Horrors of Spider Island (1960)

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Too much island and not enough spider. Not to mention dialogue like, "There's absolutely no reason yet to fear the worst. Until now, we only know that the plane caught fire and we've lost radio contact."En route to a show in Singapore, a troupe of beautiful dancers is stranded on a deserted island when their plane crashes. Before long, a radioactive spider bites their manager and turns him into a wild- eyed, furry-faced monster with three fangs and a passion for strangling. But remember, there's no need to fear the worst.This was made in Germany as a skin flick. For its U.S. release, it was re-edited in an effort to appeal to both fans of nudie and horror movies. (It appealed to neither.) The biggest "horror" of this film is the MAD MEN-styled sexism that our token male, Gary, exhibits toward the women—or, as he calls them, girls. Then there's the horrendous dubbing job, right down to the half-assed background noises. In one scene, as a dancer showers beneath a waterfall, we hear what sounds like gargling. When the plane crashes, it magically transforms from a DC-3 into what looks like a Japanese Zero in a ball of kamikaze fire. Furthermore, Gary calls his gun a revolver, even though it has no chamber. In fact, when Gary loads the gun, he shoves in a magazine, thereby proving it's not a revolver.Not that any of this matters. The so-called "plot" was merely an excuse to show pretty young women in various states of undress. In that regard, I suppose the film succeeded. And the jazzy score greatly contributes to the burlesque mood the film sets from Scene One. Of course, it was 1960, so the most cheesecake you'll see involves tight-fitting bikinis. Still, they do fit tightly!Now I'll have to re-watch the MST3K episode.

Here we have a German black-and-white film from over 50 years ago, which managed quite an achievement. It is bad enough to make in to the list of the 100 worst films in film history on the biggest movie website of the world. Yes it is German, even if there are copies with English language out there and even if the director and some of the cast used American pseudonyms. The director is Fritz Böttger and it was his 3rd and final film behind the camera. He wrote many more though.The cast is predominantly female. A group of dancers has a plane crash, but (what a miracle!) they all survive and are just hungry and thirsty. So they reach an island, but sadly they are not alone. One of the very few males in this film is bitten by some kind of spider monster and transforms into a spider human himself afterward. But not the Spider Man hero kind. A furry, scary looking creature which is out there to kill.This 75-minute film could have been fun actually, if the spider monster would have killed the girls one by one, but the actual outcome is not so bad that it's funny, it's so bad that it's real bad. The girls keep (cat)fighting for no reason really and the males fight too, but then all of a sudden in a scene near the end it was just harmless fun. But the worst thing in this film is probably all the sexual bait. Literally, every third scene we see one or more women making suggestive gestures obviously aimed at getting male audience members horny and thus tricking them into believing this was not a complete rubbish film. From the female cast, one actress died shortly afterward when she fell out of her apartment's window, while another (Barbara Valentin) actually had a great career working a lot with Fassbinder. The other actresses aren't particularly known and did not appear in too many films and those that they appeared in were all fairly forgettable.I do not care about what MST3000 did with this movie as they are idiots and don't know a thing about quality movies, only possessing the (lack of) ability to put down films. However, I have to say that this film here is not a good watch at all. Pretty much exactly the opposite. The writing is bad. The acting is even worse. Stay far far away.

This film (also known as "Horrors of Spider Island") starts off with a manager by the name of "Gary Webster" (Alexander D'Arcy) and his assistant "Georgia" (Helga Franck) hiring some attractive female dancers to perform in Singapore. On the flight there the plane crashes in the Pacific Ocean and the group ends up stranded on an island. When Gary is bitten by a large radioactive spider he becomes transformed into a monster which seeks to kill the women one by one. Now, while some might consider this an intriguing concept this film never really capitalizes on it in any meaningful way. Instead, rather than providing any horror or significant action, all the viewer gets to see are interpersonal dynamics between the women which is amplified when two men arrive by boat. The acting wasn't very good and none of the actors or actresses really stood out in any way. Also, because it was originally filmed in German and dubbed in English the dialogue seemed rather basic and clumsy. In short, this movie may have had some potential but it never achieved it.

For those of you who think that Peter Parker's superpowers are what happens with a spider's bite than you best look at what happens to Alex D'Arcy in Body In The Web. Because I sure can only think of one other reason to see this film and that might not be enough.D'Arcy is putting together a troupe of dancers and it's him and this troupe of about ten beauties who crash in the sea on the way to Singapore and get stranded on a tropical island. Which happens to be rich in uranium and some spiders got into that uranium which has produced spiders the size of table tops. And when they bite you don't get the powers of Spiderman.This is a German production dubbed in English for American release and better had it been kept in Das Reich. Even the sight of all those bathing beauty types in various stages of undress is not enough reason to inflict this on yourself.