Review: Spider Baby

This film was seen as a:

The only thing I knew about Spider Baby prior to watching it was that Sid Haig was in it. Other than that I didn't have much interest in seeing this film. I knew the film had a fairly decent cult following among horror fanatics but for some reason I never made the effort to watch Spider Baby. Well the other day with nothing on tv and the Final Girl Film Club deadline coming up I said "Eh, what the hell!" so I fired up the PlayStation 3 and pulled up Spider Baby on the Netfilx Instant-Stream. When the title sequence started and that kooky song played over it (sung by Lon Chaney Jr.) I knew I was in for something special and by the end I regretted not see this film earlier.

The basic jist of the story: The last surviving members of the Merrye family, watched over by devoted caretaker Bruno (Lon Chaney Jr.), are about to have their inbreeding utopia disrupted but some distant relatives looking to claim the family estate. The more Bruno tries to hide the family's secrets the more exposed they become to their visitors inquisitiveness and the surviving Merrye "children's" bad habits. Suffice it to say the movie is pretty good with a surprising amount of humor in it. I'm not going to go into huge detail about the film, it's a definite recommend but I do want to put down some thoughts I had while watching the film:

-Of course we open with the usual stereotype of the goofy black character being the first one to get killed..daaamn.

-The narrator and uncle to the Merrye children, Peter (Quinn K. Redeker) is the only other character beside Bruno that is nice to the "children". His demeanor kinda reminded me of this guy: 

-Even in one of his earliest films Sig Haig can be counted on to play some fucking weirdo character!

-So on top of being a scumbag lawyer (like what other kind of lawyer is there) Schlocker is not only an asshole but what the hell is up with the Hitler 'stache?!! It was made very clear that the viewer he was not to be liked from the get go!

-Maybe it's my urban upbringing and my overall sense of distrust of everybody but I don't care what kind of inheritance I'm entitled to I would never have insisted on spending the night in that house with those people they way cousin Emily did. Oh hell-tothe-NO!

-Speaking of Emily, bad enough that she insisted on spending the night in that creepy house and was completely disgusted by the purrrr-fect dinner she retires to the bedroom to...dance around in sexy lingerie?! Her character was more weirder than the Merrye clan...ironic no?

-Big props to Ralph (Sid Haig) for laying the pipe good on that uptight bitch Emily. One minute she was screaming running away from him the next she's moaning  in ecstasy and seeking out Ralph for some more. She certainly was keeping the family tradition alive.

-Very nice nod to Lon Chaney's iconic role as The Wolfman during the dinner scene where he mentions that it was going to be a full moon that night. Very Classy.

Those are just some of my thoughts about this crazy little film. It really was a treat to watch and I may have to add it to my movie collection. A must see for horror fans! Now I have to go and find that opening song to put on my ipod. Thanks again to Final Girl Film Club for motivating me to check out this film.

Review: The House of the Devil

7/6/10: Just an addendum this review has been submitted to the Final Girl Film Club.


Synopsis: In the 1980s, college student Samantha Hughes takes a strange babysitting job that coincides with a full lunar eclipse. She slowly realizes her clients harbor a terrifying secret; they plan to use her in a satanic ritual.
 
Well I bet that synopsis sounds good doesn't? And how about that poster, looks pretty bad ass right? And that trailer, it's pretty suspenseful huh? Well let me start this off by saying that the best thing about this movie was the poster. The trailer is actually better than the entire film! One of the quotes in the trailer says "Creepy as hell!" when in actuality The House of the Devil is BORING AS HELL!!!!!

**Spoilers ahead**Suffice it to say that the lead, Samantha (Jocelin Donahue), needs money for a new place to live off campus and decides to take the offer to babysit from some guy. Her friend, Megan (Greta Gerwig), doesn't like it but decides to drive her to the client's house anyway (which is in the middle of nowhere, of course) and insists that she stay and keep Sam company (There I just saved you 40 minutes of the movie). Once there we are introduced to Mr. Ullman who is creepy, but that's not saying much because the actor Tom Noonan (Manhunter) is the epitome of creepy. He informs Sam that he kinda lied and actually doesn't have a child that needs babysitting but rather his elderly mother that needs to be looked at while him and his wife go out to look at the lunar eclipse. *PERSONAL RANT* Now if it were me (or any other sane person out there) I would be saying "Fuck you, your wife and your mother I'm OUT!" but I guess that wouldn't make much of a movie.*END RANT* He convinces Sam to stay by offering $300, she tells him she'll do it for $400, he agrees and she stays. Oh and then when he says that he can't pay her friend (despite paying Sam $400) she tells Megan that she has to go and that she can come back later to pick her up...WHAT?! I know...what an idiot, she just got $400 out of this guy but she couldn't keep her friend there with her. Anyway Mr. and Mrs.Creepy leave, her friend departs pissed off (understandably) and Sam is left alone in the house. And then pretty much nothing happens for about 30-40 minutes.

We just see Sam futzing around the house looking at stuff opening some doors, turning on the tv, turning off the tv, opening her school bag to take out her books, putting her books back in her bag, ordering pizza, putting on her walkman, going around the house AGAIN while dancing....yadda yadda yadda. Oh yeah in the middle of all this her friend pulls over down the road to light a cigarette and ***SPOILER*** and get's shot in the face. That part was pretty cool but that's about it. (Ok that was about 35 minutes of the movie) Let's see...she hears a noise...there's some dead people in a room with a pentagram on the floor but she doesn't see it...she gets her pizza delivered by the guy who shot her friend but she doesn't know that...she eats a bit but it tastes funny and throws it out...she hears another noise and goes to investigate but she passes out from the spiked pizza (another 10 minutes done)...oh look she's become a part of a satanist ritual...some old woman draws a bloody pentagram on Samantha's belly and makes her drink blood (this with the lunar eclipse taking place apparently gets her pregnant)...Sam unties herself...Tom Noonan, his wife and the fake delivery guy watch while Sam gets away...she runs into her friend's faceless dead body...Sam kills the wife and her son (fake delivery guy)...somewhere she stabs Tom Noonan..she gets a gun...Noonan chases her into the cemetery..he begs her to give birth to the devil...she shoots herself in the head to keep it from happening....but she actually survives. In the end we see Sam lying in a hospital bed with a nurse assuring her that her and her baby are going to be fine (last 10 minutes).

Condensing the movie down in writing may make it sound intriguing but trust me when seeing this film in the span of 95 minutes it is excruciatingly painful to watch. This film could have easily been presented in one hour, 1hr 15 min TOPS and it could have been a decent if not a routine satanist run amok movie. There is so much exposition in there that it is unnecessary, I mean I can appreciate a slow burn in a movie but this one crosses the line into drawn out boredom. The ONE thing the director does well is recreate the 80's environment that the film takes place in, but this alone does not help this film one bit. I did not feel any sense of dread nor was I scared at the parts that were supposed to be scary. The whole satanist thing was lame the second the room with the dead bodies and bloody pentagram showed up. And with all the build up to the final scene, the payoff was lacking in the end. I keep reading on the internet about comparisons to Rosemary's Baby from fans of THotD. But where Polanski's film properly builds REAL tension and dread and keeps the viewer wondering if something sinister is really happening to Rosemary, The House of the Devil fantastically fails at attempting to conjure up any emotion other than sheer apathy.

Viewing suggestion: rent, watch on tv/cable or avoid completely.