Joan, I last saw TARANTULA (1955) about six years ago. I found it mostly boring, but the fake spider sequences were diverting. And one of the funniest movies I've ever seen is the remarkable GIANT SPIDER INVASION (1977), which mixes real normal-size tarantulas with crazy leg-props and insanely stupid big-size props, along with the all-time favorite -- something Stephen King called "the Volkswagen Spider," obviously a car with a spider prop on top of it that takes over a street fair towards the end. It makes EARTH VS. THE SPIDER look like real genius.

I'm less bothered by spiders on the big screen than in person -- that's why I could say, as I did above, that I hoped "Big Bob" in ARACHNOPHOBIA should've been even bigger than he was. I REALLY wanted to be scared out of my skin, that's why I went to see it in the first place. No dice. Although I still remember the thing crawling, advancing over the fallen Jeff Daniels. But the sequence is no viler than the similar bit at the end of INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN, and I really hoped they'd up the ante. Although NOTHING will ever top the capper of the original FLY. I could bear to watch ARACHNOPHOBIA again, and even most of the original FLY -- but I'd have to shut it off at a certain point.

I actually like the peculiar melancholy of the original FLY (script by James Clavell, nominally based on a story originally published in Playboy). It's such a SAD story, when it comes down to it. The spider sequence is merely punctuation to something much stranger and sadder.

Your H'
Pee-Wee Gaskins?....sounds interesting?!
I wish we could talk properly here?!,I just don't have the typing speed to really get into this as I would like to.

To be honest ,This isn't the place to talk about deranged mind's and mass murderers.

I will never forget, one of my first Hollywood jobs, this guy kept a tarantula in his office. I was there haggling over money the office owed me for gas, and in the middle of it, he decided to drop a cricket or two into the spider's lair. Lunchtime! I WILL NEVER FORGET the dying sounds of the cricket as it disappeared into the tarantula's maw, and even worse than that, the CRUNCHING, the audible CRUNCHING as its carapace was shattered within the mighty jaws. Yeah, everybody has to eat, I know what a slaughterhouse is like, and I'm no vegetarian, but really, that one moment felt like my whole Hollywood career in miniature. I should have left the city then. But NOOO, I had to stick around long enough for the riots and the fires and the earthquakes ... This is what you get for living in a city that was bullied into existence out of the peaceful plains of a lovely little desert.

NP: Young Sherlock Holmes (Rami-Tep ritual)

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Originally posted by Timmer:
JAR...spider....SHEET of PAPER!...Easy!!

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Originally posted by charben:
NP: Young Sherlock Holmes (Rami-Tep ritual)

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Aaaaah*. Trying to make me jealous, are you?

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Originally posted by Timmer:
Marian, JAR...spider....SHEET of PAPER!...Easy!!

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You mean... me trying to catch a bird spider with a sheet of paper and a jar??
Geez... just to imagine it my hands began to shake!

My apartment was sprayed for bugs today, spiders specifically. yea!

How' bout Williams' music for the tarantulas on Indy's back in Raiders ?

Re: spiders crawling on/inside mouths:

The incident in France was horrible. I was fully awake at the time, but I've always had a fear of spiders entering the mouth cavity at night while I'm asleep. The mouth is so fragile in those cases - the most fragile of all body openings (okay, enough already - I don't wanna elaborate on that)! I am reminded of the scene in THE ABYSS where that spider/crab thing runs out of the mouth of the drowned body inside the nuclear sub. That picture haunts me time and again.

NP: "The Widow's Web" from KRULL ...

doesn't matter what type really, though I suppose those black widows do put the fear of God into me. I see a red hourglass, you see a dustcloud behind me.

Cool!....I feel lucky!!

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Originally posted by H Rocco:
Does anybody else have these categories?

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I fear all spiders, from a certain size on, but Daddy Longlegs are by far the most horrifying. Although they aren't even real spiders.

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Originally posted by H Rocco:
my mother, who is now a complete and confirmed arachnophobe, still remembers playing with them in the Tennessee forests of her childhood. She wasn't so bothered then.

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*Shiver* That's scary. Could be made into a really horrifying movie.

Simply put, spiders can be given ecological credit till Wells' "The Time Traveler" decides to journey home, but they remain the epitome of evil. Wicked, PURE EVIL!!!

I've been bitten by I don't how many; some when I've been sleeping, and some when I've been awake. Two incidents which thankfully I have no memory of happened when I was a wee lad, and they both involved the hour glass monster, miss black widow. From what I've drawn from my parents, the most clear picture I have of one of the vile attacks was when my brother and I were playing out by some wood in the backyard. Apparently, I almost died, but I was quickly rushed to the hospital and all was well.

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Originally posted by Rang:
But if they enter my territory, I will kindly ask someone from my family to kill the evil beast while I wait in safe distance (as I did last night - thanks go out to my sister-in-law).

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Yeah, that's the only possible thing to do. Problem is, since last December I live in a flat on my own, so when a spider comes out (fortunately there aren't much here), my only friend is the vacuum cleaner.