Production was delayed
for three months beginning in September of 1974 while the producers desperately
searched for their lead actress. So,
you just read that sentence and you’re thinking, “how difficult can that be …
finding an actress?”
It was difficult, because
the role of Susan Bradley demanded that she was comfortable working with her
300 co-stars … full-grown tarantula spiders!!!
VCI Entertainment
announced this past week that director Chris Munger’s 1976 creepy horror tale, Kiss
of the Tarantula, will be available as a Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack for the
first time on Jan. 22.
The roll of the homicidal
Susan went to newcomer Suzanna Ling, who would forsake a future in films for
the stage.
Filmed on location in Columbus,
Georgia — where Munger made extensive use of the local talent — we are
introduced to a young version of Susan (played by Rebecca Eddins), who learns
that her mother (played by her real-life mother, Beverly Eddins) is going to
send her off to boarding school because she feels that Susan’s father, John (Herman
Wallner), loves her more than his double-dealing wife.
Now Susan’s father is a mortician
by trade, which makes Susan’s home life creepy enough. Add to that the nasty habit of Susan’s mother
killing her pet spiders and you have all the makings of an unhinged little
monster. So hearing that she is to be
sent away, she does the only reasonable thing that little monsters would to do,
she plants a deadly spider in her mom’s bed and does away with her!
We now skip ahead to
Susan’s teen years and without mom around, her pet spider kingdom has grown by
leaps and bounds. Events will unfold
that push her over the edge and, like Bruce Davison in Willard — who used his
pet rats to deal with his tormentors — Susan uses her little friends to rid
herself of those who cross her, especially those who would do harm to her eight-legged
pets!
Kiss of the Tarantula is a terrific skin-crawler from the 1970s —
especially for the drive-in crowd — and now it will be available for genre fans
to savor on Blu-ray for the first time.
Bonus features include a
newly-minted commentary by film historian David Del Valle (“Lost Horizons
Beneath the Hollywood Sign”).
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