The Web is back! Lucky episode 13 features Jack Arnold's "Tarantula", known to most as the bit about Leo G. Carroll in the opening song of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". Learn about lab procedures, doomsaying economists of the past, and diseases of the pituitary as John Agar struggles to kiss the girl before she's eaten by a big damn spider! All that and spider spit!

It's the return of guests Zack Handlen and Tim Lehnerer as we talk about Luke Skywalker's hovercar, the connection between sinus headaches and nihilism, and Cory McAbee's relationship odyssey "The American Astronaut". And, oh yeah. It's my birthday!

When a family sitcom needs to regain an audience, a new kid is trotted out. When a horror franchise is in trouble, it's time to combine moth-eaten forces of evil. "House of Frankenstein" sets the bar for horror franchise shark-jumping. All that, and an absurdly appropriate analogy to the comic industry!

Every now and then a film turns you into a bored child, screaming and pleading as mom searches the racks of another discount clothing store. Jess Franco drags me through aisles of low cost boobs and spider puppets in "Mari-Cookie and the Killer Tarantula" - containing all the excitement of an old Doris Wishman film, and so much less.

I recently talked to Mike Zawacki, Detroit area film maker, about cultural fiction, zombies, and turning ideas into movies. Plus, catheter jokes. Information on Mike Zawacki's current projects may be found at http://www.thoughtcollide.com and at http://www.myspace.com/thoughtcollide .

Manless moon maidens! Gold for the taking! And Big Damn Spiders! The Web of the Big Damn Spider returns with a discussion of what it means to be a real man on the moon, and a paranoid conspiracy theory linking John Hughs to the war on terror, as a small exploratory crew face the "Cat-Women of the Moon"! Plus, no few than two microphones, and the addition of a robotic rant alarm!

See how much a film student and an English major can read into a science fiction movie. It's all about aliens and the human condition as Tim Lehnerer and I discuss "Brother from Another Planet".

Sorority girls, escaped lunatics, and a shopping mall... It must be a slasher film! I talk to Zack Handlen about cookie-cutter cut-em-ups as "The Initiation" makes the expected bloody splash on the Web of the Big Damn Spider.

I catch up with Chris Holland (of Stomp Tokyo and The Cult Movies Podcast) for that elusive B-Fest interview and attempt to penetrate the mysteries of B-Fest scheduling and uncover the secret plans of Stomp Tokyo. Plus, we discuss food and booze.

At the end of January, I went to B-Fest in Evanston, IL. There I spent 24 hours (well, 23.5 - it ended early) in an increasingly smelly auditorium watching movies that should never be screened again. In this special double-sized episode, I recount the events of that weekend and attempt to rationalize my excitement at the thought of doing it again next year.