Spider Baby (1967)

Movie: Spider Baby (1967), directed by Jack Hill

Watched on: Amazon Prime

Ran: 7.54 miles, 9’13”/mile, 01:09:33 (recovery run)

 

All right, I confess: I’ve been staring at a blank screen for ages because I had practically no idea how to start writing about the cinematic paradox known—among other titles—as Cannibal Orgy, Attack of the Liver Eaters, and, eventually, Spider Baby. Eventually, though, I decided that was okay, since it’s pretty clear that the film’s creators didn’t have much idea about the best way to start it, either (or, evidently enough, what to name it). So let’s start at the very, very beginning and see where that gets us, even if it’s only to the asylum. 

 

See, I knew Spider Baby by reputation to be a horror classic with some pretty dark themes, so I was not at all prepared for its completely bonkers opening credits sequence, complete with smiling cartoon versions of the characters that look like refugees from a black-and-white Rocky and Bullwinkle Halloween special. Its typeface is pure ’60s and straight out of some Doris Day feature, and yet even Please Don’t Eat the Daisies was in color. And what about the theme song, which is about as terrifying as the "Monster Mash"? Is anybody supposed to be scared when Lon Chaney Jr. oh-so-spookily informs us that “Frankenstein, Dracula, and even the mummy are sure to end up in somebody’s tummy”?

 

So, two minutes in we’re already totally at sea, and now there’s a clean-cut Dick Van Dyke type (who is, in fact, not wearing an ascot, though later you’d swear in court he was) telling us about the Merrye Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that sends descendants of Ebeneezer Merrye spiraling into mental regression to a “pre-human condition of savagery and cannibalism,” and now we’re going to be privy to the story of “that fateful day” when the Merrye Syndrome was eliminated once and for all. Fair enough. Let’s flash back to a hapless delivery man nervously entering the Merrye Estate grounds through a big, scary iron gate while what passed for foreboding music makes us wonder if maybe we accidentally sat down to an episode of The Munsters. No one answers his knocking, so he pokes his head in through an open window…

 

…At which point he is immediately slashed to death by a pretty young girl swinging two big ol’ butcher knives. AND WE’RE OFF!

 

The girl is Virginia Merrye, the Spider Baby of the title (well, one of the titles), who has regressed enough that she enjoys “playing spider” by catching people in her web and stinging them to death. Her disapproving sister, Elizabeth, is similarly childish due to the ravages of the Merrye Syndrome. Their older (and, hence, regressed-beyond-speech) brother is Ralph. And rounding out this fun little family is their caretaker, Bruno, who was once their father’s loyal chauffeur, but who now hides the dark secret of the Merrye clan away from the world—a task which includes feeding the cannibal aunts and uncles shackled up in the basement.

 

Unfortunately for the Merryes, their idyllic and murderous seclusion is about to end, because the delivery man was bringing a letter announcing the imminent arrival of a couple of distant cousins, “Aunt” Emily and “Uncle” Peter. Emily wants to slap the kids in an asylum and claim the sizable Merrye estate herself, so when she and Peter turn up with a lawyer and his assistant in tow, Bruno needs to find some way to keep the family skeletons—both figurative and literal—in the closet. But it won’t be easy, because the interlopers insist on staying the night in the mansion, and those Merrye kids are awfully rambunctious…

 

I’m still not sure whether I liked Spider Baby despite its tonal schizophrenia or because of it. I was reminded a little bit of Arsenic and Old Lace, which plays unrepentant serial killers for laughs in a romantic comedy, but that was very clearly intentional, whereas Spider Baby could just as easily be the result of a weird combination of blind luck and blinding ineptitude. It definitely pushes the boundaries a bit considering it was filmed in 1964, though; in addition to violent murders committed by mentally deficient minors, there are also explicit mentions of cannibalism, and thinly-veiled references to incest and rape. Wrap all that up in an early ’60s sitcom aesthetic and what we’re left with is a horror film that is unquestionably far ahead of its time, but also somehow feels way, way behind it.

 

Whether that’s a problem or not is left as an exercise for the viewer. Besides, Spider Baby did give us Sid Haig, and that was a gift that kept on giving. And I would be lying if I said that the acting overall wasn’t pretty solid—I’ve seen plenty of movies in which the best (well, “least awful”) performance was worse than the worst one in Spider Baby. Among the speaking roles, Jill Banner is the standout as Virginia; apparently she was only 17 when the movie was shot, but she really nailed it.

 

So is there a vein of genius running through all this? I honestly couldn’t say. Sometimes I feel that people are just reading into it what they want to see, but every so often I have to wonder if this deformed celluloid monster was intentionally architected and just beyond the reach of my puny mortal comprehension. There’s no doubt that Spider Baby is beloved by a vocal sub-sect of horror fans, and I do suspect it was influential (the dynamics of the family dinner with the outsiders reminded me a lot of the dinner scene to come in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, for example). For all its flaws, the one thing I can say with certainty is that I don’t regret having watched it. Heck, I wouldn’t mind seeing it again, if only for the cerebral whiplash.