After being somewhat disappointed with the results of 1977's Ruby, I decided it was time to break out the 70's Drive-In Double Feature DVD I watched it on and tackle the second feature on the disc, the much more obscure and low-budget Kiss of the Tarantula. Produced by Daniel Cady, who wrote and produced a slew of adult films under the name William Dancer and brought us such lowbrow genre "classics" as Garden of the Dead and Grave of the Vampire, this is a cheap mix of creepy crawlies and revenge.

Right away I was drawn into its use of an eerie sounding nursery rhyme playing during scenes of a young girl playing with spiders. It's a pretty compelling kick off and introduction to Susan whose love of our eight-legged creatures doesn't sit well with her mother who is constantly bursting into her room and stomping them to death. Add into that the fact her father (Herman Wallner, sporting one killer 'stache!) is a mortician, she's around dead bodies all the time, and mom has been having an affair. This leads to Susan strategically placing a tarantula on her mom's sleeping body causing her to die of a heart attack when she wakes to it crawling on her chest. Problem solved.

Fast forward to years later and a now teenage Susan (Suzanne Ling) is still obsessed with her spider pals but also trying to live a quiet life and fly under the radar. Of course, this being a low-budget horror flick, she's constantly picked-on by her classmates, has to deal with her slime ball molester-type Uncle Walter (Eric Mason) stalking about, and unleashes her pet tarantula on some drunken thugs that have broken into their house. They're just the first of a handful of victims including an unintentionally hilarious moment where a couple making out at the drive-in are slowly (and I mean slowly) swarmed by spiders without ever actually feeling them crawling on them. The script by Warren Hamilton, Jr. just putters along balancing a lot of "what the f*ck" near incest moments between Walter and Susan against mostly silly attack scenes - though there is an okay one involving air vents - before a decently morbid finale that feels a tad too drawn out.

With her innocent looks, Ling doesn't show a lot of personality here. She's just your typical angst riddled weirdo and simply doesn't have the chops to compete with Mason's sleazy turn. Mason, who made tons of one-off appearances on television series and had a smaller role in Scream Blacula Scream, is so scummy here and the only established actor in the bunch as not only does this mark Ling's only movie appearance it's also our only chance to see Wallner's impressive facial hair. The rest of the cast is also filled out with "one and done" performers, so you should be able to know what to expect. In fact, the only other person involved with this worth talking about is the movie's scribe Hamilton, Jr. who has a pretty impressive resume as a sound editor on such films as Halloween II, Poltergeist, Beetlejuice, and Speed - I suppose writing wasn't his true calling.

Kiss of the Tarantula isn't a very memorable time. There's no denying that it's sluggish but, to my surprise, it's also more competently made than expected. It would just be another dull 70's stinker if it wasn't for the bizarre incest subplot and a few inspired moments during the last ten minutes. It's not something I'll ever revisit and, if you have a hankering for 70's spider horror flicks, you should watch Kingdom of the Spiders instead. (Chris Hartley, 12/1/15)

Directed By: Chris Munger.
Written By: Warren Hamilton, Jr.

Starring: Eric Mason, Suzanne Ling, Herman Wallner, Patricia Landon.

aka: Shudder.