Listen closely to that theme song. I hope you like it. Because it's going to play through the entire movie, almost non-stop. Anyway, this is one of those "must-see" titles that forms the basic foundation of any solid b-movie structure, and though you may wonder at times how the hell it managed to garner such a reputation, by the end of the film, the reason is clear: it has an awesome title.

So the story is that a man and a woman are picked up in the Mexican desert, half-delirious and ranting about destroying giant spiders. The man then recounts his most recent adventure, in which he becomes the hostage of a seemingly insane man who takes a group of people on a jaunty sightseeing tour to a mysterious mesa, where they promptly crash their plane and discover that the mesa is not unpopulated. A local mad scientist has spliced woman DNA with spider DNA, creating a sexy race of nigh unkillable female slaves who tend to perform sexy dances in the nearby cantinas. For fun and to round out his mad scientist shtick, there are also some dwarves and some giant spiders.

This one is pretty fun. Starts slow, but once it picks up, the movie becomes increasingly cracked in the head until it reaches the stratospherically loopy conclusion. Bombshell Tandra Quinn's slinky nightclub dance remains the signature moment in the film, and that alone is worth the price of admission. That the movie throws in evil dwarves and giant spiders for good measure is just an act of magnanimity. Plus, the crazed Dr. Aranya (oh what are the chances that a guy named Dr. Spider would go on to perform mad experiments involving spiders! That's almost as ironic as a guy named Dr. Freize getting super freezing powers) is played by Jackie Coogan, who would go on to play Uncle Fester. Make no mistake about it, Mesa of Lost Women is one of the greats of bad 50s B cinema for a reason. Watch it on a double feature with The Horror of Spider Island for all your sexy spider related needs.

Labels: Set: Sci-Fi Classics