Spider Baby
2 p.m. Wednesday, March 4
(TCM)
B+
The Merrye children of Spider Baby don’t seem like they would have much to be merry about. The poor kids suffer from a rare neurological disorder particular to their bloodline. As a narrator helpfully tells us in the opening, at around the age of 10 or so Merrye family members regress to a “pre-human condition of savagery and cannibalism.”
Incredible, but true.
OK, it’s not really true. But try telling that to the slobbery, tongue-wagging Ralph Merrye (Sid Haig) or his creepy sister Elizabeth (Beverly Washburn). And then there’s incorrigible Virginia (Jill Banner), who believes herself to be a spider, trapping victims with a rope before “stinging” them with a flurry of butcher knives to the head.
The only thing standing between the murderous Merryes and civilization is the kindly figure of Lon Chaney Jr. as the family’s longtime chauffeur and now caretaker for the plum-crazy brood. And when Lon Chaney Jr. is the beacon of normalcy, you’ve got problems, friend.
From an irresistible opening theme song by Chaney Jr. to its could-this-be-the-end-question-mark resolution, Spider Baby spins a web of pure exploitation gold. You should expect nothing less from the debut picture of Jack Hill, the B-movie writer-director who would later give the world The Swinging Cheerleaders, Switchblade Sisters and help launch the career of Foxy Brown herself, Pam Grier. The film was shot in 12 days in 1964, but languished on the shelf for several years after the producers went bankrupt.
Spider Baby is a cautionary — albeit funny and macabre — tale of inbreeding run amok. Do not miss.
