Monster Crap Inductee: The Horrors Of Spider Island (1960)

Monster Crap Inductee: Horrors Of Spider Island
Somehow, The First Word In The Movie Title Should Be Changed To A Word That Rhymes With Bores.

1960

I’m guessing we have all had that chat about the birds and the bees. While I am sure it bored you all to tears, it is the consensus ideal chat about sex. And sex is the keyword in this discussion as that is exactly what this film is…..a sexploitation film called The Horrors Of Spider Island.

Yes, folks….we are looking at a sexploitation film. Now while most sexploitation films involve sex….the closest thing this movie has to sex is nudity. Why? Because in 1962, anything that basically exploited nudity was called sexploitation. Somehow, I don’t see that working today. But at least it was better than the original titles for this movie. Originally, it was called Ein Toter hing im Netz, which translated means “A Corpse Hangs In The Web”. Now while that makes sense with one certain scene, it doesn’t make sense with the whole movie. But it is better than what our country came up with when this movie was imported over because they decided that A Corpse Hangs In The Web isn’t sexy. And due to the fact that it had gratuitous shots of boobs, the good old United States of America considered this film an adult film. Yes, the fact is our country is definitely a bunch of prude people compared to others.

Anyway, the United States, in their infinite wisdom, decided to release this film in 1962 as “It’s Hot In Paradise”.

Folks, I want you to look back at the poster and imagine selling that poster to a bunch of people and calling it the name our country came up with. It is like when the Cinema Snob on YouTube reviewed some movie that had an alternate title called Hot Fantasies, and the hot fantasies they were talking about was sticking a fire poker up someone’s ass. In fact, there was even a trailer with said title that involved that particular fire poker scene. Surprisingly, it didn’t do well. In fact, it did so bad that they had to re-release it again. But because we are also a bunch of dopes, we blamed it on the boobs. So the company decided to edit all the boobs and re-release the film with a better title called The Horrors Of Spider Island. Needless to say, the film still bombed and is considered one of the worst films of all time. But why was this film so bad? We are about to find out.

We begin this movie with the opening credits played with some kind of porn music and with the credits being played over a web. After that, we enter what is supposed to be New York City…..or at least that is what I have been told, although I seem to have one small problem with that and that is…….

Yes, folks, what you are seeing is palm trees. Now let me ask you a question. Have you ever seen palm trees in New York City? I know I haven’t. Anyway, we enter some kind of building where an audition for a dance group is being held with Mike Blackwood being the agent. The ladies here are either showing each other where Singapore is (since some of these people obviously failed geography), and rubbing their legs. The one lady rubbing her legs asks if the map the two ladies are looking at talks about the 32 night clubs and reveals that she has already been there with an old boyfriend of hers who is an oil shiek. One lady makes a crack that sheiks are the ones who wear turbans. One lady asks another if she has a light so she can smoke. The other lady shows her the sign that says No Smoking, to which the lady who asked takes the sign down and sits on it while proceeding to smoke anyways. The smoking lady is asked if she wants to go to Singapore, to which the smoking lady responds that she doesn’t care where she goes as long as the pay is good.

Entering the room now are a guys and a lady. The guy takes the cigarette from the smoking lady’s mouth and puts it away, then covering another lady’s legs with her skirt. The two are about to enter the room when the lady who was with a shiek reveals that she has been to Singapore, which gets a non-reactive response from the guy. The two enter the room where we finally meet the agent Mike Blackwood.

The three greet where we learn that the one gentleman with the mustache is named Gary and the woman with him is named Georgia. The audition begins now as we are introduced to a lady named May.

Gary wants to see her legs, to which she shows (pay attention to Gary’s legs as this will be important in this scene) and Georgia says that she is in before sending in for the next lady, Rhonda.

Rhonda reveals that she is not really a dancer, but she is willing to learn quickly. Georgia says that they are looking for actual dancers, which means Rhonda was denied, but Rhonda of course asks what that has to do with Singapore.

You Big, Stupid Eeeeeediot!!!

Exactly Ren, but we move to the next lady, whose name is Babs.

When asked why she no longer worked at the Apollo Variety (I have no idea what that is), Mike adds that the boss really liked her, but his wife didn’t. She is hired, but Georgia warns that she better not have any affairs. That is of course cool with Babs because as she says, she has had all the boys she could take. We then meet the next lady Caroline, who is a ballet dancer.

Of course, she is denied as well because I am guessing they aren’t looking for that kind of dancing. Mike cheers her up by telling her to come by tomorrow as he may have another gig for her. We then meet the next two ladies Gladys and Doreen.

Gary is unhappy and says that he wants to see the ladies one at a time, but the two ladies insist that they will either go together or not go at all. Luckily, I guess Gary likes them so he allows both of them to go with the group. The next lady that comes in is named Linda and she proceeds to strip down to her bra and panties.

She is then revealed as a stripper and we find out that she left that place because the boss was too much into her and she didn’t like him. Gary asks if she is always picking on that stuff and she says that it all depends on the boss. She asks if she shall dance, but Georgia says that it isn’t necessary and that she is hired. We then see the final girl, named Nelly.

She dances, horribly I might add, and of course, Georgia announces that she is also hired. And that’s it as Georgia leaves the room. Mike is wondering why Georgia did all the hiring and not Gary, but Gary reveals that he didn’t need to speak to tell the girls their hired. He shows his trick that if his legs are apart, he isn’t interested, but if they are crossed, he is interested. Gary reveals that things should get underway in Singapore in ten days.

We then see stock footage of a plane taking off over New York as well as over the Pacific Ocean. Now here is the problem for anyone who knows their way around planes. That plane in the stock footage is actually a World War II bomber, not a commercial airliner like what we are supposed to think. The next scene takes us to a radio person and we hear that the plane that the dancers and managers are in has malfunctioned and is going to crash. It crashes, but before the plane crash, we see the crappy and laughable screams that will plague this whole movie.

Back in Mike’s office, Mike is saying that they are still searching for survivors and that they have yet to find anything. In the Pacific Ocean, we see that from some blind luck, Gary, Georgia, and the ladies are the only ones who survived. They are adrift on a raft, mentally broken and very much dehydrated. One lady asks for water and Gary denies her the water, saying that she has already had her ration. The same lady tries to steal some water and gets a slap in the face for her disobedience (and what a weak slap it is). They hear and see birds pass by and finally see land. The group paddles to the land and they all pass out on the beach. Gary carries a lot of them to areas where hide tide cant get to them and they all sleep.

The next mourning, Gary wakes up and sees a small waterfall with fresh water. He yells about the water as the group runs to the small waterfall where some of them drink from the ground. Gary then tells them to follow him after they have had their fill. They go up a hill where they find a sledgehammer.

Gary reveals that the sledgehammer means that there were people here. The group then finds a cabin which makes them all very happy, until they enter the cabin and see this.

Yes, folks….remember that scene I told you which kind of made sense when they called it “A Corpse Hangs In A Web”. This is that very scene. Of course, you can tell really easily than that is just a bunch of ropes. The ladies scream and run away. Gary takes down the web and carries the old man out of the cabin. Georgia yells for the ladies to come back and something looks weird in the corner.

When the ladies return to the cabin, we finally see the weird thing up closer and realize that it was a giant spider, which probably killed the old man. Oh, and the spider has opposable thumbs.

We then see Gary and Georgia read the dead man’s diary and we find out that his name was Professor Green. We do know that there are uranium deposits on this island, which means this could basically be a hotbed for radiation…and yet they survive on this island. They decide to keep the secret that the Professor knew he was going to die on this island. Well, speaking of the other ladies, here they come looking for food and boy can I say that it wouldn’t be too hard to hide anything from these broads. The door opens and the ladies gasp as they think something evil may be on the other side, but their paranoid minds are at ease when it is more of the ladies who have found clothes for the group. In the kitchen, they make the realization that they only have food for thirty days so unless they find help soon or else they will starve to death next month. Gary makes the obvious idea of lighting a smoke signal on the highest part of the island. We then see two of the ladies fight over a piece of clothing. The fight ends quickly as Gary takes the cloth and gives it to Georgia instead. Oh, you can probably guess something is going on between those two. Georgia tries to get Gary to calm down by saying they are only acting because they want to be in civilization. Gary retorts that he would rather be in a bar with a beer instead of on this island with this crap to drink.

Linda the stripper decides to take her clothes off since it is too hot on this island. Of course she throws her shirt on another girl and that girl gets pissed. You don’t throw your dirty laundry on her. One girl is done with the shower and knocks on the window to get someone else to enter. When it is bed time, the girls decide to strip and sleep outside. Aren’t they just asking for a wondering bug to bite them? Gary looks outside to make sure all the girls are heading to bed and Linda brushes by him in a very flirty way.

Georgia then takes a shower and after drying off, goes to Gary, who has found the professor’s revolver. Gary decides to go out for a walk, but not before Linda throws herself at him and is met with a passionate kiss. Georgia sees this and when she confronts the two, Gary blames the heat and goes on with his walk. Georgia takes Linda and proceeds to give her the worst slap I have ever seen. Gary goes on his walk, unknowing that the spider that killed the professor wants his ass now. Gary and the spider have a battle where you can plainly see that the spider is nothing more than a rubber spider and that Gary is holding on to the spider instead of what he is supposed to be doing, which is getting rid of him. Gary finally gets the spider off him before the spider strangles him. Gary then shoots the spider with his gun, but the sounds of the gun make you believe that it is a goddamn cap gun.

The spider is dead, but Gary has suffered and turns into the spider monster. Georgia wants to go check on Gary, but the rain makes it almost impossible to do a well-rounded search.
The next mourning, Georgia splits the ladies up into three groups while forcing Linda to stay and watch the place. The ladies scream for Gary, unknowing of what he has become

Linda decides to go to a nearby pond and wash her hair. Unfortunately she is found by Gary and is strangled to death.

The other ladies hear Linda’s screams and see her body, strangled to death. You know, Gary makes for a really lousy spider monster. I mean, spider monsters should be biting people, not strangling them. Of course, we see the spider bites clear as day, but we are supposed to believe she was strangled to death.

We then move to night where we see Georgia consoling Anne over Linda’s death. Some of the ladies want to believe the rescuers will find them and some don’t believe it at all. Babs gets everyone worked up and when Georgia tries to calm her down, Babs blames Georgia for Linda’s death. Nelly tries to protect Georgia and ends up fight Babs in what I can only say is the worst cat fight I have never seen. The ladies then stop to see two hands caressing Georgia’s neck. Georgia screams and the hands disappear.

We then move to having a ship pass the island by while the ladies are sending smoke signals. The ship doesn’t see them at all and passes by. We then are revealed that it has been twenty-eight days and nights for them on that island……wait. It’s been twenty eight days and nights. I have counted and we only saw three nights and two days (don’t ask, I actually kept count) and now we go to twenty eight days and nights. What the hell has happened in those days? And Gary never appeared…..where the hell did he go? This movie has lost me. A monster just doesn’t attack people and then disappear without any knowledge for three weeks. It does not work that way. Georgia comes in and takes the two girls who were trying to get the ship’s attention back to the cabin. The three then wonder how they will survive with three days of food left. I guess since the corpses are so past expiration date that they can’t just do what they did in Alive and eat the bodies of the dead.

Somewhere else on the island, two guys named Joe and Bobby arrive at the island and we can easily see that they were heading for this island. We can also see that Bobby is a horn dog who wants a lady with him all the time. Joe makes the statement that the only things Bobby thinks about are whiskey and women. Joe decides to leave Bobby behind so he can look for the professor. As Bobby is unloading the boat, he hears the strange laughter of women. Bob goes up a tree to see what the noise and sees the several ladies swimming around. Being the guy he is, Bob grabs Gladys when she goes too far from the rest of the group. The others think Gladys was grabbed by the spider monster and decide to tell Georgia about what happened.

Georgia leads another group of ladies in the woods and they stumble upon the corpse of the giant spider. They also find the revolver that was dropped by Gary. Gary is hiding nearby and goes to grab one of the ladies, but grabs a scarf instead. However, the lady grabs back her scarf as they leave the scene.

On another part of the island, we see Bobby introduces himself to Gladys and they immediately begin to suck face. That is slang for French kissing in case you didn’t know. Meanwhile, the ladies who were swimming tell Georgia about Gladys being grabbed. They then hear footsteps and hide. Those footsteps, of course, are being made by Joe. When Joe passes the girls, Georgia points the gun at him and basically tells him to reach for the sky. He puts his hands up and is shocked to see that there are women on this island. They tell him to go to the cabin, which was convenient as that is exactly where he was going. When they get to the cabin, Georgia demands to know where Gladys is. Joe tells the ladies that he never met Gladys. He then sees Gladys and Bob coming to the cabin and laughs. When Georgia demands he answer why he is laughing, he tells them to turn around. They turn around and are overjoyed to see that Gladys is okay. Joe then takes the time to introduce his friend Bobby to the ladies. We then find out that they work for Professor Green, who several of the ladies have heard of.

When Georgia reveals why she and the other ladies are here, Joe immediately recognizes them as the missing crew from the crashed plane. He tells all of them that a lot of people are looking for them. When they mention Professor Green again, Georgia tells them the bad news of Prof. Green’s death. Of course when she tells them of the huge spider web, they don’t even ask about the huge spider web. You know, if I heard a body was hanging on a huge spider web, I would kind of wonder how that giant spider web got there. They reveal that their ship is coming back in three days and that they would be glad to take them back, which makes the girls ecstatic.

Later that night, the ladies decide to dress in bikinis so as to look more noticeable when they are rescued. Georgia and Anne come in and tell the ladies that they made radio contact and that all of the ladies will be rescued tomorrow.

Now at the party, we see that Bobby is dancing with several of them while Joe looks on with Georgia. Anne comes in and dances (and badly might I add) while looking at Joe. Joe is smitten and starts to dance with Anne. It is of course instant love between the two. Meanwhile, Bob is dancing with Gladys and they arrange a meeting at the lagoon in 15 minutes. Joe shows his shyness by making bad compliments. Joe wishes sometime he were Bobby and when Anne says that a real man is only interested in only one woman, he says that he is interested only in her. Joe gives her his scarf to remember him by. Bobby kisses another girl and starts his philandering ways. Gladys catches Bob kissing Babs and boy is she angry. She says that she never wants to see Bob again.

In a private meeting, Bobby reveals that he has never been with a girl like Gladys and wants to be with her. Meanwhile, Anne and Joe are making tremendous progress in their short relationship. When Anne leaves with Babs, Bobby makes a bad remark about Anne and that pisses off Joe. The two want to start a fight, but they decide to go inside instead. Inside, they commence in the worst fight ever. With that catfight being the worst catfight, this is the worst fight ever. The two men end their fight laughing as Babs tells Gladys that Bobby is looking for a girl like her in his life.

Bobby heads out and Gladys heads out as well. Bobby still has the liquor and stands by a tree. Gladys follows and when she sees Bob, she sees him slouched by the tree. When she checks on him, she sees that Bobby is dead.

When she sees the marks on Bob’s neck, she sees that the spider monster formally known as Gary is in front of here. She lets out another of the horribly bad screams.

Joe hears the screams and the ladies follow him to see what the commotion. Meanwhile, the spider monster is stalking Gladys and corners her on a cliff. Of course, when that monster climbs the cliff, we see him climbing like a normal man. Come on, if he was a spider monster, he would be able to climb that cliff like a spider. At the edge of the cliff, Gladys is pushed off and is killed.

Joe runs off to get some ammunition, but sees Bobby’s body. Joe is then attacked by the monster. Joe tries to attack the monster, but decides to run for it instead to the cabin.

When he gets to the cabin, he meets up with Georgia. The monster bursts in and when it seems like he is going to kill Georgia. Georgia recognizes him as Gary. When she says his name, the monster backs off. Joe tries for a cheap shot, but fails. Gary is about to strangle Joe, Georgia shines a torch in the monster’s eye. The monster runs away and is chased by all the girls, who have torches now. The monster runs into quicksand (conveniently placed, huh?) and sinks to his death. Oh, he has issues, but finally gets around to sinking.

The ship sails as we see the best scene throughout this movie.

Okay, let’s get the interesting stuff about this film. This movie may be more cursed than Manos: The Hands of Fate. Alexander D’Arcy (the lead actor who plays Gary) had done several movies that were box office success in the early twentieth century. Unfortunately, roles were getting less and less notable. While guys like Clark Gable filled the big screens, Alexander D’Arcy was stuck to the small screen and would end that way until he died in 1996.

Another actor who had bad luck was Harald Maresch (who played Joe) was very much unlike his role in this film. He was a horn dog who flirted with a lot of actresses. He dated one actress named Lupe Velez and knocked her up. The actress didn’t want to have an illegitimate child so she asked Harald to marry her. When he refused, she killed herself. As a result, the public blamed Harald for her death and he was blackballed as an actor.

Many of the actresses didn’t do anything after this, but only one of those could not do anything after this film. Helga Franck (who played Georgia), while opening the window of her fifth floor apartment, she tripped and fell to her death. Very sad indeed.

The only actress who did something after was Barbara Valentin (who played Babs). The buxom actress did several more low budget roles, but her fame came when she dated Queen front man Freddie Mercury. They only dated for two years before he realized he was gay, but for a long time Freddie did not want to reveal that he was a homosexual. So for several years, she lived and took care of him when he contracted AIDS. She called Freddie Mercury the love her life and even after his death, she supported the fight against HIV while working for several organizations until her death of a stroke in 2002. To this day, she is an icon of the Munich gay scene.

Now for the thoughts of this film, this film is one of the worst films ever and no matter what they edit out of this film, it will be no better. The laughs are pathetic, the spider was crap, the fight scenes were horrendous, and the acting was terrible. Now if you excuse me, I need to watch Charlotte’s Web so I can restore my faith in movies involving spiders.