aka The Maddest Story Ever Told
Welcome to the Merrye home. It's a house that looks just like any other (especially the one from Psycho) but it's ordinary exterior hides something sinister - and evil!!! Anyway, enough of the 1960's-horror-movie-trailer speak. Spider Baby is genuinely savage. The Maddest Story Ever Told (as it was once renamed) is nearly just that. It's in a completely different league from the low budget horror tripe that was getting pushed back in 1964. Think of what the movie House of 1,000 Corpses would be like if it was filmed in 1964 on a shoe string budget - and had a much better story backing it up.
Lon Chaney Jr. (the original Wolfman!) plays Bruno, the loyal-to-the-death chauffeur of the Merrye family. He made a promise to the dying patriarch of the family that he would care for the three Merrye children, and keep them safe from the rest of the world. The Merrye children are no ordinary children, you see - they're good-ol' mentally retarded homicidal maniacs! The two Merrye girls like to play make believe - like they're spiders who sting people with butcher knives. Their brother Ralph helps them catch the flies, but they try not to disturb Uncle Ned while they're doing it. The whole time Bruno looks on and smiles, because he made a promise he would always love them.
It's a story is told in the xenophobic tradition of Freaks and clearly influenced by Psycho, but there is a whole different beast on display in Spider Baby. A very young Sid Haig, who most people know as the clown from House of 1,000 Corpses, plays the ugliest monster of the movie - Ralph Merrye, a retarded, hairless, psychopathic killer. His performance is amazing. He acts out brutally creepy scenes letting out only excitedly slurred moans and half syllables. Lon Chaney acts the shit out of the movie, too. He even breaks into tears in the middle of an extended take. At the same time, the whole film is laced with a strain of self-conscious comedy. There's even a scene where a character asks Lon Chaney Jr. if he has seen Wolfman. Classic. Jack Hill, the writer and director, was the original post-modern horror filmmaker. It's obvious why Rob Zombie would take inspiration away from a movie like this. Spider Baby is a diamond in the rough, a successful failure, and a brilliant piece of horror.
