Evengyny
Thanks for the memories!
SpunkySelfTwitter
It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.
Marva
It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
Adam Foidart
"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)
AaronCapenBanner
Tom Atkins(Horror film veteran) and Howard Hesseman play two rogue cargo plane pilots who are transporting coffee beans and three illegals from South America to the U.S., who also unknowingly carry stowaways: a group of Ecuadorian killer tarantulas hidden among the coffee bean sacks, who infest a town in California after the plane then crash lands following a storm. The local inhabitants(led by Claude Akins, Pat Hingle, among others) try to kill these spiders before more deaths occur, and prevent them from infecting their Orange crop at the processing plant... TV movie isn't bad, but is still far too contrived and predictable.
Chase_Witherspoon
A plane carrying a payload of Ecuadorian coffee beans bound for the US, plunges into a field in the struggling town of Finleyville. When rescuers discover that two survivors appear to be afflicted by a deadly plague-like condition, the townspeople are quick to respond to the threat. It takes the tenacity of local GP (Hingle) and occupation unknown jack-of-all trades (Frank) and his girlfriend (Winters) to determine that the mysterious deaths are attributed to a particularly toxic breed of Tarantulas that have stowed away on the doomed flight. Director Haggman applies a very matter-of-fact treatment to this above average thriller, with great attention to detail and a well paced continuity that builds to a satisfying climax.A capable cast of familiar faces portray likable characters, who band together to solve their own problems and save the town from socioeconomic devastation, proving that necessity is the mother of all invention. Frank is an affable leading man well supported by durable character actors like Akins, Hingle and Remsen in sizeable supporting roles. John Harkins also has a key cameo identifying the aggressive arachnids as the most venomous of their species, sending the town into a virtual state of emergency. Mature, intelligent dialogue is sometimes too functional, but realistic and well delivered. It's just a pity that the rather vapid climax wasn't more rousing, as the impetus was there throughout the movie for a satisfying resolution.There's an absence of smoke and mirrors to this small screen production that rejects the temptation to sensationalise the subject matter, focusing instead on the logical and convincing storytelling that saw this minor matinée nominated for two Emmy awards. Overall, while there's the obvious constraints of a television scale, and a curiously inapt jazz soundtrack bookends, this remains a taut, mature, well conceived little critter of a spider movie, and well worth a look.
bensonmum2
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.
