Wordiezett So much average

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Crwthod A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

TheRedDeath30 I stumbled on this movie a few years back knowing almost nothing about it, save for it starring the awesome Sid Haig. Somehow, in all of my wanderings through the horror graveyards, this movie had escaped my attention as it had not been the sort of movie frequently discussed in horror boards or history books. It was a wonderful surprise, then, to discover what an amazing, eerie treat this movie was to behold.The reason for its' hidden place in the horror archives has to do, mainly, with its' distribution history. The movie was filmed in 1964 but lost in limbo for several years when the producers went bankrupt. It finally saw the light of day in 68, though it was packaged in subpar drive-in double bills under several titles and never got the promotion that it so truly deserved. It wasn't until home video release in the 80s that it started to gather a real following and that has increased greatly over the last decade with a DVD release and inclusion in Netflix streaming, where I stumbled across it. As such, it's one of those rares movies that's probably more well-known to modern fans that it was to the horror geeks of its' time.Directed by Jack Hill, who had come from the Roger Corman family, working on movies like THE TERROR and DEMENTIA 13. He would go on to direct exploitation classics like FOXY BROWN. The movie stars Sid Haig, Beverly Washburn (from OLD YELLER) and Carol Ohmart (HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL), along with the legendary Lon Chaney Jr.The movie starts with a fun animated title scroll backed by a campy song sung by Chaney himself. Instantly, the viewer realizes that you are onto something different and fun. The opening scene sets the tone as character actor Mantan Moreland (KING OF THE ZOMBIES) is trying to deliver a letter to the Merrye House, only to be caught in the web of one of its' youngest, who sets to slicing him up. We are, then, introduced to a demented family that carries a strange malady causing them to digress to primordial monsters.While this is not the first example of a horror movie using a demented family as the villains (you can go back to THE OLD DARK HOUSE for that), you can certainly see the touchmarks that quite possibly influenced legions of horror movies to come. Lon Chaney's caretaker reminds me a lot of Jim Seidow's cook in Texas CHAINSAW. The presence of Sid Haig and the family dynamic certainly share a resemblance to HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES and the creatures in the basement remind me of PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS.The movie is decidedly low on gore, with very little bloodshed, beyond the initial killing of the postman. However, there is a strange, disturbed sexuality throughout the movie. Ohmart parades around her room in lingerie, arousing the lust of Haig's Ralph character. Her scenes, plus the partial disrobing of the secretary in the climax show a little more risqué flesh than most movies of its' time. There is also an implied rape and one of our young females attempts to seduce her uncle, all of which play to the theme that the cause of this strange malady is forbidden desire, namely incest.The movie looks absolutely gorgeous, especially when put into the context of its' budget. If you can, avoid the free streams on sites like YouTube and rent a copy of the DVD, which looks striking and shows a clear attention to cinematography that belies the independent nature and relative inexperience of its' cast and crew.You''ll certainly find some who don't "get" the love of this movie and that's probably got more to do with over-hyped expectations than the actual results, as this movie has started to gain a devoted cult following. If you're a fan of dirty, creepy horror films and looking for something new, this will not disappoint.

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.

Scott LeBrun Debuting writer / director Jack Hills' gleefully macabre tale of an insane family instantly calls to mind 'The Addams Family', and works as a forerunner to films like "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" and "House of 1000 Corpses". Give full credit to Hill and crew for their Old Dark House, midnight movie feel, complete with right-on-the-nose cinematography and production design, and to the whole cast for their utterly convincing and ghoulishly fun performances.Ever lovable Lon Chaney, Jr. plays Bruno, chauffeur and guardian to a trio of children with the surname Merrye. For generations, Merryes have suffered from a disease so rare it's actually named after them: they start mentally regressing at the age of 10 until they end up in an utterly primitive, pre-natal, cannibalistic condition. Trouble brews for Bruno and the kids - Elizabeth (Beverly Washburn), Virginia (Jill Banner), and Ralph (Sid Haig) - when a greedy relative and an equally scummy lawyer - hilariously named Schlocker - come to stay, intending to get their hands on the family fortune.Things get off to a fairly amusing start with a title ditty sung by none other than Lon himself. Soon after, there's a cameo role for old pro Mantan Moreland, playing an ill-fated messenger, who becomes an unwilling participant in Virginias' beloved game of "spider". And speaking of spiders, there's no shortage of eight legged critters dotting the landscape of this film, which features a highly memorable mansion with its fair share of atmosphere and surprises. It's especially a joy to see something such as Ralph crawling about on the outside on the mansion, doing a priceless Spider-Man impression.Haig and lovely young ladies Washburn and Banner do a wonderful job of portraying people with very young minds and whose playfulness has such a morbid quality. Carol Ohmart ("House on Haunted Hill" '59) is good as the bitchy cousin Emily, Quinn Redeker (who would go on to co-write "The Deer Hunter" years later) appealing as the goofy cousin Peter who mostly takes everything he sees in stride, Mary Mitchel ("Dementia 13") is fine as the comely young secretary, and Karl Schanzer, complete with Hitler-style moustache, is a hoot as the stereotypically slimy lawyer.With very appropriate schlock movie music by the great Ronald Stein, "Spider Baby" proves to be very hard to resist, taking its viewers on a tour through a wild and wacky funhouse. The humour is delicious, and there's a nice little in-joke when Redeker and Mitchel begin discussing horror films and reference Lons' most famous role, after which he quips, "There's going to be a full moon tonight.".The pacing could have used a bit of tightening, but the running time is still pretty reasonable at about 80 minutes (85 minutes in the directors' cut). Recommended to anybody who loves a movie with a true "late show" sort of ambiance.Eight out of 10.

tomgillespie2002 Despite it's 1968 release date, Jack Hill's full directorial debut (he had uncredited directing duties on The Wasp Woman (1959) and The Terror (1963)) was shot in 1964, but was delayed due to the financiers bankruptcy. The film sits perfectly in the '60's macabre horror aesthetics of Psycho (1960) and Night of the Living Dead (1968), which gave a more cerebral, and arguably realistic approach to conventions of the uncanny. Within the context of this familial genre piece, there are many references to the "old" horror traits - not least the inclusion of horror icon Lon Chaney Jr. - and makes direct connections with the 1941 Wolfman (which incidentally was one of Chaney's key characters). And it is this reference to the inner beast of humanity that gives the film its horrific and pseudo-tragic narrative.Bruno (Chaney), a janitor of the "old dark house" has stayed behind after the death of it's owner, to take care of the children. The Merrye family, however, have a dark and demented secret. A genetic abnormality handed down in the family due to decades of inbreeding, has left the children with a severely debilitating illness that sets in towards the end of the teenage years. The illness, referred by Bruno as simply rotting of the brain, leaves these family members with increasingly depraved mental states - and they apparently regress to catatonic states. The above-grounds inhabitants are made up of two sisters, Elizabeth (Beverly Washburn) and Virginia (Jill Banner - who was tragically killed in a car accident at the age of 35), along with there deeply "retarded" (to use the film's term - not mine) brother, Ralph (an early role for exploitation regular Sid Haig). When exterior family members (not subject to the "Merrye Syndrome"), Emily (Carol Ohmart) and Peter (Quinn Redeker) arrive to take possession of the property, a series of events unfold, revealing the true extent of the macabre "house of horrors".The titular character is displayed in the first scene of this interesting film, when a mail man pokes his head into an open window. Virginia (the spider baby - as she loves insects and often crawls around the grounds in a peculiar manner) enters the room, a rope "web" in her hands, throws it over the postman and then approaches with two knives in her hands and moves in to sting the man, and eventually slicing off an ear. No doubt for budgetary reasons, the film was shot in black and white, and it's eccentric characters fill the screen with both horror and an awkwardly horrific humour. It could be argued that it bares similarities (if not genre specific) with Russ Meyer's idiosyncratic and oddball comedy, Mudhoney (1965) - despite them having no direct relation, and could also be seen as an influence on Tobe Hooper's seminal Texas Chain-Saw Massacre (1974) - particularly in its production design, and wildly gross-out family table dinner. It's well paced, and climaxes excellently, with a crescendo of absurdist terror. With a brilliant late role for Chaney, he also sings the opening credits song, which parodies the classic 'Monster Mash'.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com