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.

Jeremysnow9 I only gave this movie a shot because i am a fan of Claude Atkins. I am glad i gave it a try. It has the properties of an 50s sci-fi/horror film, only with a modern twist, the spiders are normal size! A plane carrying coffee beans (and killer tarantulas) crashes and spiders escape from the crash site, wreaking havoc on the towns people. It has its good / bad moments. The death scenes are pretty good, the giant bites from the tarantulas, but the corny part is, the spiders are afraid of wasps? But it is well done for the mid 70s. Claude Atkins did a great job in his role as a doctor. I also liked the little kid who first found the spiders, but he sadly dies. 9.5/10

insomniac_rod 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.

Woodyanders This merely okay 70's made-for-TV killer animal fright feature centers on a horde of lethal poisonous tarantulas who run amok and attack folks in the heretofore sleepy little California hamlet of Finleyville after a cargo plane containing the deadly critters crashlands in a nearby field. It's up to take-charge two-fisted fire chief Claude Akins, diligent doctor Pat Hingle, and cranky mayor Bert Remsen to stop the evil arachnids before things get too out of hand. The story has the potential to deliver a suitably creepy nature-turns-nasty yarn, but alas Stuart Hagmann's pedestrian direction, a by-the-numbers script co-written by "The Candy Snatchers" director Guerdon Trueblood, sluggish pacing, infrequent and blandly staged spider attack scenes (although I have to give the film a couple of points for killing off a little boy), and a silly subplot concerning the town's orange crop doom this one to mediocrity. However, the sturdy cast do their best with the generic material (Tom Atkins and Howard Hesseman are especially engaging as the two cargo plane pilots), both Robert Morrison's crisp photography and Mundell Lowe's funky jazzy score are up to snuff, and the last twenty-five minutes with a bunch of people trapped in a warehouse infested with the dangerous buggers makes for a genuinely gripping and nerve-wracking set piece. All in all, this one sizes up as a strictly passable, but altogether rather blah and unexceptional timewaster.