Tarantula (1955) Saturday Monster Movies

In the lonely, sun-scorched deserts of Arizona, an experiment in synthetic nutrition meant to solve world hunger goes horribly wrong. As a result, a gargantuan, mutated tarantula is unleashed upon an unsuspecting town. As livestock vanish and people turn up half-devoured, Dr. Matt Hastings, a small-town doctor, stumbles into the nightmare—piecing together the horror while dodging skeptics, bureaucracy, and the unrelenting march of the monstrous arachnid. The beast moves like hunger itself, devouring all in its path, until firepower and fate bring it down in a climactic battle against napalm and jet fighters.

Like the ever-growing tarantula in the film, sin, once set loose, never stays small—it grows beyond control, consuming everything in its path. Even when the source of the sin is rooted in good desires. Trying to solve world hunger is not a bad thing. However, as with much of humanity’s efforts to solve our self-created problems, our ill-informed solutions only lead to more disaster.

Hastings’s warnings are ignored, just as people often dismiss the dangers of sin until it’s possibly too late. Whether it’s pride, greed, or a "small" compromise, what seems manageable today can devour tomorrow. The time to deal with it is before it grows too large to contain.

Unlike the film, the answer to sin’s problem is not to be found in our power. Only overwhelming sacrifice, found outside ourselves and with God, can solve our slavery to sin, evil, and death.