B&W, 1964, 81 mins. Written and Directed by Jack Hill
Starring Lon Chaney, Jr., Carol Ohmart, Quinn K. Redeker, Beverly Washburn, Jill Banner, Sig Haig, Mary Mitchel, Karl Schanzer, Mantan Moreland / Music by Ronald Stein / Produced by Gil Lasky and Paul Molina / Cinematography by Alfred Taylor
Format: DVD - Image (MSRP $19.99)
Letterboxed (1.66:1) / Dolby Digital Mono
Though superficially similar to some of Charles Addams' drawings, Spider Baby truly resembles nothing else in film. Chaney stars as Bruno, the family chauffeur for the Merrye clan. It seems the Merryes have been plagued for generations by "the Merrye syndrome," a degenerative condition of the mind and body which causes physical deformity and homicidal mania. The eldest son, Ralph (a hilarious Sid Haig), teeters on the brink of being locked away with his older relatives who now reside out of sight in the family basement, while the younger daughters, Elizabeth (Beverly Washburn) and Virginia (Jill Banner), a great comedy horror pair if there ever was one, take amusement in torturing and murdering the occasional visitor. Two distant relatives, Peter (Quinn Redeker) and Emily Howe (Carol Ohmart), come to pay a visit with their family lawyer, Mr. Schlocker (Karl Schanzer), and his secretary, Ann (Dementia 13 heroine Mary Mitchel). When the visitors decide to stay for dinner, Ralph obliges by catching and preparing a cat for the main course, and while we wouldn't dream of giving away the title, let's just say the girls aren't too happy when Schlocker squashes a spider at the dinner table.
Filmed for virtually no money in atmospheric black and white over a period of twelve days, Spider Baby (also known as The Liver Eaters and Cannibal Orgy, or the Maddest Story Ever Told) continuously surprises thanks to its sharp script and enthusiastic performances. Ohmart does a funny turn on her blonde bitch routine from House on Haunted Hill, albeit with less clothing here, and Chaney's emotional post-dinner scene with the two girls proves once and for all that he was a fine actor in and out of makeup. The script includes a number of marvelous in-jokes for fans, particuarly some funny riffs on The Wolf Man, and really isn't as depraved as a simple plot description might sound.
Image's DVD looks very close to their earlier laser version but with an improved contrast scale. The elements are in very good shape; after countless years of watching bootlegs and dicey TV prints, it's refreshing to see a commercially marginal title being treated like this. The 1.66:1 framing looks balanced and well chosen, and the level of detail is consistently impressive with little distortion or visual noise. The occasional scratch or scuff aside, this is the best this film has ever looked. The DVD includes the same extras from the laser, namely footage of the film's recent screening at the Nuart in L.A. attended by many of the cast and crew, as well as laid back and affectionate commentary by Hill himself. However, there's one nice new bonus; Hill recently discovered a longer answer print of the film contianing a longer second reel in a warehouse, and the extra footage has been included as a supplement on the disc. Presented fullscreen, the extended reel (eight minutes total, some of it also present in the final cut) contains several bits of footage snipped out to speed up the film. Some extra comedy between Bruno and Schlocker in the car, an earlier introduction to Ann's character, and some chit chat on the front porch in which Emily spies Ralph for a second time make up most of the extra running time, and while none of these bits add anything of narrative significance to the film, it's nice to see them rescued from oblivion. Thirty five years later, Spider Baby can easily be seen as a film ahead of its time; the morbid yet affectionate tone may have been too much for audiences at the time, but fortunately, pitch black twisted humor has dramatically come into vogue since then. For anyone predisposed to offbeat midnight movies, this is one title you can't afford to miss.
Color, 1971, 93 mins. Directed by Jack Hill
Starring Judy Brown, Roberta Collins, Pam Grier, Brooke Mills, Pat Woodell, Sid Haig, Christiane Schmidtmer, Katheryn Loder, Jerry Frank / Music by Les Baxter & Hall Daniels / Written by Don Spencer / Cinematography by Fred Conde
Format: DVD - New Horizons (MSRP $24.95)
The plot couldn't be more simple: a group of women in prison, led by the resourceful Collier (top-billed Judy Brown), plan an escape. Inside snitch Grear (Pam Grier in her first speaking film role) slips information back and forth to the guards and the evil warden, Ms. Dietrich (a hilarious Christiane Schmidtmer, best remembered for The Giant Spider Invasion), in order to get smack for her lesbian lover cellmate. Guards torment and molest prisoners. Prisoners get naked (though not as much as you'd expect for this genre). One evil head guard, Lucian (Kathryn Lodern, the quasi-Bette Davis villainess from Foxy Brown) tortures bad girls by tying them to tables and hanging snakes over them. Fast paced and surprisingly well acted, The Big Doll House takes itself more seriously than its semi-sequel, The Big Bird Cage, and delivers all the usual thrills you would expect, though a few witty lines and some hysterical monologues (the one about the husband and the poolboy is priceless) indicate the filmmakers already knew how to keep their tongues firmly in cheek. As if that weren't enough, you also get a theme song, "Long Time Woman," performed by Pam Grier herself (and later reused in Jackie Brown).
The New Horizons DVD follows several other video incarnations, including with a passable release from Embassy and a miserable one under the title Women's Penitentiary (which spawned a slew of other retitled women in prison films). The New Horizons version is presented open matte, giving characters way too much headroom in many shots but otherwise a nice presentation. Big Doll House was shot on less than optimum materials in the Philippines, thanks to the producer wishes of Filipino scholock experts Eddie Romero and John Ashley (Mad Doctor of Blood Island), so this edition is about as good as it's going to look. Sound quality is fine if a bit ragged in spots due to the recording techniques, and the disc is well compressed and contains no noticeable artifacts. This print contains the irritating dubbed-in final line used on reissue prints and all other video versions. Also includes the original trailer and the usual New Horizons coming attractions assortment (Big Bad Mama, Eat My Dust,, etc.), as well as the usual PR materials about how Roger Corman is such a great guy (but why does his picture have to be on the spine label of every title?).
Color, 1974, 91 mins. Directed by Jack Hill
Starring Jo Johnston, Rainbeaux Smith, Colleen Camp, Rosanne Katon, Jack Denton, Ron Hajek / Music by William Loose & William Castleman / Written by Jane Witherspoon & Betty Conklin / Cinematography by Alfred Taylor
Format: DVD - Anchor Bay (MSRP $29.95)
Letterboxed (1.66:1) / Dolby Digital Mono
Kate (Johnston), a reporter for an underground student newspaper at Mesa University, joins the cheerleading squad to expose... well, something about exploitation of women, though she never really makes her goals all that clear. Her radical editor boyfriend disapproves when she moves into the dorm to get closer to her story, and he really gets ticked when she winds up sleeping with Buck (Hajek), the star quaterback. Unfortunately, he reveals some nasty traits of his own when he humiliates fellow cheerleader Andrea (Caged Heat's Smith, playing a naive virgin -- 'scuse me while I collapse with laughter for a moment). Buck's fiance, rich blonde cheerleader Mary Ann (Camp, who has way too little screen time and, oddly enough, does no nudity), doesn't believe Kate's claims that the coach, a local store owner, and a math teacher are rigging all of the football games in the season to make themselves rich. Kate decides to expose the story, even though the married math teacher is sleeping with yet another cheerleader, Lisa (Katon, one of the first black Playmates). Got all that? After many double crosses and over-the-top dramatic moments, it all ends with a big nonsensical brawl in a warehouse before the strangely abrupt final scene.
Anchor Bay's transfer once again is far better than you would ever expect from a low budget drive-in teen flick; in fact, the print is so clean and sharp that the stock footage inserted during the football sequences is even more obvious now. The vivid '70s colors look rich and distortion-free, while the audio is... well, as clear as it will ever sound. Incidentally, composer Loose also wrote the music for most of Russ Meyer's late '60s and '70s films. If you ever caught some of those cheesy cheerleader movies on Cinemax late at night and wondered whether anyone ever bothered to make a good one, check this out. Incidentally, one earlier video version of this film was released under the title H.O.T.S. 2, though the original H.O.T.S. (a really lousy movie, by the way) came out several years later. The DVD also includes two TV spots and running commentary with Hill and "film historian" Johnny Legend in which Hill warmly recalls his guerilla filmmaking techniques from the period. Until the long-awaited Miramax DVD of Hill's Switchblade Sisters comes out, this will do just fine.
Ah, if only all directors could start out their careers this way! Boasting one of Lon Chaney, Jr.'s best performances (for which he reportedly stayed on the wagon for most of the filming) and a diabolical sense of humor, Spider Baby was virtually ignored upon its initial release but has acquired a rabid cult following thanks to television and video. The theatrical reissue and laserdisc special edition a few years ago continued to whet the public's interest in this depraved gem, and the new DVD should continue to improve its standing in the offbeat film community.
The first and one of the best. If you've ever suffered through those cruddy women in prison movies Cinemax used to show in the middle of the night on the weekends, here's a rare example of how it should be done (Jonathan Demme's Caged Heat is another).
With the aid of guard Sid Haig, the girls eventually the girls stage a big, violent breakout which claims a few lives and leads to a riotous, over the top sequence in the middle of the jungle.
Not as exploitive as its title would suggest but neither quite as groundbreakingly feminist as its champions claim, Swinging Cheerleaders is director Jack Hill's above average entry in the '70s cycle of liberated girls who use their jobs (well, okay, cheerleading isn't exactly a job) as a means of obtaining personal fulfillmenet and sexual pleasure. After successfully tackling the horror and women in prison genres, Hill brings his usual directorial strengths to this one: fast pacing, bizarre supporting characters, ridiculous action, and funky dialogue. Drive-in fans should be plenty amused.
