Spider Baby

In Tribute to Sid Haig!

1967 - dir Jack Hill w/Sid Haig, Lon Chaney Jr., Carol Ohmart, Quinn K. Redeker, Quinn Redeker, Jill Banner - 81 min - DCP

It was with sadness that we learned of the passing of the great underground character actor Sid Haig this past week. Haig was a remarkably charismatic presence and stole scenes in pretty much everything that he appeared in. Though most memorable for a contemporary audience as the repugnant Captain Spaulding in Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses, The Devil’s Rejects, and 3 from Hell, Haig was a reliable presence in the exploitation films of the 1970s (Foxy Brown, Coffy, The Big Bird Cage) and served as the villain-of-the-week on a multitude of 80s TV shows.

In SPIDER BABY, Haig plays one of a trio of siblings – the tragic and dangerous results of a genetic disorder that causes them to mentally and physically regress down the evolutionary ladder – watched over by a protective (but not protective enough) servant (Chaney). When a cadre of greedy relatives show up to try and take control of the family fortune all hell breaks loose. A seedy, blackly comic schlock masterpiece, Jack Hill’s SPIDER BABY is over-the-top and off-the-rails weird. It also contains too many trigger warnings to properly list here so, please consider yourself warned.