. A much more accurate title would have been Handful Of People Vs. The Spider, but that's not as punchy or threatening. In the movie, a pair of high school students(sweethearts of course) find a giant spider(Giant Spider! Whoa! Giant Spider! Whoa!) in a cave outside of their small town. The local authorities blast it with DDT and believe it to be dead. It's taken to the local high school auditorium and put on display until it can be picked up by scientists. When the band slated to play the high school dance start rehearsing their blasted rock and roll music, the spider wakes up and is pretty pissed(no accounting for taste I suppose. I thought they were kinda catchy). The spider rampages through town and finds his way home where the final showdown takes place.
The best of the two films for sure. It's alot of fun with everything you could want from a film like this. It's got rock and roll, high school kids, creepy theremin theme music, shriveled corpses, and of course a giant spider. My rule of rating is that any film will get one extra star if it features a giant spider(hence the 5 star rating). Gordon's visual fx are the same as he's always used, and that consists of a real spider spliced into the frame with the actors and settings. Gordon's fx are always slammed and considered laughable, but I always though he was above average for this kind of film. You can tell it's fake, but it's not nearly as bad as people make it out to be. In fact there's something strangely realistic about it. After all we are dealing with a real spider and not a puppet. You can't help but imagine that that is how it would really look if a giant spider were to invade your hometown. Very cool movie.
Next we have War of the Colossal Beast. It's a sequel to the Amazing Colossal Man, but you won't be lost in the plot considering they use footage from that film and reference it enough to bring you up to date. Glen, The Colossal Man, has survived the attack he received at the end of the first film and has turned up in Mexico. Glen is a 60 foot man mutated by atomic radiation. He must have an enormous schwanzstucker, but I guess that goes without saying. He's been stealing food, terroizing the people and just making everything unpleasant. The U.S. army comes, captures him and brings him back to the states where he can be treated by doctors and scientists. But in the King Kong tradition, he escapes and goes on a rampage. Can he be stopped? While entertaining, it's more of a limp rehash of the first film. There just doesn't seem to be anything new added to justify an entire film. Glenn does have a section of his face torn away, giving him a grotesque and more sinister look, but that's about as original as it gets. Hopefully we'll be seeing the Amazing Colossal Man on DVD soon.
All in all, well worth your money if you like this stuff. Besides, Bert needs our support!
Rating:  - Where is the original ?
Earth vs The Spider is certainly worth the purchase price of this DVD alone.
Not in the same league as Universal's "Tarantula", but it is a well done B-movie for a monster movie. Highly recommended. War of the Colossal Beast is ok for what it is, but it is the sequel to a movie that you can't find on DVD, The Amazing Colossal Man. I'm not sure why they chose to release the sequel before the original, but if you didn't know about the original, you would be a little confused about this movie and you would ask questions about how this came to be as the movie picks up where the original leaves off. The movie itself is ok, but in the original at least the giant man talks, whereas in this one, he just grunts, screams and yells his way throughout the movie. Since he fell off a cliff or something in the first one, he is hideously scarred and ugly in this one, and his temperament is less than friendly, but you wouldn't know that without having seen the first one. Ok, but not essential for sci-fi buffs. The Spider is more worth it.
Rating:  - Great series that needs to be resurrected!
Great start on this series (despite the apect ratio problems), but Lion's Gate seems to have given up on this line, which is unfortunate, as there are a number of Arkoff titles that haven't yet seen the light of day on DVD. While I'm not 100% sure if Lion's Gate owns the rights to the films I list below, I would venture to guess they do. So how about a pairing of I Was a Teenage Frankenstein/I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Invasion of the Saucer Men/Attack of the Crab Monsters, Voodoo Woman/The Undead, Not of This Earth/It Conquered the World (two of the best AIP titles), and The Amazing Colossal Man (whose sequel, War of the Colossal Beast, is part of this line). Perhaps there are others, though I think I've accounted for the most-wanted Arkoff/AIP titles.
Rating: - Double Trouble
These two movies are a good example of 50s SCI-FI at its best. Earth Vs. The spider is good because it adds a bit of 50s Malt Shop Era to the movie. Its seems the spider shots may have been taken from an earlier Sci-FI movie Tarantula.War Of The Colossal Beast is movie #2 in this Twin Cult Classic Set.I remember watching this movie as a kid and still enjoy it. Would recommend this double SCI-FI Collection to all 50s Sci-Fi Addicts.
Rating: - WHO CAN RESIST SUCH A DOUBLE FEATURE?
Two great cheese fests for the price of one! "Earth vs.the Spider" is excellent. "War of the Colossal Beast" is the sequel to "The Amazing Colossal Man". Strange that the two Colossal films weren't put on this double feature DVD? The Amazing Colossal Man" is not available on DVD at this time. As it is " War of the Colossal Beast" is pretty funny...unintentionally of course! After reading some other reviews, I have learned that the rights to the two Colossal movies are owned by different people....too bad :-( ...I hope they release the first one soon.
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