There’s a strong case for the poster for Horrors of Spider Island appearing under the dictionary definition of ‘exploitation film’, given how perfectly the movie seems to encapsulate everything about the genre.
Shot as Ein Toter hing im Netz – ‘The body in the web’ – and released internationally under various titles including It’s Hot in Paradise, depending on just which market it was being pitched at, the film stretches its meagre horrors out, having more interest in the sexy antics of a gaggle of dancers who we first see auditioning at length for sleazy theatrical impresario Gary Webster (Alexander D’Arcy) before setting off for a series of shows in Singapore. But when their plane crashes – literally breaking in two – the dancers, Webster and his assistant (who are, miraculously, the only survivors) wind up on a life raft that washes up on a mysterious, deserted and uncharted island. The discovery of the body of a Uranium-hunting professor, hanging from a giant spider web, might be a clue that this is not the tropical paradise that it seems, but these girls are a hardy lot and are soon settling in. Webster is a bit of a cold fish, even when a particularly slutty stripper throws herself at him – not for him the potential pleasures of being the only man on an island of sweaty, increasingly horny and scantily clad nubile hotties. No, he instead wanders off for ‘a walk’, only to be attacked by an impressively weird spider monster, which he manages to kill – but not before it has bitten him, transferring its evil spider venom into his veins and turning him into a ferocious beast – a Spider Man, if you like – with a hairy face and giant claws (this seems to have gobbled up the entire make-up budget, as the rest of his body stays resolutely human).
The Horrors of Spider Island is now nicely set up to allow Spider-Man to terrorise the women, picking them off one by one in the classic horror tradition. But after excitedly dispatching the aforementioned slutty stripper while the other girls are out searching for him, Webster pretty much vanishes from sight for most of the film. Instead, director Fritz Böttger concentrates on the girls as they bitch and frolic. Well, why not? This is, after all, as much sexploitation as horror. Among the women is the striking Barbara Valentin, the very definition of ‘blonde bombshell’ and later something of a muse for both Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Freddie Mercury; the film ensures that her top is pulled open to expose a spectacular bosom (sorry if that sounds sexist, but credit where credit’s due) during one particularly vigorous catfight – though in one of the many continuity errors caused by apparently shooting hotter and cooler versions for different markets, she has miraculously acquired a bra in the next shot. Still, the smattering of nudity is not what you might expect from a 1959 horror film, even one made by those decadent continentals. No wonder it gave the British censor palpitations and was banned in the UK.
After some considerable time of the film being a lightweight glamour girl retread of Lord of the Flies, a couple of remarkably unappealing men turn up on the island to drop off supplies for the professor and their shock at his death is quickly mitigated by the bevvy of beautiful girls, all of whom have been starved of male attention for a month by this point – Spider Webster seemingly as disinterested in them as his human self was. Cue some saucy skinny-dipping and a long topless dance routine, plentiful jealous pouting and the two men having a jolly punch-up that ends with a laugh and a shake of the hand. Boys will be boys.
Eventually, someone of the production remembers that the Horrors of Spider Island needs some actual moments of horror, and Spider Webster reappears to cause some minor level havoc and kill off a couple of characters before everything is neatly wrapped up.
Horrors of Spider Island is gleefully trashy – even at the time, you can’t imagine that it could’ve escaped the filmmakers just what sort of thing they were making, and so any criticism aimed at it seems pointless. It plays like a collision of The Island of Dr Moreau and a Mamie Van Doren juvenile delinquency flick, and the mostly female cast definitely give it their all. The gratuitous nudity is tame stuff by modern standards, but you’ll still be impressed at just how gratuitous it is, and there are great moments of over and under-acting, sometimes in the same scene – a face-slapping moment is so extraordinarily non-committal that I couldn’t stop thinking about it for the rest of the movie, and the scenes with Spider-Webster are equally bland (he’s one of those monsters who reaches out to touch a girl, but then shyly retreats into the bushes if she turns around – hardly the sort of thing to strike terror into anyone) and precious little makes any sort of sense. But of course, it’s huge fun if you like this sort of thing, and as you might expect, I do. The spider creature is rather fabulous if you ignore the visible wires moving it around, the music is bombastic and frequently inappropriate and there’s a cheerful trashiness and sense of sleazy abandon about the whole thing that is hard to resist.
Naturally, I implore you to watch the dubbed version rather than choosing the original German soundtrack if available; the alternative US version, which is shorter and perhaps trashier, is also worth checking out. You’ll definitely want to watch it more than once, if only because you might otherwise convince yourself that the first viewing was some sort of fever dream, so it’s an ideal opportunity to compare and contrast.
DAVID FLINT
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