The Shaw Brothers Strike Again!

THE WEB OF DEATH-1976-In this imaginative Shaw brothers production The Spider clan (led by Lo Lieh) have a red spider that emits deadly fumes and covers it's victims in cobwebs. Two other clans fight over it and a woman cuts off her own arm. There's a lot of talk but a great nutty finale (that could have been longer). Director Yuen Chor was also an actor and screenwriter.

Thanks for reading this too short review!

The Maddest Story Ever Told!

SPIDER BABY or THE MADDEST STORY EVER TOLD-1968-This quirky black and white horror film may not be the maddest but it's certainly one of the strangest!It starts out with the legendary Lon Chaney singing the title theme over the credits!

The story concerns the Merrye family who suffer from "Merrye Syndrome", a genetic disorder caused by inbreeding. Lon Chaney is great as Bruno the insanely smiling family caretaker, chauffeur and guardian of the three Merrye children: Ralph (Sid Haig, still doing mostly TV at this time), a bald mute lunatic, the homicidal Elizabeth (Beverley Washburn) and the spider obsessed Virginia (Jill Banner). A few cannibalistic aunts and uncles also live in a pit in their basement. After Virginia kills a messenger (the great Mantan Moreland) the family is visited by Peter (Quinn Redecker) and Emily Howe (Carol Ohmart from THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL) distant relatives who want the family house. Also along is their weaselly lawyer Mr. Schlocker (Karl Schanzer) and his secretary Ann (Mary Mitchel). When the guests decide to stay for dinner Ralph kills a cat so they have food to serve. Though everyone else acts disgusted and snobby, Peter seems oblivious to the macabre surroundings. He's very cheerful and nice to his hosts. After Peter takes Ann out for a drink Schocker snoops around.  The girls slice him up because he doesn't like spiders ("This isn't right. There are proper procedures!"). Later the girls chase Emily (clan in black underwear) through the forest and Ralph rapes her (off-screen). When Peter and Mary return Elizabeth and Ralph kidnap Mary while Virginia ties Peter up and does her spider dance. Emily now crazy finds Ralph and blinds him. Peter manages to break his bonds and flee with Mary just before Bruno blows the place up. Peter (who narrates at the beginning and the end) 10 years later lives happily ever after with his Mary, now his his wife and their young daughter...or do they?  

SPIDER BABY was pretty much ignored in it's initial release (according to director Jack Hill it was hard to get a distributor because by 1968 black and white films were out of date) but since then it's become a cult movie and it's easy to see why. Chaney really throws himself into his demented role lecturing the murdering brood:  "How many times have I told you it's not nice to hate?" "How many times do I have to tell you just because something isn't good doesn't mean it's bad!"  His career was really almost non-existent by this point and his health problems were getting worse but he still puts in a memorable performance.

It's really strange to see a once funny guy like Mantan Moreland getting stabbed to death while caught in a window. It's not graphic though except for a quick shot of his severed ear. He made a few more movie and TV appearances before dying in 1973. Quinn Redeker was a familiar TV actor and screenwriter who was nominated for an Academy Award in 1978 for co-writing THE DEERHUNTER. Both Karl Schanzer and Mary Mitchel had been in DEMENTIA 13 in 1963. Beverley Washburn was a former child actress who was on many TV shows. Her Elizabeth is very whacky and frightening.

But Jill Banner steals the whole show as the alluring, innocent but bloodthirsty Virginia who really loves her spiders. She was in a few other movies (THE PRESIDENT'S ANALYST & A MAN, A HORSE, A GUN) and TV shows (she was in around 5 episodes of DRAGNET!) but quit acting soon after. She was killed in a car accident in 1982.

Director Jack Hill made this around the same time he filmed Boris Karloff's American scenes for his last 4 film appearances (produced in Mexico).

http://www.spiderbabyonline.com/

Happy Halloween and thanks for reading!

Saturday Morning Trio

RETURNER-2002-This is a great sci-fi/action film with a time travel storyline from Japan. A young girl (Anne Suzuki) from the future (2084) travels 80 into the past to prevent a alien invasion that dooms Earth. She gets help from "Gun for Hire" named Miyamoto (Takeshi Kaneshiro) who is out to avenge the death of a childhood friend at the hands of gangster Mizoguchi (Goro Kishitani in a great performance). Though a few plot holes might show through RETURNER and director Takashi Yamazaki deliver the goods....



RIDERS OF THE WHISPERING SKULL-1937-is a typically cheap and creaky western from Republic Pictures featuring the team known as "The Three Mesquiteers" (Stony, Tucson & Lullaby). This has the unusual feature of a supernatural plot involving a cursed treasure. Of course it's actually those "bad" Native American Indians once again and this particular tribe (described by one character as "a cult") like human sacrifices. The trio are kind of lamebrained if you ask me and seem to stick their collective noses into stuff that's none of their business. Stony is played by Robert Livingston. He played the same character around 20 times and was in about 80 other forgetable films but wound up his career in three Al Adamson movies! Stuntman Crash Corrigan who also specialized in playing gorillas is Tucson.



WEBS-(2003)-I have the unfortunate knack of never learning my lesson. When I saw this movie was being shown on The Sci-Fi Channel as "An Original Movie Presentation" I should have known better. It's happened before. Sci-Fi advertises a movie as being "exclusive" or even "made for Sci-Fi" yet when it's shown words are bleeped out and scenes are obviously cut. Why would they make a movie for TV that needed to be cut for language and content. I mean you'd think the producers would know this right?

Wrong! The answer is the station simply purchases some unreleased crap that no one wants and "presents" it as their own. But why they would want to take credit for such garbage is beyond me! For a while they were "snake crazy". Then it was sharks. I got caught in "Spider Weekend" apparently. Maybe it was a homage to the opening of SPIDER-MAN 2. I don't know...

Except this:

This one is kind of weird. It's almost like a pilot for a TV series though. Some electricians, led by direct to video fodder Richard Greico (did this guy ever have a career?) accidently travel to a parallel universe where the inhabitants battle blood drinking spider-people. It sounds interesting but the premise is really wasted mostly on fights and a few gory killings.

Director David Wu was also an actor, producer and editor in Hong Kong. In better days, he wrote THE BRIDE WITH THE WHITE and it's sequel (which he also directed). After directing episodes of TV shows like POWER PLAY and RELIC HUNTER, he was second unit director for BRIDE OF CHUCKY.

Oh yeah, I forgot the Sci-Fi channel recently changed their name to Sy-Fy! Sorry! They should be too.

Thanks for reading!

Rebane's Spiders!

GIANT SPIDER INVASION-1975-Dumb low budget horror film set in Wisconsin in a town full of stupid white trash hillbillies.

Alan Hale Jr. is the sheriff. His first line is “Hi little buddy”! Barbra Hale (Della Street from TV’s PERRY MASON; no relation to Alan) is a scientist concerned about a weird meteor that crashes near by. She calls in a NASA scientist (Steve Brodie) to help investigate. It turns out the crash opens up a “black hole” and tiny and giant spiders are unleashed to terrorize mankind. Perennial hillbilly impersonator Robert Easton (who also co- wrote the screenplay) is the first victim. Barbra Hale’s real life husband Bill Williams is a trouble making bartender. Kevin (son of Steve) Brodie is a young reporter.

It’s way too dark and I’ve read the main giant spider is actually a car in disguise! Well, it does kind of “glide” along rather than crawl. But what can ya expect from director Bill Rebane also responsible for most of MONSTER A-GO GO, INVASION FROM INNER EARTH and BLOOD HARVEST??

"Learn from other’s mistakes. We don’t have time to make them all ourselves"-Eleanor Roosevelt

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2 Bad

IN THE SPIDER’S WEB-2007-Crazy nonsense has a group of backpackers in India stumble upon a mysterious village where a Dr. Lecorpus (Lance Henriksen) and his strange brother like to inject people with spider venom as part of some local spider cult. They are actually harvesting organs for the black market. Henriksen makes a good villain but the best character is the comical local police sergeant who helps them. It sort of turns into a comedy for the climax!




MANTICORE-2005-In Iraq a dopey professor resurrects an ancient beast to seek revenge. A team of soldiers led by Robert Beltran go looking for a missing reporter and most of them get eaten. It’s pretty stupid and the soldiers act like assholes. Jeff Fahey is the major in charge. Director Tripp Reed was a former actor.

"I've got to stopping watching movies on the Sci-Fi channel"-me

Thanks for reading!