Horrors of Spider Island

A troupe of dancing girls lost at sea finds themselves on the beach of a mysterious island where they opine for water and cosmetics. Making their way inland with their manager they discover an abandoned lodge, see a mad scientist type caught in a giant spider web, then begin to die one by one after their manager wanders off and gets bitten by an rabid mutant alien spider critter thingy that lives in a hollow tree. You can acquire this title from a number of sources ranging from the budget priced version available from Alpha Video to the chock full of extras version put out by Something Weird Video. The move is in full screen and was shot in black and white.

Listed Running Time: 89 minutes (77 minutes for U.S. video version)

MPAA Rating: Not Rated.

Cast: Harald Maresch, Helga Franck, Alexander D'Arcy, Allen Turner, Temple Foster, Helga Neuner, Rainer Brandt, Donna Ulsike, Dorothee Parker, Norma Townes, Gerry Sammer, Eva Schauland.

Director: Fritz Bottger.

AKA Ein Toter hing im Netz/ It's Hot in Paradise.

Here’s a goofy movie you may just want to add to your list of madcap absurd romps to rent for Halloween, but if you can’t wait that long then definitely rent this for bad movie night. It’s a chuckle fest. No, really, this is supposed to be about a group of showgirls- en route to Singapore no less- whose plane crashes in the sea leaving them and their manager, miraculously, the only survivors. With that set up the movie pretty much is about what you‘d expect it to be, a low budget horror film that uses its premise as excuse to show a lot of cheesecake shots. It‘s rather tame by today‘s standards but, considering this movie was filmed in 1960- or 1959 or 1962, depending on which edit of the film you‘re talking about- it‘s actually rather provocative for it‘s time. Keeping that in mind the movie is roughly on par with Plan 9 From Outer Space for camp factor and chock full of dubbed dialogue silliness.

Picture this: A sleazy Hollywood casting director type has a bevy of dancers parade before his desk. Those who make the cut are piled aboard a stock footage jet, which promptly crashes off screen to stage left in a sea of water. The scene fades onto the silhouette of a war surplus rubber dingy type craft with sleazy Hollywood casting director and bevy of dancers sitting solemnly sulking within. Sounds like a R-rated winner, right?

Guess again. This shockingly mild horror movie has none of the blood and gore that you have probably come to expect, nor does it have nudity. Well, the public domain prints that most bargain DVD outfits put out won‘t. But then even with the nudity restored you‘re not missing much. Just a few seconds or more out of the skinny dipping scene. But, really, if all you are looking for in a movie is nudity then you might as well just dump out of this review right now. Still here? Solid!

The Setting: An anonymous remote island somewhere in the wasteland of the ocean.

The Characters: I’ll be honest with you. It doesn’t matter. The dubbing is horrific and, in the end, the ladies are really just there for effect and to display their lovely legs.

The Horrors: Ill-defined tale of castaways washed up on a remote isle, which may or may not have been the HQ of a mad scientist. Whether the movie is hard to follow because of bad dubbing or because it was really just a low budget quickie is anyone’s guess but it is rather funny to see the mutant alien spider bite the manager, who falls down in the shadows, writhes around a bit, then stands up as a mutant hybrid himself!

Suggested Game Uses: This is the sort of movie you‘d want to have playing in the background on Halloween. It’s not exactly riveting, so you wont have to worry about players zoning out on it, yet it isn’t entirely a sleeper either. In fact the movie is rather funny, but then I may have a cracked sense of humor. Overall the movie’s basic premise is so threadbare that anyone should be able to quickly scrawl a scenario out on a napkin based on a viewing. Enjoy.

It’s in black and white. Which means those with an aversion to these older flicks will not be able to fully appreciate this film. Which is a shame as it’s so unintentionally funny. As for the underlying premise, it’s a much-used one that has appeared in many low budget horror movies, with the most similar one being Playgirls and the Vampire.

Rating: The DVD I watched rates 4 out of 10 golden apples for lack of image quality, however the movie itself is a solid 7. Well worth renting.

Negatives: It’s painfully obvious the version I have on DVD was taken from a VHS source, and not a very good one! On top of that the overall picture quality is piss poor and, every now and again, distracting block noise wanders across the screen. What’s more the movie is old, very old, so old it’s in black and white. For block noise to appear in a black and white movie, which should have less data to record, is proof enough this DVD was knocked out quickly and probably on the cheap. And that’s a shame. Without naming names I would NOT suggest you buy the 50 pack of so-called sci-fi classics in which this appears, unless you absolutely can’t find the titles elsewhere, as the picture quality throughout is shite.

Positives: I acquired my copy in one of those budget type 50 packs, well if you consider close to thirty dollars after tax for as many movies crammed to a side of a disc making for piss poor picture quality transfers a bargain. Still there are a number of rare gems in the bundle so if you can’t find this one elsewhere, and assuming you can find the boxed set on the cheap, it might be worth grabbing for the this movie and the Hercules titles alone. Failing that you should be able to find this in the bargain bin. Just look very carefully at the titles listed in most horror “sets” or “collections”. Just be aware you’ll likely be getting a public domain print sans a few scenes.

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