Spider Labyrinth - In den Fängen der Todestarantel

In the late eighties, it seemed like the Italian film industry went full out to create an interest in their horror movies, resulting in cheeseball films like The Red Monks, Ghosthouse and Witchery. Fulci gave us House of Clocks (good), Aenigma (okay), Demonia and Sweethouse of Horrors (painful), and Lenzi had House of Lost Souls (good) and House of Witchcraft. You've Lamberto Bava's Graveyard Disturbance and Demons 3 The Ogre out there too, not to mention those Zombi sequels and Marcello Avalone's Spectres and Maya and etc etc. None of those are as effective or genuinely scary as Spider Labyrinth. Why, I'm not quite sure, but this film lacks the cheese factor of any of those films and seems to go all out for creating a surreal, creepy atmosphere.

In America, a company who are working on an international project have lost touch with a Professor Roth in Budapest, so they send one of their own, Professor Whitmore, out to Hungary to find out what's going on. He's driven to Roth's house by Roth's beautiful assistant, only to be warned by Roth's wife that he's been acting strangely. Roth himself does appear to be freaked out by something, and when alone with Whitmore, gives him some notes and Polaroid photographs and tells him to meet him later that evening.

Whitmore then goes to his hotel, run by a creepy lady and apparently full of strange residents who continually stare at Whitmore. He also discovers that Roth's assistant lives across the road and isn't shy about showing of her assets, if you know what I mean. Once he goes back to Roth he finds the man murdered (hanging from the ceiling by cobwebs), and that he never had a wife in the first place. That's bad enough, but the local policeman takes Whitmore's passport, so now he's stuck in a strange land.

He decides to do a bit of investigating and this leads to people (including William Berger) trying to warn him off, him getting lost in Budapest itself (where the city seems to deliberately get him lost), and a strange creature with a nerve shattering shriek going around killing people. I'll go no further than that plot wise.

What works here is the great music, cinematography, and the ending, which took me by surprise. There's no attempts here to connect with the youth eighties style by having youngsters in the film (like Ghosthouse or House of Lost Souls), no cheese (as in Witchouse), and some serious time has been spent making every shot creepy, to give you the feeling that every single person Whitmore encounters has something to hide. I see similarities with Argento in some respects, but this film unfolds a lot more slowly and there's not a drop of blood until 40 minutes in.

I'd never even heard of this film until last week, and I've been actively seeking out Italian horror for over fifteen years! It's available on Youtube in a blurry, Japanese subtitled version, so you can watch it for free, but this needs to be released on DVD. It's brilliant.

This is some of the most weak, limp, almost insouciant direction I've ever seen. Scenes generally progress with a flummoxing carefree ease that suggests a stroll in the park instead of a genre flick, and much the same goes for the acting. Nevermind the curiously flimsy, meager, lackadaisical dialogue - actors' delivery, expressions, and even their movement are mostly casual and unbothered even as strange goings-on begin to mount. There are exceptions, sure, and sometimes the direction or acting are more vibrant, as seen in the first death sequence we witness nearly halfway in. Sometimes filmmaker Gianfranco Giagni does manage to strike the right tone or infuse some easy atmosphere, aided by the original music of Franco Piersanti. Yet even Piersanti's music sometimes struggles in a similar manner. One may reasonably suppose that the proceedings would suitably intensify as the plot develops, and they'd be correct in part, but it continues to be the case to an astounding degree that 'The spider labyrinth' carries itself with a relaxed, indifferent nonchalance more closely resembling a television program about, I don't know, tracing the history of recipes for chocolate cake.

All this is more bizarre still as I recognize how well the picture is made in other regards. The filming locations are gorgeous; the production design and art direction are very easy on the eyes, with some fabulous detail to come. There are some extra fetching shots throughout, some that would look right at home if framed on a wall. The stunts and practical effects are excellent, and gnarly, including some terrific stop-motion animation; there's even fine consideration for lighting, and sound effects. At its best I really do like the score; at its best this movie does boast some nice touches of atmosphere (predominantly in the last stretch). Broadly speaking the costume design, hair, and makeup are swell. And there are some solid ideas in the story and screenplay: a man unwittingly drawn into something he doesn't grasp, ties between ancient relics and sinister conspiracies in the modern world, and something still more monstrous lurking on the edges. The notions underlying the plot, the scenes, and even the characterizations are pretty fantastic and ripe for cinematic treatment, and intermittently - again, predominantly in the last stretch - the feature really does discover some welcome strength, the vitality that one would hope to find in horror at large.

Yet for all the strong craftsmanship, and all the good ideas on hand, how the screenplay is fleshed out is decidedly more questionable. By Jove, we don't particularly get plot development or an unfolding mystery, we very gawkily and inelegantly get a wealth of plot and most answers all at once at about the one-hour mark. Through to the end there are troubled spots in the music. Through to the end the acting is too often marked by glaring unconcern - for the majority of the length Roland Wybenga rarely comes off well, the poor guy - and Giagni's direction is peculiarly easygoing. The last twenty minutes or so are notably vivid, building into a superb climax, and the ending is a delight (and also the one time when Wybenga's informal composure specifically works). Even observing clear influences (some giallo here, some John Carpenter there, and so on), 'The spider labyrinth' is splendid and enjoyable when it's firing on all cylinders. And that makes it all the more odd that so much of the title is kind of anemic. On the one hand I want to like it more than I do; on the other hand, for it to be so uneven, I wonder if I'm not being too generous.

When all is said and done this is worth watching, for the payoff rewards our patience. But one should surely temper their expectations in light of how the last stretch especially needs to compensate for such infirm dominant construction. Don't go out of your way for 'The spider labyrinth,' and don't necessarily get your hopes up, but it's good enough overall to warrant checking out if you have the opportunity.

Not only do I hunt the independent flicks, I also try to track down those flicks that were never released in a proper way, no DVD or official VHS was released. Sometimes they were only available on VHS at a rental base. Most of those flicks are well sought after and aren't cheap to buy. But sometimes if you hunt and are patient you can find those gems. This is one of them. It's an Italian horror movie but I wouldn't say that it is a giallo. Therefore there are to much strange things going on, the occult takes an important factor in the storyline. It never bores but as always with the Italian ones the sound isn't what it should be. The added sounds like doors closing or the wind is always too loud and that makes you look for failures. Like when the wind blows hard you see leaves flying away in front of the street but further the trees are standing still. Do I need to say more. But the movie works and has his creepy moments. the killings aren't bloody or gory but they work and that's good, isn't it. There is some stop motion used with the rip off of the spiderhead scene in The Thing, but still it's worth seeing. The version I have is English spoken with Japanese subs and clocks in at 87 minutes, uncut. And for those perverts out there, yes, some nudity is involved but due the Japanese release private parts are blurred, you know what I mean...

The Spider Labyrinth, to my knowledge, has never had an official DVD/Blu-Ray release and that's a shame. Much of its power comes from its creepy visuals. The dialogue and a few plot developments don't always work, but there's no shortage of imaginative moments throughout.

A young man ravels overseas to see what the hold up is with a professor and finds the man incredibly paranoid to the point of stark raving mad. He's found murdered the next day and this leads to an investigation into the occult.

The Spider Labyrinth is similar in mood and story to some of Dario Argento's supernatural giallos and it also has a nicely paranoid feel like a Roman Polanski horror film. Maybe not everything works, but it's a journey worth taking.

"Spider Labyrinth" is a strange and slow but engaging Giallo-type thriller that doesn't have any big names involved in the production (except maybe – if you're an insider – special effects wizard Sergio Stivaletti) but it nevertheless stands as one of the greatest undiscovered gems of late 80's Italian horror cinema. Around this time, the Giallo (which is essentially a stalk & slash movie with some additional trademarks) ran low on inspiration, but this movie brings some imaginative diversity to the sub genre by adding occult sub plots. Sort of like Sergio Martino already attempted to achieve in the early seventies with "All the Colors of the Dark". The plot opens with a brief but atmospheric flashback/dream sequence immediately clarifying the protagonist's link and phobia for large spiders; a small detail that will prove very relevant later in the film. Alan Whitmore is an American professor studying ancient dead languages. He's part of his university's project called Intextus, which concerns professors from all around the globe collaborating to translate and comprehend one specific long lost language. The correspondent in Budapest – Prof. Roth – hasn't been heard of in a long time and, since his input is particularly fundamental, Alan is assigned to travel to Hungary and meet up with him. Alan arrives in an overall uncanny and hostile environment, but nevertheless comes into contact with Roth through his amiable and stunningly beautiful secretary Genevieve. Shortly after, Prof. Roth is found murdered under mysterious circumstances and Alan gradually becomes sucked deeper and deeper into a (spider's) cobweb of occult conspiracies. Slow and indistinctive at first, "Spider Labyrinth" marvelously unfolds into a hugely macabre and unnerving thriller. Considering the plot (and perhaps after a few slight changes) and some of the malignant characters, THIS should have been the final chapter in Dario Argento's Three Mothers trilogy! Director Gianfranco Giagni may perhaps be a relatively unknown name in the Italian horror industry, but he promptly proves himself to be capable of maintaining a grisly atmosphere throughout the film and even proportionally builds up more tension towards a literally mesmerizing climax. The sinister Budapest filming locations form the ideal setting for a tale like this, but everything else is entirely Giagni's accomplishment (like, for example, empty swings and toy balls bouncing seemly by themselves). Then, last but not least, there's the work of Sergio Stivaletti in the special effects department. The effects – and particularly those during the finale – are shocking and masterfully nauseating. I've always been a big fan of Sergio Stivaletti's 'art' and once again he surpassed himself his own craftsmanship. If you like horror, and I do mean Horror with a capital H, I guarantee you'll be staring at the last fifteen minutes of "Spider Labyrinth" with your mouth and eyes wide open. Bravo, Mr. Stivaletti!