The Spider) is an independently made 1958 American black-and-white science fiction horror film produced and directed by Bert I. Gordon, who also provided the plot upon which the screenplay by George Worthing Yates and Laszlo Gorog was based.

Earth vs. the Spider was released by American International Pictures as a double feature in different film markets with either The Brain Eaters or The Screaming Skull.

Jack Flynn is driving down a highway at night looking at a bracelet he bought his teenage daughter Carol for her birthday, when his truck hits a massive spider thread.

The sheriff does not believe Carol and Mike about the giant spider, but their science teacher, Mr. Kingman, persuades him to return to the cave with large amounts of DDT.

The sheriff and Kingman use dynamite to seal the spider in, but then discover Carol and Mike had gone into the cave to retrieve the bracelet her father had bought her as a final memento of him.

Dynamite is again used to seal off the cave, and the sheriff remarks with satisfaction that even should the spider return to life, it will be trapped and starve to death.

[citation needed] The movie theater in which Mike works displays a film poster prominently advertising The Amazing Colossal Man, while the marquee shows that it is currently running Attack of the Puppet People, which happens to also star Kenney.

Attack of the Puppet People was the last film Gordon made for American International Pictures for a number of years, with the director claiming that the studio had not paid him appropriately.

[5] Writing in DVD Talk, critic Glenn Erickson reported that although the film "[o]ccasionally [...] seems to exist in a different dimension," it "works better than most Bert I. Gordon pix because we basically like the teenaged heroes, even though they're so badly directed that it's hard to believe anything they do," further adding that the film's "non-sequiturs are sheer joy for creature feature fans.

"[6] Critic Gary Tooze described the film as "weak, even by the genre's low standards, but its does have appeal with its one dimensional characters and limited plot points.