ClassyWas Excellent, smart action film.

Claire Dunne One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

jamesgandrew Bruno (Lon Chaney Jr) is a caretaker who looks after three siblings of the Meryee family who suffer from a rare and peculiar disease. However, when various people arrive at the house, mayhem ensues.The film lives up to the title. Jack Hill created a strange story which serves well with the horror comedy genre. Spider Baby was made on a low budget of an estimated $65, 000 and this resulted in some issues with the production. The release was delayed for 3 ½ years due to a bankruptcy of the film's original distributor, however, it finally released in 1967 through David L. Hewitt. After the film's release, it was only available in a pirated VHS format until Jack Hill discovered an original negative and released it as a 'Director's Cut'. Spider Baby has become a cult favourite. All the performances are top notch and the overall tone can be summed up as a mix of fun, shock and dark humour. If you like dark horror comedies this is a must watch!

lulu-17985 It may be unintentional, but the more I think about this movie, the more it makes sense. It pretty much sends up many Gothic horror tropes-a decaying house, along with a decaying, mentally disturbed family, and a sympathetic-and, in this case, empathetic-caretaker who tries, in vain, to protect the family from outsiders, even though the caretaker isn't a family member him or herself. It even parodies the sex and violence used in movies to try and catch an audience's attention, with Virginia's off screen mutilation of the poor telegram messenger via what would have been, in "normal" circumstances, an "innocent" and silly pretense to be a spider. We also have the "auntie" stripping down, for no clear reason, and then being chased around in her black lace underwear just for shocking effect-but the one thing that I really found disturbing was how they more than implied that-once her disturbed distant kinsman, Ralph, "had his way with her," she was anxious for "more."There have been other movies mentioned that this one is similar to. The one that stands out, to me, in similarity, is "Arsenic and Old Lace," Though much darker in tone, like the earlier movie, this one uses humor to soften the troubling subject of criminal insanity addressed in the film. It also reminds me very much of "The Fearless Vampire Killers or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are In My Neck," which would be created after this movie, though it would end up released about the same time. That one was an unabashed send up of Hammer Studios' vampire movies, as well as Roger Corman's "Poe" movies for AIP. It even has the "twist" ending like the preceding "Spiderbaby" production.One of the standout moments, to me, is the one straight dramatic moment when-in a discussion between Lon Chaney's character and his troubled charges-you realize that they aren't so nuts that they don't understand that they are different, and they actually communicate a sorrow and regret about their situation.Sadly, not many people remember Lon Chaney, Jr. was nominated for an academy award because he ended up doing so many forgettable movies for various reasons, not the least being his own battle with the bottle. I'm glad that, in this movie, his character is portrayed as displaying an amazing calm in the midst of the insane zoo he was trying to wrangle-and not told to try and recreate Cary Grant's manic performance in the similar role in "Arsenic and Old Lace." I think he did a good job with the part.They really didn't explain much about the kid's dad. He obviously must not have suffered the genetic aberration himself, but gambled that he would not pass it on to his own offspring-a gamble he obviously lost. Since they also had "crazies" in the basement, I wonder if they were his siblings? If all you want is a "popcorn" movie, I think this one works just fine for that. If you're looking for Ingmar Bergman, then you should pass on this one. Also, though I know kids nowadays aren't "protected" from certain subjects like we oldies were, as a parent I would think about the implied cannibalism and rape/sadomasochism in the film before letting a kid watch this. A really sensitive kid might pick up on the implied cruelty amidst the silliness.

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".