B Movies That Make the A List
Spider Baby. Jack Hill, Dir. 1964.
Island of Terror. Terence Fischer, Dir. 1966.
by Tony Fonseca
The recent resurrections of Jason Voorhies and Freddy Krueger (as well as the career of Robert Englund), as well as the remake of the granddaddy of all horror B flicks, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, has this reviewer wondering what Hollywood executives will be pulling next from the cult classic grab bag. Of course there's always the possibility of Night of the Living Dead III, or of new toe sucking vampires a la Salem's Lot, or even evil husbands turning their wives into robots... Oh wait, Hollywood is already remaking The Stepford Wives. Or perhaps Tinseltown can go further back in time and create anew older cult classics, like Herk Harvey's Carnival of Souls or the wonderfully kitschy Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman (the mind reels at the casting possibilities there). Two of the low budget classics that deserve being remade are Jack Hill's campy Spider Baby (1964) and Terence Fischer ridiculously horrific Island of Terror (1966).
Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told is one of the most charming gothic stories ever written for the big screen. Basically a college video project by a young director named Jack Hill, this tale of an inbred family that suffers from a degenerative brain disease that causes its members to revert in mental age as they grow older, was one of the final films of the legendary Lon Chaney, Jr. In fact, Chaney was so interested in the quirky script after he first read it, that he went on the wagon during the twelve days of filming, and had to be followed by an assistant who wiped his brow when necessary. Chaney plays Bruno, the long time chaffeur of the Merrye family. Bruno has made a promise to the recently deceased father of the family that he will take care of the children, Ralph, Virginia, and Elizabeth, who range in age from 16 to 20.
Ralph (Sid Haig, the crazed gas station clown from House of 1000 Corpses) is a 20 year old infant who curls up in corners and babbles. He has one talent: he is quite the hunter of domestic cats, which the family needs for special dinner occasions. The main conflict in the movie, a visit from money grubbing relatives, is the precipator for one of these dinners, resulting in one of the most disturbing meal scenes in any movie. When the action begins, Elizabeth, better known as Spider Baby because of her identification with the eight legged creatures, has managed to trap an unsuspecting postal carrier, and she "plays spider" with him, meaning that she stalks him slowly, and then "stings" him repeatedly with two butcher knives, which she holds at angles reminiscent of a spider's mandibles. One of the best parts of this little known film, Jill Banner, who plays Spider Baby, pulls off the insanity convincingly. Bruno arrives at the Merrye house to find the body of the carrier, who has a lawyer's notice stating that distant Merrye relatives are coming to the Merrye house to meet the children and decide their (and the house's) fate. This kind of set up is a familiar one to horror audiences: the evil step-relatives visit the abode of the crazed yet innocent children, and everyone's fate is set in stone. Now the murders just have to play themselves out.
What keeps Spider Baby from becoming a slasher flick is the way that Chaney portrays Bruno's reactions to these events. Bruno really loves these adult children, and refuses to go back on his promise to his former employer. As he finds bodies, a look of disappointment that only parents get works his way across his countenance, and he quietly takes them into the basement. Eventually, he realizes that the children have crossed a line and even he can no longer protect them from legal consequences, so he does the only thing he can consider honorable.
Allthough its special effects are sometimes laughable, Spider Baby works because it is as much a dark comedy as it is a horror film. Jack Hill's script flows naturally, and at some points is quite clever. And the acting is quite good. Chaney is wonderful as the straight man, and the interplay between Haig, Banner, and Beverly Washburn, who plays Virgina, is admirable. The chemistry between the sisters, one played by a seasoned child star, and the other a film newbie, is nothing short of fascinating.
On the other side of the spectrum is Terence Fischer's well-intentioned Island of Terror, a more traditional horror movie about a small Welsh island where cancer resercah goes terribly wrong, resulting in the creation of creatures called silicates. These silicates, which look like long necked turtles and move like snails, kill in a rather insidious way. They catch victims with their long appendages, and crawl over them, poking thousands of small holes into the victim through which they syphon out (a process which is always accompanied by loud sucking sounds) the bones, mineral by mineral. The victims scream for anywhere from thirty seconds to a minute when this occurs, attesting to how painful the process is supposed to be.
Unfortunately, the monsters are the most interesting part of Island of Terror. Peter Cushing is wasted in a movie that suffers from an incredulous plot line and that, for some unknown reason, degenerates into a love story between two of the principles. One of those two, Toni Merrill (Carol Gray) is nothing more than the screaming, useless woman who must constantly be rescued by the film's men. Despite these weaknesses, Island of Terror is one of those movies that just demands a viewer's attention. The opening credits are masterful: they begin with a scene of scientists working inside of a lab, seriously intent on their work. Then, for a split second, the screen goes scarlet, and a quick camera shot of bodies strewn across the floor, mingled with shards of broken glass and pieces of twisted metal.
We are then introduced to the isolated island community, and are immediately given a clue that most of the people on this island are doomed. The only way on or off the island is an intermittent plane service. Basically the entire population becomes trapped cattle, simply waiting for the silicates to attack and suck out their bones. To make matters worse, the silicates are virtually indestructible. Guns, axes, and dynamite do no damage to them. Ultimately, only injections of an isotope are found to be effective in destroying the creatures.
If I were an enterprising young Hollywood producer looking for horror movies that are worthy of the remake genie, I'd give serious consideration to both Spider Baby and Island of Terror. Both have a lot of potential, and fortunately, neither of the two is well known enough to invite comparisons between a remake and an original. Which is unfortunate, because both of these B flicks is a fine example of the genre.