Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever ToldBe careful not to get tangled up with the wrong side of "distant relations". Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told (Spider Baby for short) is the story of the last vestiges of the reclusive Merrye family, attended to by the elderly chauffeur, Bruno (Lon Chaney), who knows of the terrible degenerative disease which affects them, and causes them to regress to a primitive state upon reaching maturity. When a pair of distant relatives come to take possession of the estate, Bruno finds the challenge of juggling the surviving Merryes and his new guests too much to handle.
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Spider Baby is pure B-movie fare; but rather than being a mark of shame, the film wears this badge with pride. The product of filmmaker Jack Hill, Spider Baby was marketed as a grindhouse-style feature, with the trailer playing up some of the more titillating elements in this campy horror flick, not least of all the young, coy Merrye girls, Virginia (Jill Banner) and Elizabeth (Beverly Washburn), playing "spider" in their nighties. They lure men like the amiable Peter (Quinn K. Redeker) into their den, or chase the altogether hard-bitten Emily (Carol Ohmart) around the house in her lingerie. Yet these moments have more in common with black comedy than actual eroticism, and the creepy, crawly Merrye homestead is a kind of backwoods, Deep South version of "The Addams Family", or even Scooby-Doo. Even moments which become shockingly lethal in the blink of an eye are largely a bloodless affair (mutilations of ears aside), more fantasy than reality. However, the child-like guilelessness and predatory instincts of Virginia (a.k.a. "Spider Baby", so-called for her simpatico with arachnids) creates a sense of unease and danger whenever she's around--a lethal unpredictability, like playing with a deadly spider. The "Merrye Disorder"--as it is described by Peter in retrospect--is restricted to this obscure branch of his family, and was exacerbated by inbreeding, a stereotype of rural living exploited to unnerve the audience. Peter and Emily are ostensibly coming to the Merrye estate to become guardians of the surviving Merrye children, including the slightly older (and as a result, more mentally degenerated) Ralph (Sid Haig), from a far more metropolitan setting. Following shortly after is their lawyer, a pompous little man named Schlocker (Karl Schanzer), and his lovely secretary, Ann Morris (Mary Mitchel), who catches Peter's eye. Certainly Peter and Ann are more amiable than Emily and Schlocker, but all of them brave the trek into the wilds of this remote locale because they stand to profit by claiming the estate. None of them fully grasp just how far gone the Merryes really are; Bruno answers more volatile questions with half-truths, asserting that he has kept the family remote due to the dying wishes of his employer, Titus Merrye. Although it is clear to the audience just how incapable the Merrye children are from comprehending the consequences of their depraved actions, one cannot help but be sympathetic to the profound challenge Bruno faces. Not only must he shield his charges from the pitiless outside world, but he must also shield the world itself from the Merryes' depraved descent into animal instinct.
Spider Baby is a playful horror film that never descends into full-blown disgust, even with crawling spiders of various sorts or degenerated descendants of the earlier Merrye generation lurking in the deep basement. There is a real tongue-in-cheek humor at work and even a playfulness to Spider Baby from a production standpoint. For all of the film's technical gaffs--in one such scene, you can see a crew member wearing sunglasses visibly reflected off of Emily and Peter's car window--the film has an "late night popcorn muncher" vibe all throughout. The corny opening with hand-drawn caricatures of the characters is accompanied by the recitations of Lon Chaney, recalling Bobby Pickett's "Monster Mash", with Chaney's voice carrying an Orson Welles-esque vibe, albeit one stricken by madness. The ghoulishness of Spider Baby makes even grotesque scenes borderline silly, which heightens its kitsch appeal. For instance, when the careless Schlocker snoops through the Merrye house late at night, he paws his way through a roll-top desk where we saw Virginia feeding her pet tarantulas. A good deal of the fun of this scene is the kind of response you can't help but anticipate, a "you're gonna get it" moment...and it is one of many. There is also a satisfaction in seeing the selfish and arrogant Emily and Schlocker--who get left behind at the Merrye estate while Peter tries to find a place in the city for him and Ann--getting their just desserts for their rudeness toward the family. Spider Baby also plays with a few moments of well-timed double entendre. After Peter has taken the pretty secretary out for drinks--and he really shouldn't be driving the way he's slurring his speech--they flirt a bit in the car. Ann, who claims to like classic horror moves (many of which coincidentally starred Chaney), comments that men should be like "the Wolfman", full of animal urges. A perfectly timed jump cut shows Peter pulling their car into a motel parking lot, and it's all too clear what's on his mind. Far freakier is the ambiguous fate of Emily after she is chased out of the house by Virginia and Elizabeth, all of them racing through a moonlit meadow in their underwear. After Emily makes an unfortunate turn and ends up in the clutches of Ralph, he pounces on her and Virginia's confused expression suggests that Ralph's peeping on her wasn't quite enough to sate his animal urges, serving as an awkwardly humorous reminder of the Merrye Disorder's roots from inbreeding. (Perhaps even more unsettling is when Emily reawakens from the event, and seems to be seeking out Ralph after the incident, in a scene which foreshadows a similar comic moment likely borrowed by Mel Brooks in Young Frankenstein. Think: "Oh, sweet mystery of life, at last I've found you.") Yet strangely, for all its campy elements, one of the most striking things about Spider Baby is the quality of the film. Many flicks which made the grindhouse circuit show their age by the deterioration of the film stock. Perhaps it could be credited to the efforts of film restoration, but Spider Baby is a film which is in good shape, as if tended to by a loving hand, not unlike that of the devoted Bruno.
Recommended for: Fans of a kitschy blast of Deep South horror mixed with campy horror comedy. Spider Baby is a playful film that relishes the conventions of the genre and yet isn't bound by them. Good "late, late movie" fare.
Spider Baby is a playful horror film that never descends into full-blown disgust, even with crawling spiders of various sorts or degenerated descendants of the earlier Merrye generation lurking in the deep basement. There is a real tongue-in-cheek humor at work and even a playfulness to Spider Baby from a production standpoint. For all of the film's technical gaffs--in one such scene, you can see a crew member wearing sunglasses visibly reflected off of Emily and Peter's car window--the film has an "late night popcorn muncher" vibe all throughout. The corny opening with hand-drawn caricatures of the characters is accompanied by the recitations of Lon Chaney, recalling Bobby Pickett's "Monster Mash", with Chaney's voice carrying an Orson Welles-esque vibe, albeit one stricken by madness. The ghoulishness of Spider Baby makes even grotesque scenes borderline silly, which heightens its kitsch appeal. For instance, when the careless Schlocker snoops through the Merrye house late at night, he paws his way through a roll-top desk where we saw Virginia feeding her pet tarantulas. A good deal of the fun of this scene is the kind of response you can't help but anticipate, a "you're gonna get it" moment...and it is one of many. There is also a satisfaction in seeing the selfish and arrogant Emily and Schlocker--who get left behind at the Merrye estate while Peter tries to find a place in the city for him and Ann--getting their just desserts for their rudeness toward the family. Spider Baby also plays with a few moments of well-timed double entendre. After Peter has taken the pretty secretary out for drinks--and he really shouldn't be driving the way he's slurring his speech--they flirt a bit in the car. Ann, who claims to like classic horror moves (many of which coincidentally starred Chaney), comments that men should be like "the Wolfman", full of animal urges. A perfectly timed jump cut shows Peter pulling their car into a motel parking lot, and it's all too clear what's on his mind. Far freakier is the ambiguous fate of Emily after she is chased out of the house by Virginia and Elizabeth, all of them racing through a moonlit meadow in their underwear. After Emily makes an unfortunate turn and ends up in the clutches of Ralph, he pounces on her and Virginia's confused expression suggests that Ralph's peeping on her wasn't quite enough to sate his animal urges, serving as an awkwardly humorous reminder of the Merrye Disorder's roots from inbreeding. (Perhaps even more unsettling is when Emily reawakens from the event, and seems to be seeking out Ralph after the incident, in a scene which foreshadows a similar comic moment likely borrowed by Mel Brooks in Young Frankenstein. Think: "Oh, sweet mystery of life, at last I've found you.") Yet strangely, for all its campy elements, one of the most striking things about Spider Baby is the quality of the film. Many flicks which made the grindhouse circuit show their age by the deterioration of the film stock. Perhaps it could be credited to the efforts of film restoration, but Spider Baby is a film which is in good shape, as if tended to by a loving hand, not unlike that of the devoted Bruno.
Recommended for: Fans of a kitschy blast of Deep South horror mixed with campy horror comedy. Spider Baby is a playful film that relishes the conventions of the genre and yet isn't bound by them. Good "late, late movie" fare.