TITLE-Spider Baby
SOURCE-Spoopy Movie Time on Amazon Prime
One nice bonus of all the streaming services on the market is there is more and more horror host shows appearing on services. Hell I found a free Roku App that is just various horror host shows. The other night was flipping through Amazon Prime's video selection,and if you love horror/cult/exploitation movies Amazon Prime Video is packed with films that aren't on other services,and saw that not only do they have Creepy Koffee Movie Time,a great horror host program,but they also have a newer one called Spoopy Movie Time. No I didn't spell Spooky wrong. Seems a few years ago someone found a bunch of Halloween decorations at a dollar store. Where instead of Spooky whoever had made these decorations had put Spoopy. And now some dumb gen z kids are trying to make Spoopy a thing.
But anyways Spoopy Movie Time appears to have 2 seasons. Both of which are on Amazon Prime. And like most modern horror host shows they show only Public Domain films. I figured by now I had covered pretty much every public domain horror film. Then saw that in season 2 Spoopy Movie Time showed Spider Baby. Fuck Yea not only is it a film I haven't covered. It is also a fucking great film.
In 1968,yep the same year that the horror classic Night of the Living Dead hit the screens,Jack Hill wrote and directed Spider Baby. Armed with about 65,000 and a horror legend,Lon Chaney Jr,Jack made a film that while it kinda died at the box office has over the decades become a cult classic.
Lon Chaney Jr is the protecter and chauffer of the Merrye family. Who suffer from a rare illness,Merrye Syndrome. Which causes anyone with it in late childhood to start regressing down the evolutionary chain. All that is left is the 3 kids and Lon tries his best to protect them from themselves and others.
Shit I can't believe I haven't mentioned the theme song....Lon sings the theme song which is great. It's goofy and funny and I'm shocked it hasn't become a Halloween hit.
Back to the film. We start off with long time Hollywood actor Mantan Moreland,who I talked about years ago in my King of the Zombies review. Mantan is delivering a message and gets attacked by one of the young female Merryes. She loves to play spider and the web. Were she throws a net on someone. Then stabs them multiple times with knives. Lon gets back to the home in time to dispose of the dead body.
Then 2 distant relatives arrive. They plan on taking control of the home and property. The kids dont like this and we get all kinds of ultra violence cause of this.
Besides this film being one of the last film for some greats like Chaney and Moreland it is also the first time the late great Sid Haig appeared on screen. Sid plays Ralph. Who has regressed so far back that he only grunts and lears at people.
Lon makes the mistake of leaving the distant relatives at the home with the three feral kids. And by the time he comes back all hell has broken loose. One of the visitors has been thrown into the basement. Where some other members of the family live. These other members of the family end up eating the person thrown into the basement. Lon seeing that there is nothing he can do,blows up the house with some dynamite. Killing everyone,but one of the distant relatives manages to escape.
This relative thinks he is far enough down the bloodline from the Merryes to not have to worry about the family sickness. Then the camera pans to this man's daughter who looks a lot like the Merrye who liked the play spider. Making us think that soon she will regress and this madness will continue.
The print Spoopy Movie Time uses looks rough. But it is watchable. The two hosts,who are CGI creations,do speak thru out the movie. Cracking jokes and pointing out stuff. Not sure if this version of the film is the best way for someone to see this movie for the first time. But since Spider Baby is public domain it shouldn't be hard to find a copy on Youtube or the Internet Archive.
The director,Jack Hill,is one of the greats of cult cinema.He worked with Francis Ford Coppola one many of Coppola's early films. Including being the producer on the Roger Corman cult Classic The Terror. But to me Hill is best known for the handful of Blaxploitation films he made in the 70s. Stuff like Foxy Brown and Coffy.
Spider Baby gets a B+.
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