{"id":6328,"date":"2007-09-25T23:23:20","date_gmt":"2007-09-26T03:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=6328"},"modified":"2007-09-25T23:23:20","modified_gmt":"2007-09-26T03:23:20","slug":"spider-baby-or-the-maddest-story-ever-told-directors-cut-1968-dvd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2007\/09\/25\/spider-baby-or-the-maddest-story-ever-told-directors-cut-1968-dvd\/","title":{"rendered":"Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told: Director's Cut (1968) (DVD)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"spiderbaby\"<\/a>\u201cSpider-Baby\u201d is without a doubt one of the oddest cannibal movies I\u2019ve ever come across. And it\u2019s not because it\u2019s old, but because the cannibalism ends up becoming much more implied than explored in the end. There isn\u2019t exactly anyone eating other folks here, but there are often the signs. Young Virginia collects ears, and eats bugs, while Elizabeth attempts to guilt her into her natural urges, even though she\u2019s experiencing the same cravings to give in.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpider-Baby\u201d can best be described as \u201cThe Addams Family\u201d except much more morbid and violent. While Wednesday and Pugsley often reveled in violent activities, Virginia and Elizabeth perform it like a bodily function. I recall seeing a clip of this constantly during my favorite childhood movie \u201cHorrible Horrors,\u201d and upon watching \u201cSpider-Baby\u201d for the first time I was surprised to see the same scene all over again. Thankfully, Jack Hill\u2019s film is a wonderful demented little tale about the Merrye family, an upscale yet reclusive brood who lives in the back woods of their estate in their giant mansion, and is decidedly closed off from the world. Forced to take control of the family, Chauffeur and guardian Bruno watches over the children and attempts to keep their lust for blood at bay. But he\u2019s really only one man watching over three sly children.<\/p>\n

Lon Chaney Jr. gives a great performance as the loving and awfully forgiving Bruno who tries anxiously to guilt the children when they\u2019ve committed gruesome acts of torture, but his lectures fall on deaf ears once distant relatives arrive to claim the estate and send the children off to get treatment. The entire immediate family is cursed with Merrye\u2019s syndrome, a genetic condition that causes the person maturing to regress mentally once puberty takes hold. This is due to inbreeding. But, Virginia and Elizabeth are controlled for only so long once their family arrives to take control, and the bloodshed begins. \u201cSpider Baby\u201d or \u201cThe Maddest Story Ever Told\u201d is far from any typical B Film because its performances are top notch.<\/p>\n

Aside from the fact that it\u2019s considerably campy, it\u2019s also gruesome and disturbing thanks to the excellent performances by the foursome in the family. One of the most notable performances is by a young Sid Haig as the oldest and most mentally incompetent sibling Ralph who is a large brute. But, Jill Banner is possibly the most memorable aspect of Hill\u2019s production, even in the face of Chaney, Haig and Washburn, mainly because she\u2019s very much a Wednesday Addams except with much more of a wide eyed innocence. Banner, with a unique beauty and fantastic performance, is haunting and yet oddly alluring as the young girl who has a penchant for slicing up anything that comes to their door.<\/p>\n

From poor mailmen, to stray cats. And there is, of course, Beverly Washburn, the resident do-gooder of the group who attempts to catch Virginia in her wrong doings and inevitably hits the deep end. With wonderful cinematography and an instantly memorable opening theme sung by Chaney, \u201cSpider Baby\u201d holds many surprises including a hilarious dinner scene, a gruesome murder sequence, and a surprise ending that\u2019s pitch perfect to previous events in the film.\u00a0 Hill\u2019s film deserves to be looked for, and watched again and again, because it\u2019s a memorable piece of horror that doesn\u2019t get the credit it rightfully deserves, and it finally receives a wonderful DVD treatment worth your buck.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSpider-Baby\u201d is without a doubt one of the oddest cannibal movies I\u2019ve ever come across. And it\u2019s not because it\u2019s old, but because the cannibalism ends up becoming much more implied than explored in the end. There isn\u2019t exactly anyone eating other folks here, but there are often the signs. Young Virginia collects ears, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[219,246,477,637,874,885,1013,1087],"class_list":["post-6328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-comedy","tag-cult","tag-horror","tag-masterpiece","tag-romance","tag-s","tag-suspense","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6328\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}