cult film freak: DEBORAH WINTERS IN 'TARANTULAS: THE DEADLY CARGO'

Title: TARANTULAS: THE DEADLY CARGO Year: 1977 Rating: ***1/2

The JAWS craze went beyond hungry fish as the TV-Movie TARANTULAS: THE DEADLY CARGO winds up with a town torn between business and people's safety, with cranky Bert Remsen in the Murray Hamilton mayoral position, running an orange mill where the furry-legged-critters wind up...

That's after what seems like two separate short films, especially the intro where grungy maverick pilot/smugglers Howard Hessmann and Tom Atkins sneak coffee beans away from the local crooked government, and they wind up as Janet Leigh from PSYCHO characters in that they only seem permanent...

aka Tarantole: Il volo della morte aka Carga mortal

After crash-landing in the orange crop town, inadvertently bringing the titular CARGO along with them, this otherwise title-oriented creature-feature builds mystery/thriller tension as random deaths are initially enigmatic...

Disconnected with the tarantulas and, before computers, fearless crews known as spider wranglers provided the genuine article, making for more bonafide viewer-cringe moments...

Bert Remsen and Deborah Winters in TARANTULAS: THE DEADLY CARGO

Although. visually, they're a very beautiful black and yellow color, and are actually known as Banana Spiders, shown a lot in the finale when buried lead Deborah Winters, along with boyfriend/local airfield partner, begin to investigate...

And are eventually teamed with a reluctant Remen along with Pat Hingle the town doctor and Claude Akins the stalwart fire chief, who, although capable enough as a banded group, were more intriguing on their own before everything got figured out, far too soon.