SPIDER BABY 1964 Review

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, I'm JM Dobies, bringing you the wildest and weirdest movies that time forgot to remember to forget. Our main attraction is Jack Hill's SPIDER BABY, OR THE MADDEST STORY EVER TOLD, made in 1964 but not released until 1968. When the film was finally released, black & white movies had gone out of fashion, and it was stuck on the bottom half of double bills under several different titles, including CANNIBAL ORGY and ATTACK OF THE LIVER EATERS. In the years since then, SPIDER BABY has gained cult status and has been enjoyed by a much larger audience than it originally played to on the grindhouse circuit.

The film stars Lon Chaney Jr. in his last great role as Bruno, the loyal chaffeur and caretaker of the Merryes, a degenerate, inbred family afflicted with a rare disease that causes them to mentally regress at the onset of puberty. By the time they reach adulthood, they have devolved into a pre-human state, and are kept in the basement of the Merrye family home, a dilapidated mansion on the outskirts of town. Chaney even sings the theme song. A tour-de-force.

 Another Hollywood screen veteran who appears in SPIDER BABY is the great African-American character actor Mantan Moreland, who played faithful manservant Birmingham in many a Charlie Chan picture. Moreland plays a letter-carrier who makes a special delivery to the Merrye home, only to meet up with the title character.

Lon Chaney is awesome in the role of Bruno, the kindly caretaker of the Merrye Estate. Of course, the estate needs a caretaker because, as I said, everybody in the Merrye family suffers from a debilitating defect where they regress mentally once they reach the age of 12 or 13, then by the time they're in their 30s, they have devolved into an inhuman state of savagery and cannibalism. Happens all the time with rich folks.

Born Creighton Tull Chaney, his name was changed by his agent to Lon Chaney, Jr. after the death of his famous father, the "Man of a Thousand Faces." His best known roles were as Lennie in 1939's OF MICE AND MEN and as THE WOLF MAN in 1940. THe following year, he played the Frankenstein monster in THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN, then starred as the Mummy in THE MUMMY'S TOMB the year after that. Lon hit for the cycle by playing the title role in 1943's SON OF DRACULA, becoming the only actor to play all of the major movie monsters. In the '50s, alcoholism began to take its toll on his career, but he still found plenty of work as a character actor in studio pictures, and as the star of a series of low budget horror flicks. To say Chaney was a heavy drinker is an understatement, but he stayed sober during the filming of SPIDER BABY, and gave one the finest performances of his career. Lon wound down his film career in such sub-classics as THE INDESTRUCTIBLE MAN, FIREBALL JUNGLE, and THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE.

Ralphie, the oldest of the Merrye children, is played by B-movie vet Sid Haig, tall, bald, and usually bearded, as he likes to say. Haig has appeared in dozens of mostly low-budget films, including PIT STOP, FOXY BROWN, THE BIG DOLL HOUSE, and more recently, Rob Zombie's HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES and THE DEVIL'S REJECTS. Ralphie's younger sisters Virginia and Elizabeth are played by Jill Banner and Beverly Washburn. You may remember Beverly Washburn from Walt Disney's OLD YELLER, and Jill Banner y'all may recognize from her many appearances on Jack Webb's DRAGNET TV series, usually playing a spaced-out flower child. Banner had an on-again, off-again relationship with Marlon Brando until her tragic death at the age of 35 in a 1982 Malibu car crash. Her performance as Virginia -- the one who likes to play spider -- is incredible and unforgettable.

Carol Ohmart, who plays Emily Howe, was a '50s sex bomb who also starred in HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL with Vincent Price and BORN RECKLESS with Mamie Van Doren. She also made numerous appearances on such TV crime dramas as PERRY MASON, 77 SUNSET STRIP and HAWAIIAN EYE. Quinn Redekker, a familiar face from such soap operas as THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS and DAYS OF OUR LIVES, wrote the story for the film THE DEER HUNTER, and continues to work to this day. Karl Schanzer, who plays Schlocker the lawyer, was perhaps one of the worst actors ever to appear on film, but managed to appear in three other movies, thanks to his friendship with Jack Hill, the mad maestro behind SPIDER BABY.

Jack Hill made a series of exploitation films that were produced on the cheap for a quick cash-ins on the drive-in circuit, but thanks to fans like Quentin Tarantino, his work lives on and he has come to be recognized as one of the true auteurs of '70s sleaze. He went to film school with Francis Ford Coppola, and worked with the future GODFATHER director on his first two features, 1962's TONIGHT FOR SURE, a nudie picture, and 1963's DEMENTIA 13. Jack Hill made his directorial debut with SPIDER BABY in 1964, but as I said earlier, this film didn't see the light of day until 1968. His next films were pure explotation cinema: MONDO KEYHOLE and the cobbled-together horror BLOODBATH, both from 1966, and 1967's THE WINNER, which didn't get a release until 1969, when it got retitled PIT STOP. Hill's other films include the Pam Grier blaxploitation epics COFFY and FOXY BROWN, 1974's THE SWINGING CHEERLEADERS and his 1975 girl-gang masterpiece SWITCHBLADE SISTERS. A documentary is now in the works showcasing Jack Hill's career as a filmmaker. The title: FROM SPIDERS TO SWITCHBLADES.

This film is Jack Hill's most personal statement, a brilliant meditation on the American Family. And canniibalism.

Now available on DVD from MPI Home Video, with tons of cool bonus fatures. Highly recommended.