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| Spider Baby | 
 enlarge | Director: Jack Hill
Actors: Lon Chaney Jr., Carol Ohmart, Quinn K. Redeker, Beverly Washburn, Jill Banner
Studio: Image Entertainment
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.99
Buy Used: $7.15
You Save: $7.84 (52%)
New (2) Used (14) Collectible (2) from $7.15
Avg. Customer Rating:  45 reviews
Sales Rank: 61940
Format: Black & White, Dvd-video, Letterboxed, Special Edition, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown)
Rating: Unrated
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 81
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
DVD Layers: 1
DVD Sides: 1
Picture Format: Letterbox
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 5.4 x 0.6
UPC: 014381586022
EAN: 0014381586022
ASIN: B00000JN2R
Theatrical Release Date: 1964
Release Date: September 14, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: DVD is in very good condition, rental overstock, may or may not include insert and/or stickers, 100% guaranteed.
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Re-titled Spider Baby in 1968 after the original title Cannibal Orgy, Jack Hill's black and white proto horror-comedy influenced numerous films, especially those featuring boxed or bagged body parts, like Phantasm's yellow-bleeding finger and Blue Velvet's ear found in the meadow. Spider Baby is about an inbred family cursed with Merrye's Disease, which transforms even sweet children, Elizabeth (Beverly Washburn), Virginia (Jill Banner), and Ralph (Sid Haig) into murderous cannibals. Virginia steals the opening scene, during which she plays "spider," cutting the ear off a messenger who is sent to their decrepit Victorian mansion to deliver news of the house's confiscation. Caretaker Bruno (Lon Chaney Jr.) futilely chides Virginia in preparation for a visit from their oblivious, snooty cousin, Emily Howe (Carol Ohmart) and her husband, Peter Howe (Quinn Redeker), who plan to take the home. As more people pile into the house for a meeting, including lawyer Schlocker (Karl Schnazer) and his innocent assistant, Ann (Mary Mitchell), the kids cut loose, hacking everyone up and feeding them to their uncles locked in the basement. Jack Hill, whose films range from horror (Switchblade Sisters) to Blaxploitation (Coffy, Foxy Brown), made sure in Spider Baby to balance comedy with spook so its cannibalistic themes scare but don't absolutely disgust. A brilliant dinner party scene, in which the Merryes serve roasted cat and garden bugs, passing on the meat because they "don't eat dead things," is one of the tensest and funniest cannibal film scenes ever made, up there with Fuad Ramses' Egyptian feast in Roger Corman's Blood Feast. This special edition DVD includes interesting featurettes that detail the making of the movie and the whereabouts of the real mansion, though the best part of Spider Baby is pondering how bizarre this film must have seemed to the 1960s youth. —Trinie Dalton
Description
The seductive innocence of Lolita, the savage hunger of a Black Widow and a taste for blood! Lon Chaney, Jr. plays the caretaker for a family who is inflicted with a unique genetic disorder--one that causes them to regress mentally to a state of savagery and cannibalism. When distant cousins arrive with the intention of "taking over," an utterly bizarre night of horror follows.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 40 more reviews...
 Brilliant, one of a kind movie! June 21, 2008
One of the greatest movies i have ever seen!!! Great performances by all and especially by Jill Banner(Virginia).
Saw it for the first time a month ago and have watched it 5 times since then. Most movies being made today don't even compare to this MASTERPIECE.
Highly Recommended!
 The Devil's Rejects before they were hip! May 22, 2008
Oh boy, this is one family you don't want to visit! They are all afflicted with a genetic disease named after, and prevalent only in, their family. It is a basic regression where your mind develops in a backwards fashion and soon you aren't aware that it is not socially acceptable to eat the cat or murder the mailman.
The "family" is looked after by Bruno, the butler, who is charmingly portrayed by Lon Chaney, Jr., with that sweet disposition and sad eyes that made us feel sympathy for the Wolfman.
He tries to keep everything "normal" during a visit from the greedy uncle looking into his share of the family dough. Well, we all know how that ends up! There is a great scene where the guests are served dinner and you can just feel their pain as one disgusting dish after another is presented to them.
All in all, a very twisted, funny, and entertaining movie.
Also- VERY cool- watch for Sid Haig (the future Captain Spaulding, speaking of Devil's Rejects!) who plays Ralph, the craziest family member who HASN'T yet made the transition to being locked up in the basement!
Gotta love him! He was destined to be a freak!
Spider kid, spider kid...does whatever a spider kid does February 29, 2008
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
It's campy...a little trampy
It's classic...a little drastic
There's a sexy little vibe
and a cannibal tribe
plus a bit of inbreeding
people used for feeding
There's a degenerative disease
that makes the brain start to squeeze
It stars Chaney & Haig
I don't mean to be vague
But those guys rule
So don't be a fool
just buy this today
that's all I have to tell you
 Loads of fun. February 12, 2008
Spider Baby (Jack Hill, 1964)
Jack Hill and his old pal Sid Haig (Haig, as an actor, and Hill, as a director/writer, both got their respective starts in Hill's The Host) reunite for yet another incredibly silly film, this one involving an inbred family whose children grow normally until they reach the age of ten, at which time they begin a slow descent into psychotic cannibalism. The last three surviving children of the clan, Virginia (Jill Banner), Elizabeth (Beverly Washburn), and Ralph (Haig), are watched over by their late father's longtime chauffeur, Bruno (Lon Chaney Jr.). Everything's going along swimmingly, with the exception of the occasional deliveryman (Mantan Moreland, long known as Birmingham Brown in the Charlie Chan flicks) getting offed by Elizabeth, until the last surviving relatives and their lawyer descend on the house to try and get the girls into school (and claim the family inheritance, naturally). They insist on spending the night in the house. Mayhem ensues.
Now, Spider Baby is not deathless cinema by any standards, but that said, it's an absolute joy to watch. Sid Haig is almost hypnotic. The two girls play the mixture of nubile innocence and murderous rage with a surprisingly nuanced air for such a basement-budget flick. The characters are, for the most part, well-rounded, and there's enough variety in them that they don't resemble a walking buffet, as the camp counselors in so many slasher films do, for example. It's kind of a revelation to find out that even bad horror comedies from the sixties are better-written and more fun than most modern not-scary horror flicks. (Also: how weird is it that so many people involved with this movie died in 1973? THE CURSE OF SPIDER BABY!) Looking forward to the remake, which will most likely be as disappointing as "remake" implies, but I still have some hope. ***
Wonderful film! and wonderful version of it January 7, 2008
I won't go into detail about how good the film is (which is a brilliant horror/comedy film) but the quality of the DVD. The image transfer is straight from the negative print which is very crisp. Previous editions (if you could find it) of this film were copied from a copied VHS tape. The extras are great if you are a big fan of the film.
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