Legendary Wisconsin director Bill Rebane is breathing new life into his 50-year-old drive-in B-movie masterpiece The Giant Spider Invasion with new characters, new scenes, and a whole new edit.
The Giant Spider Invasion was unleashed upon the world 50 years ago (it seems like just yesterday I was writing about it’s 40th anniversary) in 1975, the same year as Jaws. And, if you ask me, it’s a superior creature feature to its summer blockbuster brethren. But how can that possibly be when Jaws is considered one of the greatest movies ever made, you ask? Well, The Giant Spider Invasion has a few things Jaws doesn’t.
First of all, it was filmed in Wisconsin—around Wausau, Gleason, and Merrill—by Wisconsin filmmaker Bill Rebane.
Second, The Giant Spider Invasion has a seasoned captain (Alan Hale Jr., “The Skipper” from Gilligan’s Island) who doesn’t need a bigger boat.
Lastly, sharks aren’t even that scary when you’re in Wisconsin. But giant man-eating arachnids? That’s a very real threat.
Rebane even takes a good-natured swing at Jaws, when Hale’s character says the giant spider “makes that shark look like a goldfish!”
I mean, it’s a near perfect film.
So I’m both elated and a little nervous at the story from the Green Bay Press-Gazette that Rebane is giving his masterpiece the George Lucas/Star Wars Special Edition treatment.
“Whenever I watched the movie over the last 50 years, I saw so many little flaws, cringing moments,” Rebane said. “Those are the things that I’m trying to take out right now.”
But Rebane is doing more than fixing editing mistakes. He’s reimagining the film with Dan Davies—who wrote and starred in Ed Gein: The Musical—as well as filmmaker Craig Knitt, Oshkosh production manager/producer JB Thompson, and other Wisconsin creatives to film entirely new scenes with new characters that will be period-accurate and blend seamlessly with the original footage.
From JB Thompson’s announcement on the project, “These additions are designed to preserve the integrity and characters of the original while enhancing the story. The result is a hybrid release that respects the past while innovating for the future.”
The Green Bay Press-Gazette article says Davies “envisions the new version to be a sort of love letter to the state, doubling down on the Wisconsin-esque portions of the movie.”
Which I, of course, think is a great idea.
Related: Horror fishing slasher Blood Hook put the giant Hayward muskie on the map
So, if anyone working on this amazing project is reading this and needs a weird bald guy with arachnophobia (who also happens to run a spooky Wisconsin site) as an extra, hit me up!
The upgraded edition of The Giant Spider Invasion is set for a 2026 release.
The Giant Spider Auction
In December 2024, The Giant Spider Invasion hit the auction block at Julien’s. Included in the winning bid was worldwide copyright ownership of the film, remake/sequel rights, and an original 35mm edited negative. It was estimated at $75,000 – $95,000, but didn’t sell.
Neither did the “Original Life-Size ‘Man-Eating Giant Spider’ Prop” which was partially restored for the Merrill Historical Society’s “Bill Rebane’s Hollywood Midwest” exhibit in 2022. This spider was built for close-up shots of the spider eating people, as well as for the scene when the spider attacks the house.
From the auction listing: “This spider was lifted and dropped via crane. It took 4-5 people, mostly teenagers, to sit inside of the spider to operate its legs, pull the eaten victim through the mouth hole, and spray the fake blood out of a garden hose from the inside. These teenagers were inside of the spider when it was dropped from the crane onto the house it attacks and sat through the hot August summer heat of Wisconsin while they did their work on the film.”
The other spider prop used in the film, the one that moves through the hills and chases people around town, was built on the frame of a Volkswagen Beetle. That prop was stolen and sold for scrap years ago, though a few components still exist, like these framed bits and pieces that did sell at the auction.
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