Wordiezett So much average

Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Martin Bradley There are bad movies, there are really bad movies and then there is "Spider Baby", Lon Chaney and a house straight out of "Psycho" notwithstanding. This is the kind of cult movie that makes you realize that cults can be a bad thing. The director was Jack Hill who made his reputation in exploitation cinema, (he made the incredible "Switchblade Sisters" as well as the more mainstream blaxploitation picture "Foxy Brown"), but this is probably what he's best remembered for though God knows why. By today's standards there is no gore and fewer frights. Chaney was obviously cast to 'sell' the movie and he 'acts' as if he believed every ridiculous word. If there is anyone here to keep you watching it's Carol Ohmart, an actress who always deserved better than she ended up with.

Johan Louwet If I had to describe this movie in one word than "weird" would be fitting. Disturbing it is at times but comparing it to what we get to see today it is very mild. I love this more subtle approach along with the black and white cinematography which helps to create a creepy atmosphere. These 3 kids are just great horror characters. We have Ralph, the bald boy who doesn't seem to have the ability to speak looks at first a young version of Uncle Fester from the Addams Family but you really wouldn't want to be with him in a room alone. His facial expressions that seem to crave for meat from no matter what creature is really scary. Elizabeth well she is the eldest and looks pretty normal until she realizes that she and her siblings are in danger of losing the house. And last but not least there is Virginia who has this obsession with spiders. The scenes where she pretends to be a spider are just great. Other great scenes are the dinner scene and of course when the greedy Mr Schlocker starts to roam the rooms of the house.

sjrobb99-997-836393 "Spider Baby" is a treasure. Lon Chaney, Jr. is Bruno, caretaker of Merrye House and its inhabitants: Virginia, Elizabeth, and Ralph. The Merrye siblings are nominally teenagers, but suffer from a hereditary disease ("Merrye Syndrome") that stunts them mentally and emotionally, leaving them to act out with the boundary-free viciousness of small children. Their Uncle Peter (a smarmily effective Quinn Redeker) tells us that the disease will progress until the children revert to savagery and cannibalism.Bruno wearily but lovingly tends his little flock: Elizabeth (Beverly Washburn) flounces and pouts like a nasty 5-year-old; Virginia (Jill Banner), creepily nubile and obsessed with spiders, and Ralph (Sid Haig) who has regressed to infantile grunts and dependence.The movie shoves you face-first into the dreamily brutal world of the Merrye children: in the first five minutes, Virginia traps a messenger (Mantan Moreland) in her string "web" and gleefully "stings" him to death with a pair of long knives. Afterward, Elizabeth scolds her: "Bad Virginia! Bruno will really hate you now!" But Bruno is more disappointed than horrified. "Remember when those two children climbed over the wall?" he chides Virginia, gently, "and Elizabeth almost got them in her web before I got there? I expected you to watch her and not let her do that again!" Virginia pouts, and Elizabeth buries her head in Bruno's lap and wails, "Please don't hate me, Bruno!" Bruno strokes her hair and rasps, "I promised your father I would NEVER hate you." And you believe him.Alas, greedy relations come sniffing around; brother and sister Aunt Emily (Carol Ohmert) and Uncle Peter arrive, followed by attorney Schlocker (Karl Schanzer) and his secretary, Ann (Mary Mitchel). Emily is a greedy bitch with a heart of stone. She brought the lawyer; Peter (who attempts avuncularity with the suspicious Merryes) is not so sure. Schlocker strikes the only false note in the entire movie; with his Hitler mustache and cartoonish pontificating, he plays for much broader satire than is necessary. Bruno, horrified at the idea of losing the children, rises to the occasion; the Merryes give their guests dinner featuring a main course of fried cat, which Uncle Peter gamely pronounces to be "Rabbit, obviously, and done to a turn!" Bruno explains that "...usually we are vegetarians, but Ralph is allowed to eat anything he catches." (Ralph chortles obscenely.)Afterward, Uncle Peter takes Ann into the village to find a hotel for the night, while Emily and Schlocker opt to stay in the house...with predictably gruesome results. While Bruno cares for Ralph, Elizabeth and Virginia decide that Schlocker will "tell about us" and thus, he must die. They descend on him like harpies, Elizabeth shrieking "KILL HIM! KILL HIM!" while Virginia drools vacantly and waves her "stingers". Schlocker natters about how "There are laws about these things! Criminal Laws!" while they brutalize him.Meanwhile, Emily, in her bedroom, strips down to black lace bra, panties, and garter belt and discovers a closet full of old negligees. Again, the genius of the movie peeks through: in any other B-flick, this would be a cheap thrill to keep the audience engaged; here, it seems perfectly logical that someone as self- absorbed as Emily would try on the negligees and strut about in front of the mirror. When she discovers Ralph hanging upside-down outside her window like a spider, she runs shrieking from the room--and smack into Virginia and Elizabeth wrestling Schlocker's battered corpse out of the dumbwaiter.Clad only in lingerie and heels, Emily totters, screaming, into the night, pursued by Virginia and Elizabeth in full cry -- but Ralph gets there first, and wrestles Emily into a bush with much grunting and slobbering. Virginia, finding them a moment later, rolls her eyes and yells, "Hey, Liz, look at THIS!" before going back to the house like nothing is wrong.Later, the camera returns to the woods...and we see Emily, stretched out on the ground, quite alive, albeit rumpled. She sits up, stretches, and looks around; her face is different -- softer, somehow -- and as it dawns on you that she looks awfully...post-coital, she tosses her hair and calls out, kittenishly, "Ralph? Where are you?"I had to watch that scene twice before I believed that the filmmaker had gone there, but when Emily gets up and goes in search of Ralph it is not played for laughs: you know beyond a doubt that Ralph gave Emily the ride of her life and she wants an encore, and some part of you hopes that she'll get it because this movie is so finely crafted, you have no trouble rooting for a deranged cannibal to get some. By the time Bruno realizes that the only way keep the world at bay and avoid further bloodshed is to blow up the house with all three children in it, his gallant determination to protect his charges to the end will move you to tears. One of the most touching scenes in the movie comes at the end, when Peter, having freed himself from Virginia's web, attempts to rescue Ann and encounters Bruno arming the bomb that will send the Curse of the Merryes to oblivion. "Sir," says a flustered -- but desperately polite -- Bruno, "I don't know why you've come back here but I would advise you to leave with all due speed!" There are loose ends, of course. You never really find out much about the lycanthropic relatives in the cellar, or why Virginia thinks she's a spider. But you end up so immersed in the beautiful, swampy madness of the story that none of that matters.

mark.waltz Fans of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" will recognize the plot from that cult musical in this camp horror spoof, the story of four squares who end up in the den of wackos, distant relatives of two of them who are trying to take over the estate. Lon Chaney takes a good ribbing as references to his earlier career are mentioned in his presence. He plays the family retainer, a chauffeur who has promised to keep protecting the three survivors of his late master, since they are suffering from a rare deforming disease which destroys the mind as well as the body. "Spider Baby" is one of two young girls he is protecting, a Wednesday Addams like teen obsessed with playing spider games. Veteran black character actor Mantan Moreland has an amusing cameo as a messenger who finds out the hard way what these spider games are, giving the girls an earful along the way.Veteran soap actor and writer Quinn Redeker ("Days of Our Lives", "The Young and the Restless") is the handsome her, while Carol Ohmart as his selfish sister bears an uncanny resemblance to Meryl Streep. This is pretty enjoyable for schlock, something not to take so seriously as art, but perhaps perfect as "midnight movie" fair for those who like their cinema "wierd".