Mesa of Lost Women (1953) on Netflix
Approved19531h 10mHorrorSci-Fi
Dr. Aranya breeds human-sized tarantulas and women with spiders' instincts in his lab on an isolated Mexican mesa. The scientist Leland Masterson arrives at his invitation.
- Netflix2.2/5
- IMDb2.7/102,100 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Trailer
Plot summary
In the Muerto Desert, the oil surveyor Frank and his assistant Pepe come across Grant Phillips and Doreen, badly dehydrated, and carry them to a field hospital run by an oil company. Coming round, Phillips talks feverishly of a truck expedition to burn out super bugs bred in a hidden laboratory on the isolated Zarpa Mesa, then tells his story from the start. A narrator turns to Pepe, who knows what the Americans will not accept. A year earlier, the scientist Leland Masterson had accepted an invitation to that mesa from the reclusive Dr. Aranya, who shows him human-sized tarantulas he commands with his mind and women with the instincts of spiders, among them Tarantella. Hormone experiments on men leave them dwarfs, and Aranya means to create spiders with human intellect that answer to his will.
Cast
- Nico Lekas Jan van Croft
- Kelly Drakeas Lost Woman
- John Robert Martinas Frank
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Mesa of Lost Women (1953)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Director Herbert Tevos, born Herbert Schoellenbach, reportedly claimed a German film career and to have directed Marlene Dietrich and Erich von Stroheim in The Blue Angel (1930), which was actually directed by Josef von Sternberg. Mesa of Lost Women is his only known film credit.
SPOILER
Pergor Productions could not get distribution for the film, then titled Tarantula, and sold the footage to Howco Productions in early 1952, with Ron Ormond hired to shoot new material. Tandra Quinn recalled Ormond's new sequences included the scenes of Aranya and Tarantella being killed.- Hoyt Curtin's score, blending flamenco guitar and piano in an apparent free jazz style, was later reused in Ed Wood's Jail Bait (1954).
- The film's giant spiders were wire-controlled props, as in other 1950s science fiction films such as Tarantula (1955) and Queen of Outer Space (1958). The Mesa spider prop was so limited that a single jump was its only action feat.
