Spider Baby

'Spider Baby' is a wonderfully inventive and original b-grade movie full of mad fun. Writer/director Jack Hill began as a Roger Corman protege, co-writing 'The Terror' and also working on Coppola's underrated 'Dementia 13', before striking out on his own with 'Spider Baby', a movie which became embroiled in a legal dispute and took four years to get released. Hill went on to direct Pam Grier movies and the trash classic 'Switchblade Sisters' in the Seventies, but it's arguable whether he ever surpassed this cult favourite. Horror legend Lon Chaney, Jr stars with a very thoughtful performance(!), and 'Dementia 13's Mary Mitchel and Karl Schanzer, and 'The House On Haunted Hill's Carol Ohmart are among the supporting cast, but the real stars are newcomers Jill Banner as the bewitching Virginia, and the remarkable Sid Haig as the unforgettable Ralph. Banner went on to appear in the dazzling 'The President's Analyst' before her untimely death, while Haig's ongoing career included several movies with Jack Hill, including blaxsploitation classic 'Coffy', and Lucas' 'THX 1138'. 'Spider Baby' is a brilliant example of what can be achieved on a small budget with some originality and willingness to take risks.

I am amazed at some of the earlier comments on this board concerning this picture. One wonders why the people who hate it with such a passion bothered to contribute to the comments at all? This film is an acquired taste to be sure but I happen to like movies of this sort.

Admittedly Lon Chaney did very few things in the 60's that could be called "memorable". THE HAUNTED PALACE and WITCHCRAFT are the only things that come to mind. (Let us forget about FACE OF THE SCREAMING WEREWOLF entirely and that story about Edward D. Wood directing the scene of Chaney climbing the outside of the building is probably hooey.)

Any movie that opens with Lon singing the title song (it was released as a .45 with Bobby Pickett's 'Monsters Holiday' on the "A" side)moves on to a cameo by Mantan Moreland who pops up long enough to get himself killed and which quickly segues to Chaney as surrogate patriarch to a totally insane family can't be all bad. The Merrye Family is definitely one that you would not want to live nextdoor to. I get the feeling Rhoda Penmark from THE BAD SEED would enjoy hanging around with the 2 sisters (Beverly Washburn and Jill Banner) and Ralph (Sid Haig) can cause shudders just by entering a room.

Is this movie a cult classic? Yes! Some people will not take to it right away (qv, some of the other comments on this board) but if you go into it expecting black comedy you will not be disappointed. Sure go ahead and rent this one. It may take more than one viewing but I think, if you keep an open mind, you might learn to like it.

PS: If you want to catch one of Beverly Washburn's earliest performances check out SUPERMAN AND THE MOLE MEN. She is the little girl whose home is visited by the creatures from beneath the Earth. If you want to see more of Jill Banner, start watching reruns of 'Dragnet'.

From the moment the beginning credits role, you know that you're going to be in for one mental ride! The opening credits themselves are captivating due to the music and the voice over that plays over them, and the film never loses this eerie verve that it creates with the credits. Spider Baby is a captivating and fascinating trek through mental illness from beginning to end and it's quality certainly isn't justified by it's reputation. It's amazing how great and influential films such as this one can become lost and not often spoken of, while other, far lesser films, have gone on to meet wide acclaim. The influence that this film has had can be felt on many films, but most obviously the 70's exploitation classic - The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. The film has the added title 'The Maddest Story Ever Told', and while that may not quite be the case - this is indeed one very demented tale.

The story follows a family of inbreeds that have been afflicted by a genetic disorder known as 'Merrye syndrome', named after the family in which the disorder developed. This malady causes it's victims to enter a state of age regression that starts at the age of ten and continues throughout the remainder of the person's life, rendering them with the intelligence of a child. The final generation of the family has been entrusted to the care of the family chauffeur (Lon Chaney Jnr), and all is well for these odd people until a greedy branch of the family decides that they want to relieve the family of it's home. Mental illness has always, and will always be, a fascinating subject for horror movies as it probes into the unknown and Spider Baby makes best use of that fact.

The film works because it's extremely macabre throughout, and although we hardly see any gore at all - we always know that something bad is just around the corner, and the film features many nasty happenings, from one of the "children" playing 'spider'; a game which involves her wrapping her victim up in rope and proceeding to 'sting' them with a pair of kitchen knives, to the rotted corpse of the family father still lying in it's bed. The cast of characters are superbly odd, and this helps to create the morbid atmosphere that the film revels in. The two girls are the central focus of the film, and they make for two deliciously creepy leads. Their childlike tendencies make them macabre in a way that few horror villains have ever captured. Lon Chaney Jnr's chauffeur is another great piece of characterisation, which is portrayed by way of a great performance. He brings just the right amount of sorrow and love to his character, and provides the backbone of the movie. The black humour is rife within the film and this, and the setting - a rickety old farmhouse - only further helps to instill the morbidity into the viewer's mind. All in all; a very good and underrated horror movie that any and all horror fans would do well to catch if given the chance!

There's a blase, desensitised, black-comedy sensibility to the treatment of horror, violence and sex in this movie which not only anticipates "Night of the Living Dead" a few years later, but also Tarantino's approach decades later, let alone the lesser inheritors of that approach.

There are plenty of moments in this extremely strange little picture which capture the same nightmare-logic of the family banquet scene in "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", or pretty much the whole of "Eraserhead". While "Spider Baby" is funny in a lot of places, and intended to be, the choice of a hereditary neurological disorder as the source of the horror elements, rather than one of the standard horror movie devices (vampire, werewolf, mad scientist, whatever) gives the movie a case of the creeps that starts early and never goes away.

The most bizarre thing in the movie, isn't the weird members of the central family (although they're plenty weird enough to be going on with), it's how director Jack Hill does some things efficiently, some with amazingly ambitious creativity, and others with an equally mind-boggling klutziness. Blame the budget for the latter, I'd guess.

Amidst some amazing performances, (the two sisters and the brother), some blaringly cheesy ones (most of the "straight" roles), Lon Chaney Jr and Carol Ohmart stand out. Chaney, who is evidently not in tiptop physical condition for (ahem) some reason, nonetheless plays completely straight, in a strange, tender-hearted role (particularly in the black comedy context here) which is probably his best work other than "Of Mice and Men". Ohmart has a blowsier version of the strange, nasty, sexy role she played as Vincent Price's wife in "The House on Haunted Hill", and she is one of the most unusual screen presences you'll ever see. One good character part in a moderately-budgeted studio picture with a decent director would have been enough to make her more than a footnote name known exclusively to horror movie nuts.

Sustained weird atmosphere, and a movie unlike any other. Rather than a horror movie, or black comedy per se, it's an exceptionally twisted adult fairy tale. Probably not as good-hearted as "Curse of the Cat People" or "Edward Scissorhands" in the same rough ball-park, but at least as memorable as either.

"Spider Baby" is weird. It's demented. It's insane, and it's easily one of the creepiest movies you'll ever come across. Here's one movie that never comes up in discussions of low budget horror films, but really should. There are virtually no effects, few 'boo' moments, instead relying on classic methods like an intimidating house, creepy shadows etc.

The movie has a simple plot: a couple of distant relatives and their lawyer arrive at a spooky old house with a bad reputation to take control of the estate only to find three teens with 'Merrye' syndrome, a bizarre disease named after the family caused by generations of inbreeding. When the caretaker loses control of the three siblings horrific and hilarious results follow. The buildup is excellent, including the highlight of the film, a hysterical and very creepy dinner scene with several unorthodox menu choices.

The characters are memorable. Lon Chaney Jr. is great as usual in the role of the dangerous children's caretaker, but Sid Haig easily steals the show with a bizarre performance as the spider-like and mentally disturbed Ralph, who does a lot of fun stuff over the course of this movie, like passing off cat as rabbit. The ending shot is quite excellent as well.

All in all this is pretty much the definition of cult classic. It's fun and creepy and hysterical and though it has a following it hasn't suffered from overexposure. No, it's not the best film ever made on a technical or narrative level, but it's wicked fun and it's very, very unique. Enjoy!