Spider Baby - A Dark, Comical, Disturbing 60s Pic With Lon Chaney Jr.

Spider Baby - A Dark, Comical, Disturbing 60s Pic With Lon Chaney Jr.

I was flipping channels a couple nights ago and stopped at one of my most watched channels, TCM (Turner Classic Movies), as a movie starring Lon Chaney Jr. called "Spider Baby" was just beginning. I never heard of this film so I decided to give it a shot.

This was a bizarre film - especially for a film made in 1964 (released in 1968). It was loaded with extremely dark humor with a suprisingly comical performance by Chaney. Unlike his role in one of the funniest horror comedies of all-time "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" where he just played his Wolfman character (Talbot) as a straight man against Costello's brilliance, Chaney delivers a solid, yet nutty performance as a caretaker of murderous, cannibalistic young adults.

There's some gore as body parts are cut off, but more disturbing was the subtle uncomfortable feel of this movie mostly due to the unsettling characters. It almost has a Lynch-Eraserhead feel but not as dark and with laughs.

I checked it out in IMDb.com and found it was directed by Jack Hill, who many will recognize as the director of "Foxy Brown." This one I will watch again and give it a thumbs up. Here's a movie that can easily have influenced films like "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" or "The Hills Have Eyes." A bizarre, murderous, cannibalistic, inbred family; good times on TCM. Cheers to them for rediscovering this film and playing a great print.