La maldición de la viuda negra

This movie was great! Patty Duke & Donna Mills as (fraternal) twins?!? Guess there have been stranger things...like a man-sized Black Widow spider terrorizing Los Angeles! I won't give away who the "spider woman" is but within the first 2 minutes all you have to do is hear her voice & you'll know instantly it is either her or her proper twin cousin from Brooklyn Heights! Fortunately the fx in this film are so realistic you too may even believe that 6ft spiders are made of paper mache. Of course we also get the creature-point-of-view, and since spiders have 8 eyes we see 8 victims at once. If you have the opportunity to see this, you must watch it.

Take Patty Duke, Donna Mills, June Allyson and June Lockhart. Add schizophrenia, were-spiders (similar to -wolves, but with eight legs), 1977 Los Angeles and Dan Curtis. Sprinkle with a bit of nepotism (Tracy Curtis, daughter of director Dan, has 15 seconds showing off on a balance beam that's grafted on like a third arm), add a pinch of bad cinematography and annoying commercial fade-outs, and bake well for what seems like forever.

Garnish with stereotypical "Injuns", gay morgue directors and sassy streetwalkers, then soak in brine for two hours. Prop dialogue firmly on stilts and spit in its eye. That's this movie. I loved it.

Right down to the meaty, slappable smile of the implausible leading man, every detail seemed just a bit ... off. And happily so. If this one doesn't generate derisive howls of laughter at your next homocockail soiree, sweetie, you need to redecorate or something.

In the late 1970s, you had to buy a movie ticket to see this many stars humiliate themselves, I.e., The Swarm, Hurricane, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, etc.

This is just bad. It is bad in a fun way though. You might wince seeing such a great talent like Patty Duke being so awful but you'll forget the more you start laughing.

I'm not going to bother explaining the pmit. Its really irrelevant.

ABC produced some entertraining, fast paced monster movies in the late 70's. This movie wastes no time getting to the action. Since it was made for TV and premiered on a Friday night, it had to be action filled before every commercial break to keep you tuned in. The twist at the end was neat. It's also interesting to see some TV star veterans who you might recognize from popular shows of the 60's, 70's and 80's, like Donna Mills from Knots Landing, June Lockhart from Lost in Space, and Rob Kelly who was one of two actresses that played Pinky Tuscadero on Happy Days.

If you enjoyed this movie, a couple other hidden gems that were ABC made for TV films are The Bermuda Depths starring Carl Weathers and Connie Seleca, about a legendary woman who turns into a giant sea turtle, and Cruise into Terror starring Dirk Benedict and John Forsythe about a cursed Egyptian mummy sarcophagus being transported on a cruise ship. These films won't win any Emmys, and some of the stars were embarrassed to be in them, but nevertheless they are memorable because they were so schlocky and yet well-cast with TV all-stars, and broadcast in an age of television where there were only three networks to choose from.

Apparently, this is only considered minor Curtis but I thought it was pretty well-done for TV. Many films have been made associating femme fatales with the black widow spider, but this gives it a literal spin, thus linking it with the 'atomic monster' cycle of the 1950s where various insects caused widespread panic and terror after growing to enormous size. Ingeniously, this adds yet another level to the mystery (and the fun) by making the villainess a twin (though not identical) so that, once one has swallowed the notion (given incontrovertible evidence in the wake of its killing-spree) that a woman could in fact turn into a monster, there still remains the question of identifying her...and, making the process all the more tougher, is the fact that the lady concerned suffers from schizophrenia and assumes this form (for whatever reason, during the cycle of the full moon) once her other personality takes over!

It seems complicated and it is, with a number of questions remaining unanswered by the end of it: a young girl is eventually established as the daughter (born from a rape!) of the villainess (the twist in the final shot making it more than clear in this case) but she calls both her and her sibling "Aunt" – then who does she think is her mother? Likewise, an old woman is addressed as "Granny" but she is not the twins' mother (played by SHE-WOLF OF London {1946}'s June Lockhart), who is thought to be dead but is actually being held, blinded and crazed after an attack by the monster (about to be victimized again at the climax, she is so distraught as to throw herself out the window!), in a back-room of the house! Confused yet? It transpires that Granny (who goes by the name of Olga and is played by June Allyson, formerly a syrupy lead at MGM) knows about the woman's many afflictions and protects her, while the other twin is completely oblivious to the melodrama going on in their family home! By the way, Donna Mills and Patty Duke Astin appear as the twins, one chic and sought by several men (including those supposedly going out with her sister!), the other somewhat frumpy and introverted.

On the other side of the spectrum, we find down-on-his luck private investigator Anthony Franciosa (I wonder whether his reliable turn here landed him the starring role in Dario Argento's TENEBRE {1982}) who actually almost got it himself in the very first scene and, naturally, he subsequently determines to get to the bottom of things and unravel the mystery. In this, he is helped by his adoring but ditzy secretary (Roz Kelly) and hampered by Police Inspector Vic Morrow (who knows what is going on but does not want it to get around so as not to alarm the community: it was weird watching the actor's uneasiness at each grisly scene-of-the-crime when his own tragic and notorious death 5 years later on the set of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE {1983} must not have been a pretty sight either!). The latter's partner (Max Gail), however, proves more receptive to Franciosa's probing, and also involved are "guest stars" Sid Caesar (operating from an office opposite the hero's and constantly complaining of the cold, aggravating Kelly in the process) and Jeff Corey (as the Indian guide who found the twins, still mere toddlers, and their mother when the plane they were on crashed – with the spider bites received by one of the girls resulting in her current predicament).

Anyway, the film is absorbing and very enjoyable along the way, if not without flaws (apart from those already mentioned): for instance, in the last half-hour or so, when Astin takes center-stage with a bravura performance, a lot of things happen (including two transformations!) in the time it takes Franciosa and Kelly to reach the house (I understand it may have been located some distance from the city but, then, cut-aways to the speeding car should have been incorporated because, as it is, one tends to forget that the hero was even on his way there!). The monster is not too badly rendered, even taking care to have it rush headlong into walls in pain and desperation upon being set on fire (established earlier on as the sole method of destroying the beast).