Horrors Of Spider Island

I can imagine people reading through some of my reviews and wondering how I could possibly like some of the movies I do. Sometimes I'm surprised myself. However, there's only so much camp and cheese I can stand in a movie. Horrors of Spider Island (AKA “Body in the Web”) crosses that line, then it draws a new one and crosses that one. If this movie doesn't make you groan in displeasure then I don't know what will.

A plane carrying a group of dancers on the way to a show crashes on a remote island. The manager of the group is bitten by a weird spider and begins mutating into a monster. As the girls are tormented by the murderous man-beast (manachnid?) they think they have found rescue in a group of mining researchers, but they might not last long enough to get away.

To start, the acting is horrific worsened by dialogue that sounds like it was written by a middle schooler. Even without taking that into account the movie is unbearable. It undermines itself at every turn. For instance, the girls find a body in a big spiderweb. Creepy, right? Except that girls sure are awfully relaxed after finding such a chilling omen of their potential fate. They seem to have no problem bedding down in such an obviously “secure” location. Plot-wise the spider creatures (which look so little like spiders only the title clues us in to what they are supposed to be) don't seem to use webs to trap prey at any other time so there's no reason there should be a body in this state in the first place.

If it doesn't use webs, how does the manachnid kill? What, are you stupid? Anyone could tell you that spider men strangle their prey! Say what? You don't think there's an obvious link there? The girls sure do. They somehow are able to look at a strangled body and immediately come to the instant conclusion that a spider was responsible for the death (watching spiders strangle flies outside my window is one of my favorite pastimes). And Scully thought Mulder had some crazy theories!

These problems are bad enough, but when the mining researchers arrive to introduce some guys to the equation any thin attempt at suspense gets flushed. Suddenly we're in the middle of a beach party flirt fest. Girls have been murdered by a monster that used to be their manager and they want to have a dance party and fall in love. Speaking of which, there is an awful lot of falling in love in a very short amount of time with absolutely no character development behind it.

MORALITY:

There's some sexuality, particularly in the dance party scenes but it doesn't advance any further than most other black and white horror movies. One dancer is a stripper who takes off her dress for her audition, but her undies aren't particularly revealing. She later walks around without a top but keeps herself covered or turned away from camera. Are the swimming girls supposed to be nude? I don't know. It's perhaps a little more than the typical black and white suspense, but it's still extremely mild by current standards.

There a little bit of mild strong language.

The violence is campy and the scares goofy. Mostly it's catfights and the suggestion that someone is about to be strangled offscreen in a minute.

SPIRITUALITY:

So when is God going to get around to creating mosquito men?

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Unless you're wanting to do something like write a review to warn people about the dangers of subjecting themselves to this you need to avoid Spider Island.

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