| Horrors of Spider Island (a.k.a. It’s Hot in Paradise) (1959): The title of this vintage German T-and-A horror flick promises bone-chilling terror in a tropical setting.
Naturally, the first scene takes place in the waiting room of an L.A. talent agent’s office. A gaggle of Teutonic beauties waits here, gossiping among themselves and enthusing over the fact that the job they are trying out for includes a free trip to Singapore. An audition scene follows, as the women try out for a vaguely defined "dancing girl" job. Each of the hopefuls auditions in a different way, with some hoisting up their skirts to display their legs, some reciting their resumés and some just standing there. My favourite is the one who puts on a record and dances a long (long, long) ballet number, only to be told, "No thank you, we’re not looking for ballet dancers." Haw haw!
Gary, the man in charge, rests his legs awkwardly on his desk and crosses them to signal his pretty assistant Georgia that an auditioner is to be hired. It’s meant to be a subtle signal, but even the least observant audience members will immediately figure out what he’s doing. At one point he absently picks at the bottom of his shoe and then comes to his senses quickly, straightening his legs before Georgia can think he’s giving the "yes" signal for the ballet dancer.
One of the last auditioners simply walks into the office and begins undressing. No music, no introduction, nothing. A half-dozen or so dancers are hired, but the merry troupe never makes it to Singapore. Their plane catches fire and crashes mid-flight, stranding them on the tropical shores of Spider Island which, as the title implies, is horror-filled. Uh oh.
Given the time period in which this was filmed, it’s not surprising that the female characters are all completely inert and only do something useful when directed to do so by a man. Gary, as the only male character, orders his newfound harem around like servants and they dutifully comply. In short order, Gary makes three discoveries: a fresh water spring, a hammer ("…with a long handle. It must be for the purpose of excavating some sort of metal. Most probably uranium," yacks Gary) and, most importantly, a resort lodge. Hooray! Civilization, shelter, food! The castaways happily open the door, and then scream their heads off. There’s a dead guy in there, hanging from a giant spider web! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!
The webby corpse is one of this film’s most overtly horrific images. In fact, the original German title translates into A Corpse Hangs in the Web, but it really isn’t as grim as it sounds. In fact, the guy is just standing there gently clinging to a ridiculous "spider web" made of yarn strung up in front of him. He’s clearly supporting his own weight and rather goofily holding his arms way up in the air. Perhaps he was dancing to the Village People’s "YMCA" when he blundered into the web.
Once they get over the initial shock, the castaways move into the lodge and the web guy is never seen or mentioned again. The women start getting bored and take to arguing over clothing, supplies and Gary, who I remind you is the island’s only man. From time to time we get glimpses of giant spiders that the women completely fail to notice. They’ll be standing around in a group, with their backs turned to a monster arachnid as they discuss lipstick or something. Then they’ll all walk away oblivious, as the puppy-sized mutant spider leers at them and (get this) gestures angrily with its tiny spider fists! I should mention that as far as cheap, crappy prop spiders go, the ones in Horrors of Spider Island really have personality.
Then Gary goes for a walk and gets bitten on the neck by one of the goofy prop spiders. He hurls it to the ground and pumps half a clip of 9mm rounds into it, but by then the damage is already done. Gary moans, falls to the ground and immediately gets back up with a big, hairy monster face. He now has claws, fur, dramatic lighting, a predatory instinct and three sharp little curved fangs in his mouth – one fang on top, and two on the bottom. He looks like a staple remover.
The women briefly consider going out to look for the missing Gary, but decide not to because it’s raining, and he’s, like, way over there. Plus, they’re incapable of taking action without a man telling them what to do. Sigh. The ’50s were full of movies like this, folks.
The women continue to live in the lodge, occasionally frightened by Monster-Gary, who likes to creep up and go, "Boo!" at them from time to time. Georgia is so terrified by one of Monster-Gary’s attacks that she faints – and by faints I mean remains standing, closes her eyes, and leans her head to one side a little bit.
By the time two male rescuers arrive, the women have given up on wearing clothes. After a brief skinny-dipping scene (observed by the two men), the castaways put on bikinis made out of flowers and have a dance party to celebrate their imminent rescue. One of the men courts the dancer of his choice with the most awkward romantic dialogue of all time. The other guy simply romances all of the other available women. Yep, all of them. It’s all very respectably risqué, in an adult-movies-haven’t-been-invented-yet kind of way. Then all of a sudden, Monster-Gary remembers he’s in the movie, and attacks.
Horrors of Spider Island was considered a lost film for decades, until Basket Case (1982) director and film buff Frank Henenlotter literally stumbled across a print in a film vault that was awaiting demolition. Something Weird Video released it on tape and DVD and most of the bargain editions out there are simply grainy duplicates of the Something Weird version. The film also appeared as a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode, but a rumoured spicier original cut, complete with more nudity, remains elusive. |
Copyright ©2005 FFWD. All rights reserved.