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IMDb > Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told (1968)
Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told
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Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told (1968) More at IMDbPro »

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Overview

User Rating:
7.0/10   1,593 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 11% in popularity this week. See rank & trends on IMDbPro.
Director:
Jack Hill
Writer:
Jack Hill (written by)
Contact:
View company contact information for Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told on IMDbPro.
Tagline:
Come into my parlor, said the spider to the... more
Plot:
A caretaker devotes himself to three demented adults after their father's death. full summary | add synopsis
Plot Keywords:
more
NewsDesk:
(5 articles)
Sid Haig tribute to Don Edmonds on-line
 (From Fangoria. 1 July 2009, 12:41 PM, PDT)

Sid Haig Honored March 24th in La
 (From Dread Central. 23 March 2009, 6:08 PM, PDT)

User Comments:
A very mad story indeed! more

Cast

  (Complete credited cast)

Lon Chaney Jr. ... Bruno (as Lon Chaney)
Carol Ohmart ... Emily
Quinn K. Redeker ... Peter (as Quinn Redeker)
Beverly Washburn ... Elizabeth
Jill Banner ... Virginia

Sid Haig ... Ralph
Mary Mitchel ... Ann
Karl Schanzer ... Schlocker
Mantan Moreland ... Messenger
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Additional Details

Also Known As:
Attack of the Liver Eaters
Cannibal Orgy, or the Maddest Story Ever Told
Jack Hill's Spider Baby (Australia)
Spider Baby (USA) (short title)
The Liver Eaters
more
Runtime:
81 min
Country:
USA
Language:
English
Aspect Ratio:
1.66 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono
Certification:
Australia:PG (DVD rating) | USA:TV-PG (TV rating) | Finland:K-14 (video premiere) | USA:Unrated
Company:
Lasky-Monka more

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
The directorial debut for Jack Hill. more
Goofs:
Crew or equipment visible: When the window comes down on the back of the messenger you can see a hand at each side of the window holding it down from the outside. more
Quotes:
Virginia: I caught a big fat bug right in my spider web and now the spider gets to give the bug a big sting. Sting! Sting! Sting! Sting! Sting! more
Movie Connections:
Referenced in Fade to Black (1980) more

FAQ

was a Fantomas song based on this movie
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15 out of 17 people found the following comment useful:-
A very mad story indeed!, 23 February 2005
8/10
Author: The_Void from Beverley Hills, England

From the moment the beginning credits role, you know that you're going to be in for one mental ride! The opening credits themselves are captivating due to the music and the voice over that plays over them, and the film never loses this eerie verve that it creates with the credits. Spider Baby is a captivating and fascinating trek through mental illness from beginning to end and it's quality certainly isn't justified by it's reputation. It's amazing how great and influential films such as this one can become lost and not often spoken of, while other, far lesser films, have gone on to meet wide acclaim. The influence that this film has had can be felt on many films, but most obviously the 70's exploitation classic - The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. The film has the added title 'The Maddest Story Ever Told', and while that may not quite be the case - this is indeed one very demented tale.

The story follows a family of inbreeds that have been afflicted by a genetic disorder known as 'Merrye syndrome', named after the family in which the disorder developed. This malady causes it's victims to enter a state of age regression that starts at the age of ten and continues throughout the remainder of the person's life, rendering them with the intelligence of a child. The final generation of the family has been entrusted to the care of the family chauffeur (Lon Chaney Jnr), and all is well for these odd people until a greedy branch of the family decides that they want to relieve the family of it's home. Mental illness has always, and will always be, a fascinating subject for horror movies as it probes into the unknown and Spider Baby makes best use of that fact.

The film works because it's extremely macabre throughout, and although we hardly see any gore at all - we always know that something bad is just around the corner, and the film features many nasty happenings, from one of the "children" playing 'spider'; a game which involves her wrapping her victim up in rope and proceeding to 'sting' them with a pair of kitchen knives, to the rotted corpse of the family father still lying in it's bed. The cast of characters are superbly odd, and this helps to create the morbid atmosphere that the film revels in. The two girls are the central focus of the film, and they make for two deliciously creepy leads. Their childlike tendencies make them macabre in a way that few horror villains have ever captured. Lon Chaney Jnr's chauffeur is another great piece of characterisation, which is portrayed by way of a great performance. He brings just the right amount of sorrow and love to his character, and provides the backbone of the movie. The black humour is rife within the film and this, and the setting - a rickety old farmhouse - only further helps to instill the morbidity into the viewer's mind. All in all; a very good and underrated horror movie that any and all horror fans would do well to catch if given the chance!

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