Why I Love: Spider Baby

I was happier than Rob Zombie at a truck stop when Final Girl ’s Stacie Ponder announced Spider Baby, or The Maddest Story Ever Told as this month’s Film Club pickaroo. To quote my original review (read here) back on Valentine's Day of aught 9:

“This is horror comedy the way it should be done. Unique and pitch-perfect performances around the board, disturbing images that tickle like a spider’s spindly legs, and cheerfully self-aware dialogue to make you giggle. If this film doesn’t make you smile, your heat is made of stone that needs to be ground and served on a platter with rabbit and fungus. Nothing personal. It just is.”

I stand by that statement with even more conviction one year later, especially as I’ve since seen Jack Hill’s quirkily brutal 1968 black comedy about four more times. I adore it because gosh darnit, it’s one of the most lovable genre films I know. My original review spouts oodles of admiration, and I’d like to build upon that here with a new installment I hope to eventually Page Widgetize called, plain and simple, Why I Love (a movie I've seen many times).

5 Reasons:

1. Lon Chaney Jr.

With a rich baritone and unfolded map of a face, Chaney’s presence is such a solid base of kind warmth. Nearing the end of his career (and life), the once famed Wolfman turns in an earnest performance that somehow reminds me of why I’ve always wanted to hug the Cowardly Lion.

2. Family Love

Sure, Virginia, Ralphie, and Elizabeth aren’t the clan you’d like to be waiting on at your Denny’s waitressing gig, but the Merryes are undeniably a loving a family through and through. Chaney’s Bruno is the guiding force, a man who has devoted his life to providing the best possible conditions for three monstrous children to spend a few years. The sisters’ devotion to Ralphie is plain adorable. Heck, even the family pets are treated with kindness and gentility (so what if they happen to be fuzzy man-eating tarantulas). 

3. Quirkiness of the ‘Normal’ Characters

It’s easy to write off Quinn Redeker and Mary Mitchel as token Marilyn Munster tropes. Clean cut and attractive, both “Uncle” Peter and Ann seem to fade behind the outright wackiness of Sid Haig’s slobbering Ralphie and Jill Banner’s naughty Virginia, but pay close attention to just how much fun both actors have with their smaller roles. Redeker’s blissful sunniness makes him the truest innocent--a feat in itself amid madness, cannibalism, and near incest. Mitchel’s Ann is rather adorable, especially when she’s imitating Universal monsters or, as most the film, absolutely drunk. 

4. Music

How the opening theme song--sung by a sly Lon Chaney Jr. himself--never made it on a  juke box beside Monster Mash is beyond me. It’s an adorably macabre, cleverly worded ditty worthy of annual Halloween replays, daily ringtones, and wedding processionals. Likewise the film’s musical score--something I never really listened for the first two viewings--is equally playful and bombastically fun.

5. Sisterly Bonds

As Virginia and Elizabeth, and Jill Banner and Beverly Washburn are simply perfect. They bicker. They tattle. They pout. Occasionally, they drop their competitive snickering in order to protect big/little brother Ralphie or sweeten themselves up to dear old Bruno. In other words, they’re sisters, for better and worse. Although the raven haired Banner and petite blond Washburn share no physical resemblance, we never doubt for one instant that Virginia and Elizabeth share the most dramatically binding of all family bonds.

------------------------
There you have it. If you still haven’t seen Spider Baby, I will be sending my minions of black widows to your home to sit you down, spin webs around you and your Laz-E Boy, and insert the wonderfully featured (including a super cheerful commentary with the rightfully proud Hill & Haig) special edition into your DVD player for immediate viewing. Once watched, be sure to head over to Final Girl and busy yourself with a roundup of other reviews that damn well better heap mountains of praise upon Spider Baby with equal fervor. Otherwise, those black widows are going off their vegetarian diet and righting what’s wrong in the world.

Field Trip!

Most of you are probably well versed in the ways of Stacie Ponder, founder of Final Girl (aka the Citizen Kane of horror bloggery). Aside from being a kickass writer and stick figure cartoonist, she's also done mountains for the blogging community itself, the latest being the Bloggenaire series of 'interviews' (or random questions that make a decent amount of sense) with other Internet film geeks.


And today, yup yup, you can learn my thoughts on Adrienne Barbeau, snuggies, French people, lye, and what my funeral will hopefully be like (obviously, expect karaoke). Head here for a read, and stay for the cupcakes of not-actual-cupcake goodness located elsewhere on Final Girl, like The Scare-ening Radio Show with Stacie and Pretty/Scary 's Heidi Martinuzzi (Wednesdays 11PM Eastern time, complete with a chat room that makes you feel totally Strangeland!). Also, the official Film Club's next due date rolls around Monday with Spider Baby, and I urge anyone with a blog to join because a) it's always a good time to see your fellow fans' take on the same film and b) I'll bet you 12 Cadbury Creme Eggs that Spider Baby is better than anything else you're planning on watching this year and c) if you haven't seen Jack Hill's black comedyish schlocker, you're simply a bad person responsible for why there's so much suffering in the world.

Get on it.

Are We Dead Yet?

In a few days, I’ll be hopping in a car and driving down south with a few friends for a mobile summer vacation. I know what you’re thinking: how could someone so well-versed in horror films possibly risk such a journey unless she’s itching to be chased, violated, and eaten by prehistoric cave people or rabidly maladjusted children. Thankfully, it’s because of those countless hours spent in front of straight-to-VHS rentals that I’m confident I have what it takes to survive. To be sure, I’ve compiled a few key points to remember when traveling through unchartered (at least by urbanite) terrain in an automobile.

1. Focus on the road

I have an odd, yet justified hatred of any film--particularly horror--that spends too much time in the front seat of a moving vehicle. More often than not, such a scene will feature the driver irresponsibly turning his or her head towards the passenger to carry out a conversation only to then cut to the shocked partner screaming “Watch out!” as the car veers off the road to avoid hitting a stray animal, child, or ghostly presence. (See The Descent, Children of the Corn, and about a thousand other films featuring more than one character on a highway.) A variation on this lesson can be seen in one of the most popular recent entries in the road trip gone awry genre, Wrong Turn. Leave it to seemingly intelligent med student Desmond Harrington to make the fatal error of shifting his focus from the windshield to the radio. The result? A broken leg, busted Mustang, and deadly chase with cannibalistic inbred West Virginian mutants. Take heed, young viewers: as humans, most of us only have two eyes. Glue ‘em to the windshield and let no spatula pry them off.

2. No skinny dipping

Partially because most natural waters are littered with some very unnatural waste. Also, if my 9th grade biology teacher was telling the truth, August is the time for clams and other sea creatures to deposit their sperm in aquatic environments for the reproduction season. Personally, I’m not quite at the right time in my life to cross into Cronenbergian body territory as the woman impregnated by a mollusk. (I get the feeling such a process is far less fun than it sounds.) The most important reason to stay clothed in the water, however, is that skinny dipping is, by all rules of the horror canon, a sin punishable by death. Take the nice young ladies of Tourist Trap, none of whom partake in any visible sexual activity, all of whom experienced terrifying abuse at the waxy hands of a backwoods artist who got a fleeting glance of their young bodies when they made the fatal error of diving bare into a private lake. Sometimes, that's all it takes to then be strangled, stabbed, and molded into a loose-jawed mannequin.

3. No hitchhikers

What, you mean I shouldn’t pull over and open my car door to that dusty bearded hobo with suspiciously red fluid leaking from his sack? But what of my karma, you ask, with good samaritan glitter in your wide eyes. Keep a running tab and call Sally Struthers when you get a fews bars on your cell phone. Picking up hitchhikers is the surest ticket to a bloody chase at the wrong end of a chainsaw or pesky stalking courtesy of one of the truest psychopaths cinema has ever given us in the pristinely blond body of Rutger Hauer. Remember Leatherface’s skinny big brother? Or how about the gutty mess those unlucky pretty young people never got the chance to clean up in the 2003 remake? Not to mention the finger fries and torso tearing of The Hitcher . Sure, that obnoxious Franklin deserved a little stabbage, but then you (and by default, us) had to deal with his whinings all night. And yes, driving solo cross country can be a lonely, but that’s what obnoxious radio commercials and unfunny DJs were made for. Just remember to see Rule #1 and tuned into one station until the next red light. 

4. No sassing the locals

Sure, rural townsfolk are different, what with their soder pop and mustard on hamburgers (in New York, that offense will send you straight to Ryker’s Island Maximum Security Prison). Always remember, however, that those same bumpkins whose blackened teeth gave you a chuckle can lead you straight into disaster, such as the wrong end of a black market organ donation ring a la Turistas. Eli Roth’s comedic horror homage Cabin Fever is ripe with lessons on how to behave south of the Mason Dixon Line. A few I picked up:

a) Never force a friendship on shy children. Some are socially awkward, but more importantly, some are well-versed in kung fu

b) No thieving the mom-and-pop shops. Particularly when pop wields a shotgun.

c) Avoid peeping on married women. This is an especially bad idea when your friends are dying, you’ve blown up your car, and you may be infected with a flesh eating bacteria like silly little Ryder Strong, who loses his last chance of getting some help when he lingers a tad too long at a local’s window. 

5. No taking advice about off-the-beaten track attractions from locals

It’s not on a map. GPS has nothing to say about it. But that scabby clown dripping in fried chicken grease swears it’s the greatest place since Dollywood. That’s right folks, do not, I repeat, do NOT take traveling directions from suspicious locals, particularly when they survived Spider Baby to grow into older, rounder, and more vicious backwoods peddlers of local town lore like Sid Haig's Captain Spaulding in Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses. This is a man who, along with his not-quite-fit-for-society family, is so evil he'd actually lure Rainn Wilson into death. You have to be pretty badass to take down Dwight Schrute, and/or really heartless to want Rainn Wilson exterminated. So. If you hit a rest stop littered with mutated skeletons and busting with whispers of a true roadside attraction detailing the life of one of the country's most brutal serial killers...

Oh who am I kidding. There’s no way in hell would I NOT take that advice. The only real question is at whose hands do I ultimately perish. Considering my lifelong complications with Barnum & Bailey's most ubiquitous entertainers, my corpse will probably be shipped home stained with white pancake makeup. But hopefully, I’ll experience enough adventure in those fleeting moments before my untimely death to crank out a few more blogs from beyond the grave. 

Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!

A recent viewing of 1995’s Rumplestilskin gave me 90 minutes of awful fairy tale jokes, muted kills, and a medieval troll with a Bronx accent battling out a future heroine on NBC’s Passions. How surprised would you be if I told you the filmmakers were also responsible for another early 90s little person horror, the one and only pogo stick stabbing Leprechaun?  And how disappointed am I that Warwick Davis’ feisty Irishman does not even stop by for a Hitchcockian cameo? 

I don’t doubt that the director of Rumpelestilskin had that sleeper of a Jennifer Anniston hit on his mind the entire filming process and banked on a multi-film franchise wherein the baby-eating Rumpy and the shoe cleaning redhead team up for a wacky road adventure where hijinks ensue and puns are abused. More likely, there’s a script somewhere buried in a studio basement chronicling a Freddy Vs. Jason-like battle set in the petite section of a department store. For good reason, this didn’t happen, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t inspire me to imagine a few more notable showdowns of horror I’d like to see. 

Place your bets and sound the bells:

1.Let the Right One In‘s Eli vs. Anne Rice’s Claudia

My team: Eli

Vegas favorite: Claudia

Kirsten Dunst’s curly haired bloodsucker may seem a little too prissy to best Sweden’s latest vampire queen, but the future Mary Jane Watson had plenty of bite when it came to attacks. The fascinating Eli, on the other hand, has a slightly larger conscience that could potentially lead to some weaknesses in hand-to-hand combat. Plus, she doesn’t seem to enjoy the kill, shifting the work to her handler whenever possible, whereas the eternally young and better-dressed Claudia hunts everyone from little boys to chubby samaritans with equal relish. Should the fight become a tag-team match, however, Eli may squeak by with the help of the devoted and slightly sociopathic Oskar. Claudia is saddled with two pretty boys who are far too easily distracted by a smoldering Antonio Banderas and/or ruffled sleeves. Know the setup before putting down your cash.

2. Norman Bates vs. Leatherface vs. Buffalo Bill

My team: Leatherface

Vegas favorite: Leatherface

Ed Gein did some truly terrible things in his life, including inspiring Hannibal, the Renee Zellwegger/Matthew McConaughey starring TCM installment, and Gus Van Sant’s Psycho . We’ll overlook a few reprehensible sequels and get to the meat of a few classic villains, then throw them all in a mud pit and aim a tranquilizer gun at the winner...who is undoubtedly from Texas. Buffalo Bill has the best style and Norman Bates gets the sentimental vote, but really, how can a poodle-petting tailor and a mild-mannered mama’s boy even come close to competing with the best (and best equipped) butcher in the south?

3.Leslie Vernon vs. Man Bites Dog’s Benoit

My team: Leslie Vernon

Vegas favorite: Leslie Vernon

When these two murdering media whores butt heads, the results could easily be the best reality show of all time. But unless we’re talking Survivor All Stars , there can only be one winner. Benoit is a bit more of a utility serial killer, with methods ranging from full body gutting to inspiring fatal heart attacks in the elderly. Vernon edges out the Belgian sociopath with overall endurance and athletic ability, plus years of intense training that should hold up in any fight with a cigarette smoking pianist. At the same time, Benoit does have one major advantage over the charismatic Vernon: a revolver and good aim. Then again, when was the last time a gunshot put (and kept) a good slasher down? 

4. Ragers of 28 Days Later vs. Romero’s Traditional Undead

My team: Shamblers

Vegas favorite: Shamblers

Sure, those steroid-high sprinters would take an early lead in establishing world domination, but like Leslie Vernon, Shamblers don’t die easily. As Danny Boyle taught us and countless horror nerds have preached, infected humans are ultimately mere mortals restricted to the same biological life limitations as you or me. Give them a few months and they will starve. True zombies, however, are the cockroaches of the apocalyptic future. I’m not going to get into the biology of what happens if a Rager spits blood in a Shambler’s eye or if a slow-moving ghoul takes a bite out of an angry plague victim because it doesn’t matter. Somewhere in the world I don’t ever want to live in (okay, not true at all), there is a locked car or jammed closet door housing a Savini made corpse with one thing on its mind. And when the last of those infected breath their last rabid breath, the dead will shamble on. To eat them.

5.The Firefly Clan vs. Spider Baby ’s Merrye Family

My team: Merryes

Vegas favorite: Fireflies

I'm actually not unsure that Jack Hill’s Merrye clan--which included a young, rabid, and and skinny Sid Haig without hair--aren’t ancestral relations to Rob Zombie’s psychotic Devil’s Rejects--which, whatdya know, includes an older, rabid-ish, and not skinny Sid Haig...still without hair. The Merryes are twisted and murderous, but also entertaining and a total blast to hang out with. The Fireflies are sadistic and annoying, although they do know how to party. Sadly I don’t see beloved little Virginia, Ralph, and Elizabeth successfully fighting off the knife-and-gun wielding Baby and Otis, although Lon Chaney’s adoptive patriarch could probably take a nice bite out of Haig’s fatherly clown. 

6. Death, Final Destination, vs. Death, The Seventh Seal

My team: FFD

Vegas favorite: SSD

Though we never actually meet him or her, Final Destination’s embodiment of Death (herein known as Fred) comes off an awful lot like a Bond villain. It has a very important job in disposing of a few attractive characters, but Fred seems to find the task impossible to do without pomp and circumstance (I’m expecting a shark tank to make an appearance in the upcoming installment). In contrast, Igmar Bergman’s personification of the big D (let’s call him Sal) set the standard for fifty plus years of pop culture references (the high point being William Sadler’s take in Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey) by making a tall goth dude with an uncanny skill at chess. I couldn’t really hazard a guess as to Fred’s ability with pawns, but I’m sure he could think up a neat and painful way to use that pointy little cross atop the bishop piece. Of course, by the time’s he’s done that, Sal has already taken the queen and cornered the king. Checkmate.

7. Inside‘sLa Femme vs. Pamela Voorhees

My team: La Femme

Vegas favorite: Mama V

I’m calling this fight on sheer numbers. Yes, Beatrice Dalle’s baby-craving home invader is hardcore and creative, but Mrs. Voorhees axed into an entire summer camp staff AND managed to inspire a 12 film and growing franchise that defined (for better and much much worse) the 1980s. With that kind of cred, I can’t imagine Betsy Palmer losing her head over a former model wielding home scissors.

8.High Tension’s Marie vs. Martyrs’s Lucie

My team: Lucie

Vegas favorite: Marie

I declare such a matchup immediately forfeit, as Marie’s very character defies any logic. Sure, I could say that the pixie-cut Frenchwoman has proven herself a worthy successor to a camp-hating hockey fan and a William Shatner faced Illinoisian, but that would mean accepting that everything that happens in High Tension makes any sense. Which it doesn’t. So. Call the fight before it starts and give poor Lucie something to smile about. After all, the poor dear’s been through quite a lot.

9. Damien vs. the entire underage population of Village of the Damned vs. Pet Semetary’s Gage vs. Rhoda Penmark vs. The Brood vs. the triple threat of Bloody Birthday , and any other juvenile horror villain:

Toss ‘em all in a deep deep ball pit and let them sort it out. The results may be too chaotic to call, but I imagine the last two standing to be Bloody Birthday’s villainess and the overachieving Bad Seed herself. And if that fight doesn’t scare you from ever having--or looking at--children, then you, my fierce friend, are the toughest competitor of all.

Martyrs, Spoiled

Me: Psst. Did you see Martyrs?


You: No.


Me: Go away.


You: Dude(tte). What’s your problem?


Me: I can’t go into any detail whatsoever about this movie without spoiling it grosser than a gallon of milk left open in an Elm St. boiler room.


You: Oh.


Me: Yeah.


You: So...should I, like, watch the movie?


Me: Yes.


You: Is it great?


Me: Eh. Yes. No.


You: Yes or no?


Me: I’m not sure. But it’s definitely very good.


You: Okay.


Me: Yeah.


You: Um, later.


Me: I’m glad we had this conversation.


That’s right folks. I did indeed major in Playwriting and English and graduate cum laude. Onto the review, which, in case my Shakespearean dialogue was a little too dense, contains SPOILERS that will make you want to throw hungry wolverine clawed kittens in my direction.

You’ve been warned:


Like many works of art and the artists that create them, a good deal of horror films struggle with identity crises. Their makers have clearly seen enough canon to know what’s expected of their genre and strive to recreate what’s worked in the past while occasionally casting a line out to catch something fresh. The recent (and recently reviewed) Frontier(s), for example, hit all the notes of backwoods horror birthed by classics like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (or the earlier and beloved Spider Baby), but hinted at something new with Nazi undertones and a disappointingly unexplored dystopian setting. Unfortunately, Frontier(s) stopped short of forming anything revolutionary. For all the moody chaos in the bleak police state future, it delivered straight--if exceptionally well-done--gore cinema (known today as the heavily stigmatized torture porn).


Martyrs, the Canadian/French sleeper that has been making its prestigious rounds through the DVD community this past year, turns the confines of horror sub-genres into a fascinating, intelligent, and imperfect collage. Just when you think you know what type of film auteur Pascal Laugier is delivering (mangled ghostly girl? J-horror!), one shockingly explicit action transforms the story and style into another (shotgun in suburbia? home invasion!) and another (secret torture den? Underground society conspiracy!) until finally, the last 30 minutes lets Martyrs come into its own... for better and worse.


Quick Plot: Somewhere I never want to go in an industrial area of France, a young girl runs screaming through an empty morning street. We soon learn that this is Lucie, a mysterious orphan who was held captive and tortured, though no culprit or motive has been discovered. The understandably disturbed child is befriended by the pretty and maternal Anna, her roommate at a sad little orphanage that seems not entirely safe from the ghosts of Lucie’s past.

15 years later, the action shifts to a secluded upper middle class home where a typical family eats breakfast over the usual morning bickering. The doorbell rings. Father answers it, his face registering confusion, fear, and (possibly) recognition before a blast of shotgun busts through his stomach. At the other end of the smoking weapon is a now grown Lucie, her face still holding all the fear and hell of the little girl we met ten minutes earlier.

And then other stuff happens.


I could continue to describe the story, but if you’re reading this far, you already know it (and if you don’t and therefore haven’t heeded my SPOILER warning, you deserve a large heaping of force-fed gruel and systematic beatdowns). A lot of things happen in Martyrs, and none of them are good. Okay, a lot of things happen in Martyrs and none of them are any more pleasant than a route canal performed by Steve Martin’s dentist character in Little Shop of Horrors. At the same time, this isn’t a Saw sausage fest that tries to top itself or other extreme films with cinematic violence for shock’s sake. Bad things happen because the story demands them. Bad things happen because there are people in this world that do them.

Long haunted by a gollum-ish female, Lucie shoots some people--two innocent, two not. This does nothing to quell the demon that hunts her. When Anna meets the inspiration for Lucie’s trauma, she (and we) is equally repulsed, terrified, and heartbroken. It’s almost a relief to see her head blown off, for both the character’s sake and our own.

Like the film itself, there is no clear morality in the universe. People torture young women to unlock a mystery that probably shouldn’t be unlocked. Lives are destroyed in beyond painful ways. Yet the head mistress of this diabolical underground community gets her answer: a martyr is made in Anna, a skinless Joan of Arc without the independence to do anything with her bravery.


Or maybe Anna wins. What she tells the grand torturess, we never know. Maybe she lies. Maybe she whispers horrors of what lies beyond this world to terrify and guilt this macabre madame into suicide. Maybe she creates an imaginary eden to lure the old woman closer and quicker to an eternity of hell. Or maybe she has nothing to report and proves that the years of cruelty were for naught. We don’t know.

Personally, I’m not ready to rank Martyrs as a Great Film just yet. It’s an excellent movie, yes, and one that is clearly made by an artist with the potential to steer the genre in a solidly new direction. Technically, Martyrs is near perfect; the acting is spot on, the visuals are beautiful, and the editing is effective. If there’s a flaw, it comes somewhere at the 40 minute mark, where, despite what I recall as being tense and engrossing staging, something starts to drag. Maybe it’s the Haute Tension-ish look sparked by a pretty girl in a bloody tanktop or the not-too-surprising first reveal of Lucie’s real tormentor. I can’t put my finger on it, but at some point, I fell out before coming back.

Laugier does not reinvent the horror film, but he does reshape what’s already there with fascinating results. One hour in, I realized that I had absolutely no idea where this film was going. I haven’t really felt that way since the total surprise of The Descent. Where Neil Marshall’s spelunking scarefest led us into a nightmare with jumps and fear, Laugier’s Martyrs starts with hell and philosophically transforms it into purgatory.

High Points
Although we never get to truly know either character, both Morjana Alaoui and Mylene Jamponoi make intensely sympathetic and haunted characters


The minimalist score constantly evolves throughout the film, never settling on a predictable pattern to warn us of mood shifts


From the snowing feather gunshot to Anna’s gleaming eyes, Laugier creates some incredibly memorable visuals

Low Points
While I originally admired the opening Peeping Tom-esque home movie documentary feel of the child Anna and Lucie, it’s abandoned so quickly that I wonder if it was a simple exposition device


Lessons Learned
Overachieving in butterfly swimming competitions is just asking for trouble


When your shower is clogged, the best solution is to dig a ten foot hole in your front yard and find the little mouse bastard that’s been hanging out in the pipes


There are few things more frightening than old French ladies with money and Norma Desmond headwraps

Rent/Bury/Buy
You need to see this movie, if only to throw your hat into the discussion of what the fuss is all about. (But then, if you’re reading this far, you’ve already seen it.) As I explained in my yesterday’s posting, Martyrs didn’t quite live up to the hype I’d been hearing about it through podcasts and the blogosphere, but it definitely did leave an equally deep emotional and philosophical impression. Because of its ambiguous ending, it’s also a film to share and discuss, so I could certainly endorse a buy from your local independent dealer. A thorough making-of is included in the extras, giving you detailed discussions about every aspect of filming. All in all, it’s a solid, unique, and thoughtful horror that highlights Pascal Laugier as a filmmaker to watch with two open eyes. As the man tapped to helm the remake (reboot? I can’t keep up with the evolving language of stale cinematic trends) of Hellraiser, it’s guaranteed that we’ll be seeing more of him. Let’s hope he continues to make cinema his own.

This has gone well beyond the boundaries of prudence and good taste!

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d make an announcement:


I’m in love.


It’s sudden, I know. Foolish, perhaps? But ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce the current fire in my lady loins:


Jack Hill's Spider Baby or The Maddest Story Ever Told (1968)

How is it possible that I survived 27 years without seeing this movie?



Somewhere in the boonies of California, the immensely huggable Lon Chaney Jr. plays Bruno, the sad faced, deep voiced caretaker to the, um, unusual Merrye children: Elizabeth, a short and sassy tattletale, the homicidal arachnoholic Virginia, and Ralphie, the canine man-child played by a young, skinny, and gloriously bald Sid Haig.

Life is merry in the gothic Merrye mansion; spiders are fed (and occasionally eaten), kittens are caught, and everyone has fun fooling around the dumbwaiter. Much like the colder, bloodier (and usually less funny) descendants of hillbilly horror, Spider Baby’s plot gets rolling with the intrusion of city folk to remind us that the Merryes are different. Isolation isn’t the problem; genetics is. Apparently the family is cursed with a disease that leads all the children who have reached the age of ten to slowly (or quickly, if they follow the Atkins diet) descend into a state of “pre-human savagery and cannibalism.” If Benjamin Button is anything like this, I’m changing my bet and saying it’s guaranteed the Best Picture win.

The invading urbanites include a Hitleresque lawyer named Schlocker and the uptight distant Merrye cousin Emily (you know she’s in for it because she has a tight bun and faux British accent), plus two nicer bland pretty people, all of whom are seeking a large inheritance from their savage kin. The children don’t take very kindly towards strangers (well, except Ralphie, who’s got a hard--I mean soft spot for the ladies). The inevitable dinner party and sleepover follow, gleefully complete with creeping tarantulas, incestuous seduction, Ms. Pacman style bows, Wolfman references, and, needless to say, loads of full-flavored fun.

High Points
The opening theme song makes me want to dip Chaney’s vocal cords in dark chocolate and eat them slowly. Not in a cannibalistic way or anything.


In his formalwear, Ralphie resembles Monty Burns whenever we see the tycoon as a child clad in knickers and Yankee Doodle Dandy hats


Elizabeth and Virginia, despite little physical resemblance between the actresses, are wonderfully believable as young sisters

Low Points
Drunk driving never looked so easy


Lessons Learned
Twine is really strong if tied correctly

Hearing “Aunt Emily!” shouted by knife wielding nieces makes me thankful that my little ladies refer to me exclusively as Auntie Em.


Uptight rich city blondes pack sexy lingerie when staying at long-lost relatives’ homes

Stray Observation
Anne, the Marilyn Munster of the party, is quite the lush (note the final scene)


Winning Line:
Elizabeth: Spiders don't eat other spiders.
Virginia: Cannibal spiders do.
I chose this one mainly because it reminds me of the sea monkeys I grew in college. When I ran out of their powdery nourishment, I tossed in a few bits of dry cat food. Within a day, the little tank was clouded and the sea monkeys were no more. A friend pointed out the error of my way: cat food is made of fish. Hence, I had unknowingly transformed my baby brine into cannibals. I’ve since developed two theories regarding the cause of this massacre: 1) they developed a taste for fish flesh and ended up eating each other to death or 2) upon devouring their ancestors, my little swimmers committed mass suicide out of shame and horror.


Rent/Buy/Bury:
Buy and cuddle with. This is horror comedy the way it should be done. Unique and pitch-perfect performances around the board, disturbing images that tickle like a spider’s spindly legs, and cheerfully self-aware dialogue to make you giggle. If this film doesn’t make you smile, your heat is made of stone that needs to be ground and served on a platter with rabbit and fungus. Nothing personal. It just is.


Right girls?