The film's special effects, which depict giant animals and insects, were advanced for the mid-1950s time period. Real animals, including a rabbit and a guinea pig in Professor Deemer's lab, were used to represent their giant on-screen counterparts. A live tarantula was used whenever the gigantic spider is seen moving. Shooting miniatures were reserved for close-ups of its face and fangs and for the final scenes of the giant spider being set ablaze by the jet squadron's napalm attack. The resulting scenes proved more convincing in some ways, than the giant prop ants used in the earlier Warner Bros. film "Them!" (1954). Of this and the entire film, Jack Arnold said about "Tarantula!": "We decided to do this film because, generally, people are very afraid of spiders".