The movie contains:
- Ensemble Dark Horse: The Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew admitted to enjoying Robert Easton's performance as Dan Kester, who was clearly committed to playing the character as loathsome as possible and nailed it.
- Faux Symbolism: The significance of the preacher's furious sermons is unclear. The movie seems to imply that the spider invasion was some kind of judgement from God, except the movie never says what God is judging, or how that actually ties into the plot, given that the heroes apparently solved the problem with a non-supernatural solution. If the spiders were a divine judgement, wouldn't it have been more difficult to stop them than that?
- Narm:
- The fifty-something scientists, having been caught off guard by the spiders, rolling down a hill.
- "VaaAAaaAAaaNCE!"
- Forgetting the flare gun.
- The painfully tortured and drawn-out joke of Vance assuming the other scientist he's meeting with can't possibly be a woman.
- Nightmare Fuel: The scene where it shows a guy being eaten by the giant spider's butt will make your skin tingle.
- Rooting for the Empire: A lot of people root for the spiders to kill off the obnoxious hillbillies.Crow T. Robot: Go spiders, go spiders, go go spiders!
- The Scrappy: The hillbilly characters are so repulsive, you'll root for the spiders.
- Special Effect Failure:
- The Volkswagenspinne. Wide shots usually put a crowd or foliage in front of it so we can't see that its abdomen is rolling along the ground. As if that wasn't enough, it appears to eat people with its butt.
- Also, the legs look like they're made from giant pipe cleaners.
- Several spider victims, notably the deputy at the end, are repeatedly dropped by the crewmembers who are supposed to hoist them into the spider's mouths.
- Squick:
- Dan Kester. As if wanting to spank his teenaged sister-in-law wasn't enough, he chases her around the kitchen table in some unflattering, filthy and close-fitting pajamas. And don't forget that back brace....
- The spider melting into a giant pile of slime at the film's climax is presumably more intentionally disgusting.
