Che sorpresa, trovare una commedia horror anni '60 che risulti ancora efficace e sorprendente!
Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told narra la vicenda della famiglia
Merrye, che vive isolata in una grande casa; la famiglia è composta da un paio di belle figliole fuori di testa, un fratello ormai demente ed un'altra manciata di strane presenze. Tutti vittime di una malattia ereditaria che li fa regredire mentalmente ad uno stato quasi selvaggio man mano che lo sviluppo fisico procede; ad accudirli il maggiordomo, rimasto con loro per esaudire una promessa fatta al padrone di casa sul letto di morte.
Dalla città arrivano dei lontani parenti con il loro avvocato, intenzionati a prendere possesso della casa.
I guai non tarderanno ad arrivare.
Sospeso tra horror e commedia, il film eccelle in entrambi i campi: funziona benissimo quando vuole suscitare antipatia per i nuovi arrivati (coinvolti in una cena alquanto disgustosa) ed ancora meglio quando decide di spaventare.
La spensierata crudeltà delle due ragazze è da antologia (agghiacciante nella sua ingenuità), ed anche gli altri inquietanti abitanti della casa non mancano di stupire.
Le loro azioni sono folli e tremende, ma mantengono sempre una propria perversa logica che le rende ancora più spaventose.
Finale adeguato alla pazzia della casa (ed a suo modo commovente).
Certo, il ritmo non è quello a cui gli horror moderni ci hanno abituato, ma su 1 ora e 20 si sente poco, ed i momenti morti sono pressoché assenti.
Ci si concede persino anche un poco di
fan-service e si accenna in maniera piuttosto esplicita a tradimenti coniugali con un fare leggero.
Azzeccato l'uso del bianco e nero.
Scritto e diretto da
Jack Hill non si può fare a meno di menzionare, nel ruolo del maggiordomo, l'icona del cinema horror
Lon Chaney Jr.: l'unico ad aver interpretato tutti i quattro classici mostri dell'horror:
Frankenstein, la
Mummia,
Dracula e il
Lupo mannaro.
Da non perdere la segretaria dell'avvocato, appassionata di film dell'orrore, che durante la cena li cita tutti.
Voto: 8.5 (se amate l'horror, è da vedere - registi e sceneggiatori di horror moderni dovrebbero prendere appunti)
Tags: horror, commedia, famiglia, casa, Lon Chaney Jr., follia, pazzia, malattia mentale, malattia ereditatia, morte, omicidio, ragno, tradimento, parente, avvocato, segretaria, maggiordomo, esplosione, gatto, dinamite, cannibalismo, cadavere, tarantola, coltello, rete, ragnatela, gufo, guardone, tradimento.
Hill, Jack (I)
Data di nascita: 28 January 1933
Coniuge: Elke::(1958 - present)
Ultimi lavori: Biografia:Jack Hill grew up around movies - his father was a designer for the Disney studios and Warner Brothers. He went to the University of California to study film, where he was a classmate of Francis Ford Coppola - they worked together on student productions and later both apprenticed with Roger Corman, working on The Terror (1963). While Coppola went on to Oscardom, Jack continued with B-flicks. He didn't make a lot of films, and while all were low budget they all (except Switchblade Sisters (1975)) made money, and his early 'blaxploitaton' films Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974) were hits. Soon after Switchblade Sisters (1975) he stopped making movies so he and his wife Elke could pursue meditation and he could write novels. Today his films are hailed as cult classics, thanks primarily to Quentin Tarantino, who saw Hill's work as it made its way to video. With retrospectives and a re-release of Switchblade Sisters (1975), his career seems to be reviving.
Trivia random: Hill's UCLA student movie "The Host" was a huge influence on the last third of Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now".
Filmography links and data courtesy of IMDb.
Chaney Jr., Lon
Nome di battesimo: Chaney, Creighton Tull
Data di nascita: 10 February 1906
Data di morte: 12 July 1973
Altezza: 6' 2½" (1.89 m)
Coniuge: Patsy Beck::(1 October 1937 - 12 July 1973) (his death), Dorothy Hinckley::(1928 - 1937) (divorced) 2 children
Ultimi lavori: Biografia:American character actor whose career was influenced (and often overshadowed) by that of his father, silent film star Lon Chaney. The younger Chaney was born while his parents were on a theatrical tour, and he joined them onstage for the first time at the age of six months. However, as a young man, even during the time of his father's growing fame, Creighton Chaney worked menial jobs to support himself without calling upon his father. He was at various times a plumber, a meatcutter's apprentice, a metal worker, and a farm worker. Always, however, there was the desire to follow in his father's footsteps. He studied makeup at his father's side, learning many of the techniques that had made his father famous. And he took stage roles in stock companies. It was not until after his father's death in 1930 that Chaney went to work in films. His first appearances were under his real name (he had been named for his mother, singer Cleva Creighton). He played number of supporting parts before a producer in 1935 insisted on changing his name to Lon Chaney Jr. as a marketing ploy. Chaney was uncomfortable with the ploy and always hated the "Jr". addendum. But he was also aware that the famous name could help his career, and so he kept it. Most of the parts he played were unmemorable, often bits, until 1939 when he was given the role of the simple-minded Lennie in the film adaptation of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men (1939). Chaney's performance was spectacularly touching; indeed, it became one of the two roles for which he would always be best remembered. The other came within the next year, when Universal, in hopes of reviving their horror film franchise as well as memories of their great silent star, Chaney Sr., cast Chaney as the tortured Lawrence Talbot in The Wolf Man (1941). With this film and the slew of horror films that followed it, Chaney achieved a kind of stardom, though he was never able to achieve his goal of surpassing his father. By the 1950s, he was established as a star in low-budget horror films and as a reliable character actor in more prestigious, big-budget films such as High Noon (1952). Never as versatile as his father, he fell more and more into cheap and mundane productions which traded primarily on his name and those of other fading horror stars. His later years were bedeviled by illness and problems with alcohol. When he died from a variety of causes in 1973, it was as an actor who had spent his life chasing the fame of his father, but who was much beloved by a generation of filmgoers who had never seen his father.
Trivia random: Well-known character actor William Smith started out as a child actor, and in an interview with a horror-film magazine stated that during breaks on the set of The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), Chaney treated all of the children on the set to ice cream.
Citazione random: Director Reginald Le Borg: "His was a career and, I believe, a personality that resulted directly from trying to embrace and, at the same time, disown the career and image of his father."
Filmography links and data courtesy of IMDb.
Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told (1968)
Regista: Jack Hill Scrittore: Jack Hill Genere: Comedy, Horror
Valutazione: 6.9/10 (811 voti)
Durata: 81 min
Paese: USA
Lingua: English
Cast:Trama:In a dilapidated rural mansion, the last generation of the degenerate, inbred Merrye family lives with the inherited curse of a disease that causes them to mentally regress from the age of 10 or so on as they physically develop. The family chauffeur looks out for them and covers up their indiscretions. Trouble comes when greedy distant relatives and their lawyer arrive to dispossess the family of its home.
Trivia random: The film was shot in August and September, 1964 with the title "Cannibal Orgy, or The Maddest Story Ever Told" but its release was held up for years due to the producers going bankrupt. Producer David Hewit acquired it for distribution in 1968 and changed the title to "Spider Baby" and then later "The Liver Eaters."
Citazione random: Elizabeth: Spiders don't eat other spiders.::Virginia: Cannibal spiders do.
Filmography links and data courtesy of IMDb. 
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