Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Peereddi I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

Phillida Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

morrison-dylan-fan With Halloween coming up,I started talking to a family friend about Horror movies that he was looking for.Telling me about an interesting-sounding title that he had spotted when leaving HMV,I searched round the films alt titles and finally found the DVD being sold at a good price on Amazon UK,which led to me getting ready to enter the spider forest.The plot:Visiting a German village in order to take some wild life photos, photographer Paul Greville spots a mysterious girl in the woods with a scar that looks like a spider on her shoulders.Attempting to get more info from the villagers about the stranger, Greville finds himself being completely stopped in his tracks,with the towns people whispering that any man who gets near the girl is doomed to die.Pressing the town leaders, Greville is told that the mysterious figure is a "troubled girl" called Anna,who he should forget about if he knows what is best for him. Desperate to discover what Anna's "curse" is, Greville starts to investigate the webs of the towns peoples secret and lies.View on the film:Dipping the opening scene in green tint,director Peter Sykes & cinematographer Peter Jessop give the German village a lush,Folk Horror appearance,with the warm greens and yellows of the woods allowing the deadly spiders (and deadlier humans) to lurk hidden in the background.Hitting Greville's (played by a rugged Simon Brent)battles with the villagers with a firm thump,Sykes gives the final spiders webs an unexpected, pristine Sci-Fi shine,as Greville untangles the web of Anna's "curse."Stepping on all the villagers toes,the screenplay by Christopher Wicking and Derek & Donald Ford digs into a paranoid Folk Horror vein,as Greville's obsession with learning more about Anna leads to him brushing against the hushed myths of the village,and the rulers of the town who want to keep those myths crawling.Whilst the turn into Sci- Fi for the final cobweb is unexpected,the writers layer the paranoia on the lead villagers shoulders and deliver a deliciously strange final web.

Darkling_Zeist Quite a curio this.'Legend of The Spider Forest' is partly shot in what appears to be the picturesque Bavarian mountains, concerning the bizarre, esoteric legend of the deadly Spider Woman; played by the truly delicious Nada Arneric. Various libidinous young men are dying in the uber spooky forest; is it really the dastardly machinations of the nubile Arneric or is there something far more sinister afoot? Throw in the ubiquitous mad German scientist and you have a giddy mish- mash of unctuous horror goodness that is bound to appeal to most Brit horror completists!

MARIO GAUCI To begin with, I first became aware of this film through the biographical notes on director Sykes residing among the supplements included on the Anchor Bay Special Edition DVD of Hammer's superior latter-day outing DEMONS OF THE MIND (1972).Despite its obvious low-budget, this obscure but stylish thriller with fantasy and erotic overtones is an impressive and assured piece of work in its own right – starting out as it does in black-and-white with the first attack of the "Spider Girl" (played by a Serbian actress with the awkward-sounding name of Neda Americ but whose looks are decidedly stunning) after some full-frontal nudity by way of watery lovemaking! The male protagonist (Simon Brent), then, is a sturdy and compelling character; also notable in the cast are the vicious mature-looking woman (Sheila Allen) who forcefully seduces the hero in a steamy but short-lived sequence, her wily first citizen father (Gerard Heinz), and her ill-tempered blond boyfriend (Derek Newar) – who's incongruously whipped at one point by his own cohorts! Various unexpected twists come to light during the lively climax which sees the emergence of a cross-dressing ex-Nazi – who turns out to be the father of the Spider Girl and is intent on resurrecting the Party in his remote countryside village through the sale of art treasures retrieved in World War II and which lay hidden in a local church ever since! This is a very rare item indeed: I acquired it in a full-frame edition (with forced Finnish subtitles to boot), which format renders the compositions overly claustrophobic at times!

The_Void Peter Sasdy made a lot of films that were disappointing; Demons of the Mind and To the Devil a Daughter were two of the worst of all the Hammer films and House in Nightmare Park was not nearly as entertaining as it could have been. The Legend of Spider Forest is actually Sasdy's least disappointing film, but that's only because I had no expectations going into it. The film really does make little sense and while the fantasy elements of it might have lifted it out of the bottom of the barrel, they unfortunately don't. The plot has something to do with a mad scientist, a mythical 'spider woman' and some spider venom; there's a forest involved too. It actually gets off to an interesting start as we witness an interesting sequence taking place in a forest but the rest of the film is an absolute mess. It's far too easy to get lost in what's going on, and since the film is not very interesting, it's difficult to find the motivation to actually care what is going on - which kind of makes watching this film rather pointless. I guess this might appeal to people who like daft films that don't make sense, but everyone else can feel free to leave this one languishing in obscurity!