Horrors of Spider Island (1960) User Reviews (117)

The Spiders of Whores Island

[Gafke · 3/10 · 16 January 2005]

Silly, stupid, bad acting, worse dubbing, non-existent plot...I liked this movie!

Manly and ruggedly handsome Gary and his sweet and shrewd girlfriend Georgia are taking a team of dancing girls down to Singapore. Too bad their plane catches fire and slams into the ocean at full speed. Miraculously, Gary, Georgia and most of the dancers survive this horrific accident with not a broken limb or even a bruise in sight. They wash up on an uncharted desert isle and find a cabin containing a corpse hanging in a giant spider web. Momentarily upset, they soon shrug it off and strip down to their underwear while a sultry sax plays. Gary wanders off into the stormy night after Georgia catches him playing tongue wars with one of the sluttier dancers. He never returns. Georgia and the other girls are now alone on the island...or are they? Some unknown menace strangles the slut and then disappears again, leaving the rest of the girls to go skinny dipping and wrestle each other in their underwear. When a small boat arrives, carrying the partners of the dead man in the web, there's time for a wild dance party and lots of making out before sailing home. Unfortunately, Gary has been waiting all this time (having done nothing but hide inside of a tree for the entire middle of the movie) and makes his appearance on this last night, ready to wreak bloody carnage! Gary has been bitten by a mutant spider and is now one himself...sort of. Actually, he looks kind of like Neanderthal Man with glue- on vampire fangs but we're supposed to believe that he is now a spider monster!

The horror elements of this film seemed almost an afterthought, thrown in to attract a larger crowd. Really, this is just an exploitation film, featuring lots of curvy young women gadding about in their underthings, dancing, cat-fighting, swimming, bathing and seducing the young men who find them. It's a terrible movie, but it's amusing nonetheless. If you like cheap exploitation and aren't picky about things like plot, then you'll enjoy this one. It's a really poor man's Russ Meyer film...with spiders!

Like being hit by a supermodel with a ball pean hammer

[postman-13 · 2/10 · 2 July 2000]

Oh God, was this painful, the most deepest of Deep Hurtings.

The plot seems to have been improvised. Actually, the plot was only partially concealed in those dancer's slit skirts, (some of which were more slit than skirt!) That is to say, scenes were mere contrivances to film the girls in various states of (un)dress as they lolled about this deserted cabin.

All female voices were obviously dubbed by one actress. She'd simply change her accent to differentiate. One line, she changed accents three times on the same actress! Just beautiful!

Many scenes were filmed murkily. The two fight scenes ivolving male cast members were laughably ridiculous. Watch as one guy, holdinga a chair over his head, WAITS for the other guy to get out of the way before he throws it!

Again, I digress. I realize this was just a thinly transparent effort for voyeurs. It's interesting to note what the concept of beauty was 40 years ago. It was different than today, because, like it or not, those grls had more meat to them than the anorexic models of today!

Oh yeah, I think there were spiders on the island, (plastic models, of course.)

Working without a "Netz"...

[Mister-6 · 3/10 · 1 October 2000]

I've seen "Nosferatu". The original one. It was German, you know. And it was good.

And I've seen this film. It's German, too...but it ain't good.

"Ein Toter hing im Netz" (or "The Horrors of Spider Island" as I know it) is about horrors, all right: the horrors of male chauvinism run rampant.

Seems Gary, or "That Lucky SOB", is stranded on a desert island after a plane crash with loads of gorgeous babes who are headed to Singapore. But not just any babes, mind you. These are babes that wear nicely tattered clothes, murmur and faint a lot, shed their extra clothes and dance and writhe a lot. Can you tell which part of this movie held my interest the most?

Oh yeah - Gary gets bitten by a spider (that looks more like the grumpy neighbor of a cartoon character) and turns into a spider monster.... Well, more accurately, he turns into a shirtless guy with a hairy face and three teeth, and almost INSTANTLY after being bitten.

I really can't get much into the plot, as the plot is pretty shallow. Besides, the best exposure to this flick is on MST3K with Mike and the Robots, as you can well imagine.

FAVORITE MOMENT - when a guy is caressing one of the dancers then another woman stands seductively over them as one of the robots grunts, "Hey, how 'bout tryin' a she-male, buddy?" And if you ever want to see a robot faint, show them this movie.

Three stars, amazingly, for this movie, for the babes. Ten stars for the MST3K version, as if there was a doubt.

And Babs, if you're reading this...marry me.

Sufficiently Enjoyable Rubbish for Bad Movie Buffs

[FranklinTV · 22 March 2005]

It doesn't take you long to suspect that this movie was made quickly and cheaply, and the opening scenes with the 'dance girl' auditions is definitely a large signpost which says "Bad Movie Buffs Only".

As you might expect from the title, there needs to be a way to quickly get our girls (and guy) to Spider Island, and the obligatory plane crash helps. It's the highlight of the film, as the stock footage suggests we are no longer watching a DC-3, but rather a Kamikaze plane in a ball of fire rapidly dropping from the sky into a raging sea. The fact that they all manage to survive almost confirms the amazing optimism expressed by the girls manager back on shore, where he tells a distressed relative on the phone "No need to fear the worse, all we know is the plane caught fire and we lost radio contact".

OK, I think its best come clean and reveal that the real horror of Spider Island is the appalling overdubbing of the voices. In fact, after a while, you start listening to the secondary sound effects, to see if they are as equally bad. I particularly like a scene where someone is showering in a waterfall, but the actual sound effect is that of someone gargling water. So, the film does manage in this way to keep your interest.

And, in a strange way, as the plot and women begin to be revealed, you begin to wonder what will happen next, only because you know it will not be logical, and probably will involve women fighting. And the women are great, a flash back to when buxom was in, women could really cat-fight, and they had no trouble in throwing themselves shamelessly at an ordinary man.

So overall, a few agreeable moments for the bad film buff. In particular, I suggest you watch out early on for the logical jump when they find an extended-handle hammer, and the guy concludes: "Ahh, an extended-handle hammer, they must be mining uranium". Now, as well known in bad film land, uranium is the universal cause of giant nasty animals, so you are ready for big spiders to start appearing. Yet, in this film, uranium also seems to be an aphrodisiac, making the extended-handle hammer metaphor even more poignant.

This movie was on the Treeline 50 sci-fi classics compilation – I suspect it is not readily available as a single release. The type of film you wouldn't seek to watch, but if you are stuck on the lounge after a heavy pizza and it came on, you probably would end up watching it.

A very entertaining piece of junk

[Red-Barracuda · 5/10 · 11 June 2009]

This West German production is a bona-fide trash classic. It's monumentally silly but hugely enjoyable. It concerns a troupe of female dancers and their manager whose plane crash lands in the ocean, leaving them stranded on a desert island. This island is rich in uranium, resulting in the mutation of a spider into a large alien-like creature whose bite turns an unfortunate victim into a werewolf-like spider-monster.

This is an early entry in the sexploitation genre, seeing as a large part of its running time is made up of scantily-clad women dancing, fighting, arguing and running away. Obviously it's now pretty tame stuff but that doesn't stop it from being a lot of fun. The women have a host of crazy accents as a result of the dubbing in the movie. Perhaps something was lost in the translation? Maybe so. But an awful lot was gained by it in terms of general hilarity. The dialogue in this film is pure crapola gold. Like when, shortly after arriving at the island, the manager finds a hammer and says something to the effect of, 'a hammer...and with a long handle...that must mean mining...most probably for uranium!' Brilliant. It certainly removes the need for any further exposition. Another classic line occurs when the girls find one of their party dead, and one of the women opines 'she must have been strangled by the spider'. Yeah, that IS the first thing one would assume isn't it? A spider that can strangle you. As it turns out, it is yet another quite brilliant guess by our heroes, as the spider is indeed capable of strangulation, seeing as it has little hands. And a funny evil face. I am quite badly arachnophobic but I was quite fond of this particular giant spider, and was a little sad to see him killed early on in the film. Yes, that's correct; The Horrors of Spider Island only has one spider. And his screen-time must be all of 30 seconds. In most 60's sci-fi horror schlock such a lack of screen-time for the central monster would be a disaster, as these films would be padded out with boring dialogue. Not in the case of this movie. It simply finds other ways to entertain via the hilarious spider-monster called Gary and the bitching women and the love-interest geologists who turn up. The geologists are two guys who arrive and cause the dancers to immediately fall in love and fight over them for no discernible reason. Furthermore, when one of the ladies asks one of these chaps to say something nice to her, he replies, with no irony, 'well, I'm really glad that your aeroplane crashed'. Ah, romance. Anyway, these two blockheads hold their own in the entertainment stakes, for example, at one point they argue and decide to have a fight but one of them insists that if they have to have a punch-up it must be indoors! So they go inside and proceed to knock each other about, in the process knocking over every prop in the room. So unnecessary, so funny.

This is definitely recommended. Trash enthusiasts will lap this one up. Where quite a few bad 60's sci-fi horrors disappoint and ultimately fall flat, this one delivers the goods. You'd be clinically mad to take this seriously, so instead sit back and enjoy a quite brilliant slice of rubbish.

Stranded? Killer spiders? We must dance!

[valis666 · 5/10 · 13 March 2000]

Yes, it's a terrible movie. But it's quite fun watching a crashed plane full of models spend their time go-go dancing and skinny dipping on Spider Island instead of looking for food or rescue. A great one when you're in the mood for grade-Z movies, and a terrific MST3K episode.

This movie rocks

[B Murphy · 1/10 · 24 September 1999]

The HORRORS of being trapped with lovely women for days and days! One cannot imagine the terrible, horrible, mind-blowing pressure that must have been gnawing at Gary's very soul...oh, who am I kidding? Character depth is all three dimensional here, as in "I wish this movie had been filmed in 3D". Girls in ripped dresses, towels, bikinis, and floral panties, and is there a downside? Well, yes, there is the terror of bad dubbing, and the fear of back story being told in a painfully ungainly way. Thank God for MST, and it is a crime they are gone. I miss them.

Anyhoo, if ya get the chance, and can take the intense heat, check out this rockin' flick.

Oh the horrors, the horrors... of a ten cent budget.

[Nightman85 · 1/10 · 20 May 2008]

Plane crash leaves dancers stranded on island and in danger when a big spider turns their manager into a monster... sort of.

Cheap, utterly awful foreign film was originally shot as a 'skin flick' over seas, but re-edited and released in America as a horror picture. As you may have imagined the story is laughable, the acting (and dubbing) horrid, the music is flat as a piece of paper, and the 'special FX' non-existing.

Sure, B fans may find it a worth laugh or two, but even to this B movie lover it's too bad for words or your time.

BOMB out of ****

Exploitation horror film needs more of both!

[rosscinema · 4/10 · 14 April 2005]

European films often went through an editing process to try and make them more commercial for American audiences but this German effort obviously went through more than one metamorphosis to become the clunky film it is now. Story is about a plane load of female dancers headed by the talent agent Gary Webster (Alex D'Arcy) and his faithful assistant Georgia (Helga Franck) and while on their way to Singapore they crash into the ocean. Everyone except the pilots survive and after floating in a raft for a few days they find an island to paddle to where they find fresh water and an old shack.

*****SPOILER ALERT***** Inside the shack the girls and Gary find a dead scientist in a giant web which scares everyone but they figure out that the island is being used to mine uranium. One night Gary heads out for a walk and is bitten by a humongous spider which promptly turns him into a half man/half spider creature and now he prowls the area. 4 weeks later the troupe of girls are visited by Bobby (Rainer Brandt) and Joe (Harald Maresch) who are from the mining company and they tell them that they are going to be saved at last but while waiting for their ship to come Gary the spider monster starts attacking again.

This was partially directed by Fritz Bottger (aka Jaime Nolan) but in interviews actor D'Arcy stated that he took over control of the film and directed all the sequences involving the giant spider and the monster. Originally this was just going to be an exploitive nudie with a bunch of women on an island getting naked but all the nude scenes were edited out and it was changed to a horror film. It's too bad that the nudity didn't make the final cut because this attempt at a horror film needed more than a big puppet spider that looks like it belongs in a sketch with The Count from Sesame Street. There were a few things that I noticed while watching this and right off the bat it's hard not to catch the dreadful excuse at dubbing with actors and actresses moving their mouths to nothing! The cinematography is a complete joke and most of the shots have that low budget grainy look to it and the plane crash itself is just stock footage from another source. Speaking of the plane crash how could they all survive something like that? And while floating in the raft the women continue to wear their high heels! Couldn't they puncture the raft with those inappropriate shoes? Once they land on the island the character Gary starts exuding his male dominance by ordering all the females to do everything he says such as "Come girls, water", "That's enough, lets look around", "Come on girls". Gary and the rest of the men on the island take off their shirts and spend the duration of the scenes trying to suck their big guts in and on the first night in the shack one of the girls starts putting the moves on Gary and it takes Georgia to bust them up in which Gary exclaims "Damned heat, I don't know what I'm doing anymore". I had to laugh at the women who after landing on the island keep tripping and bumping into one another as they attempt to keep their high heels on and when they find some spare clothing in the shack they start to argue and Babs and Nelly get into a cat fight. Actress Barbara Valentin who plays the slutty Babs looks something like Jayne Mansfield and she would actually have a pretty good acting career and work several times with the great German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. As far as being an exploitation/horror film this doesn't work on either level but it is a curio and those who are interested in early attempts at schlock might find this intriguing enough to warrant a viewing.

The Guy Williams Estate Should Sue!

[Gislef · 3/10 · 2 August 1999]

Could Alex D'Arcy look _any_ more like Zorro and the dad from Lost in Space? Maybe the Fuhrer's Third Reich cloning experiments paid off, in some weird "Boys From Brazil" variant as Hitler was smitten with Guy Williams' manly charms (although that would make _more_ sense than 'Boys From Brazil', wouldn't it?).

Anyhoo, this is the kind of thinly disguised soft-porn garbage that Cinemax and Showtime now inundate us with, made with a 60's sensibility. In other words, basically it's an excuse for a horde of (60's-scantily clad) women to lounge about and have (60's-almost) sex with men and each other. The budget is about on a par with the soft-porn stuff "science fiction/horror" we see on those movie outlets (check out Petticoat Planet or Damien's Seed sometime), and you'll see what I mean.

There's no plot, and no real climax. The monster is driven off into never-before-revealed-or-mentioned quicksand and dies. The end.

A poor attempt at horror or sexploitation.

[clauzy82 · 4/10 · 27 December 2021]

Had a bright beginning with enough awful film making to keep you laughing, it does become boring though as an early attempt at sexploitation. Unlike the spider web, the special effects are top notch for the spider and the spiderman. Not enough horror or spider though and dare I say it... too much half naked women giggling and dancing.

Cheese moment: the film kicks off quite cheesily, but don't be lured into the trap.

Wow zee wow wow!

[Tim Fox · 10/10 · 31 July 1999]

After seeing First Spaceship on Venus, I thought all German films were intellectual. Then I saw Hamlet on MST3K. Too bad. But then this wonderful piece of schlock shows up on MST3K. Sheesh! Not since Wild Wild World of Batwoman have I seen such a uh, shall I say, appealing movie (I love its alternate title, "It's Hot in Paradise"). Plot? Pheh! Some high-panted manager (who crosses legs to show if he likes the dancers or not) crashes on an island with a bunch of buxom women. Then they find a dead professor in a web, the manager gets bitten by a spider and turns into Michael Landon's werewolf monster, some sailors come and find they girls, and they all have a great time.

Did I mention the best part of the film? Yes, the reason why I compared this with Batwoman was the obvious sexploitation. The girls appear in tights, bras, nightgowns, towls, go swimming in the buff, dress in "island clothes" for the sailors (they look like bras and panties designed by Luther Burbank; you'll have to see it to get it) and there's a catfight. As Tom Servo said when a girl took off her shirt, "And now the film reveals it's true purpose."

So, if you want to have a good time and don't have enough money to go to the theater, watch this on MST3K. And be weary of the girl who keeps changing accents.

Won't satisfy either the horror or nudie audience

[Eegah Guy · 7/10 · 10 April 2001]

Basically this is an excuse to watch a bunch of shapely Eurobabes in bikinis frolic on an island. There is one little spider monster that gets killed off pretty quick and Alex D'Arcy running around as a half-man/half-spider monster but all he does is slowly stick his claw hand out to grab some of the girls with no real menace whatsoever. Maybe he's supposed to be one of those tragic sympathetic monsters. Anyway, the English dubbing is entertainingly bad and the jazzy score gives the film the right aura of burlesque.

Drive-in Classic

[dbborroughs · 5/10 · 2 November 2009]

A plane load of beautiful models ends up on an island somewhere. When one of the men in the party is bitten by a spider he turns into a weird werewolf like monster, or something. Nonsensical drive-in horror classic (and I use the term loosely) played for years under various titles and in various forms some supposedly more racy than others. It's a mildly amusing film that is best seen with an audience that can talk back to the screen or can watch it with out really paying attention to it. The problem with the film is that in addition to vapid dialog the film has long stretches of tedious inaction. I'm guessing the producers need it to get the film up to feature length, unfortunately the result is a film that can put the audience to sleep. Kind of worth a look for those who like horror films, of questionable quality or those interested in Drive in classics.

Sexploitation at it's best

[Ken S. · 31 July 1999]

Those that put too much thought into this movie are missing the point. It was made for a few reasons; one to make a buck, and two, to bring in guys to watch scantily clad, exotic European women try to act, and I guarantee they weren't there to watch them act. They were there to watch the actresses run around in their bikinis and garter belts. Think about it, the ultimate male fantasy. To be alone on an island with several beautiful (and presumably willing) ladies.

Is it cheap? Sure. Is it poorly done? Perhaps. But this movie is no different or worse than the other B-grade European sexploitation or even American films of the same genre.

It's good for a laugh and the women were certainly enticing then as they would be now.

Unless you're Leonard Maltin or Roger Ebert, I say watch it and enjoy. Don't try to figure it out.

Island of the hilariously incompetent B-movies!

[Coventry · 1/10 · 5 July 2006]

There's simply no other option than to rate this movie 1 out of 10 but, for once in your life, DON'T let the rating be an indicator for you to skip this adorably BAD movie! In whichever version available out there in crappy movie-land, "Horrors of Spider Island" is a tremendously fun and unforgettable viewing experience! Everything you could possibly seek for in a bad Euro-exploitation effort features here, from laughable special effects over disastrous acting performances onto goofs & continuity errors that couldn't be more obvious! Originally intended as a pure sex flick, the script got altered and re-titled so many times that the whole thing eventually turned out to be something that can't be categorized as simply one genre. It's sexploitation, horror and mainly (unintentional) slapstick. We open at some sleazy guy's office, as he's recruiting young beauties to take to Singapore for a dance vacation…or something. The next scene, a totally different plane than the one they left in, crashes down in the South Pacific Ocean and – strangely enough – all the girls as well as their manager survive the accident whereas the plane's pilots & crew have mysteriously vanished. Eventually, the whole clique strands on a tropical island where they instantly forget about the tragedy the just overcame them and begin to party and sunbath. Sadly for them, the island is inhabited by one (just one!) uranium-mutated spider. This lovely critter is as big as a dog and he hasn't got any real spider-legs but cute claws that he uses in a very sophisticated way. During a nightly walk, the "spider" bites the manager and the venom sort of turns him into a ludicrous-looking crossover between a werewolf and Spiderman. Instead of killing all nine girls immediately, the monster just hangs around and the girls don't really search for the missing manager, neither. Then suddenly, a duo of adventurers arrives at the godforsaken island and the remaining 40 minutes just involve the girls arguing about who may have sex with them first. You'd almost forget that there's a monster wobbling around the island until he briefly shows up again for the totally scare-free climax. This is, simple put, one messed up and retarded little movie! Entire pieces of film just seem to be missing for no apparent reason and the sound & picture quality is downright pitiful. Most fun can be had with spotting little things that don't make the slightest bit of sense! Like the bitchy girl who parades on the beach with her new bikini even though there's nobody around to admire her beauty! Or the monster that's on the verge of grabbing a new victim by the throat but then suddenly decides not to carry on!! Whenever you're supposed to be frightened to death by the film's unbearable tension, all you'll do is laugh and reach for more beers. Anyone who claims that Edward Wood's "Bride of the Monster" and "Plan 9 from outer Space" are the worst movies ever made certainly hasn't seen this landmark in bad cinema. Get your claws on it right now!

Does not even reach Hal P. Warren's standards

[mstomaso · 1/10 · 16 May 2007]

The director of Manos, hands of fate would have been embarrassed to have been involved in this ludicrous, boring, and plot less wreck from West Germany.

The film forces us to watch several auditions for a dance troop in the beginning. While there are some semi-comedic moments, and a modicum of character development, this is really just an excuse for several of the girls to partially disrobe. This occurs frequently and somewhat randomly throughout the film. Once the troop is formed, they leave by plane with their manager, Gary (Alex Darcy). The plane crashes, they all survive aboard a raft and float off to an island with uranium deposits and large, nasty spiders who can turn people into were-spiders. Then Gilligan and the Skipper come along.... I wish.

Regardless of what language it was originally written in, the script is utter garbage. Every scene is described by the dialog while you watch it, and the language manages to be stiff, over-dramatic, and over-acted all at the same time. There are so many scenes with women moaning, screaming and slinking about in bras or bikinis in this film that your neighbors might wonder what you are watching if you have the volume up too high and the shades drawn. The cinematography is not entirely awful - there are a few nicely shot landscape scenes - but there are still twice as many unnecessary and over-long pacing disasters. Although its hard to imagine this cast really performing, the film strikes me as over-directed.

Unless you enjoy self-flagellation, I recommend staying away from this abomination.

"Just you try that baby cakes."

[classicsoncall · 2/10 · 22 March 2006]

Had Roger Corman's name been attached to this picture, I wouldn't have been surprised. It's like "Swamp Women" times two set in a more idyllic tropical locale, whose creatures of the title make only an intermittent appearance just to remind us it's supposed to be their story. But it never is, the very few times anything resembling a spider shows up it's heralded by goofy metallic outer space sci-fi music, and then.... nothing!

The central plot involving an agent, his girlfriend and seven would be dancers winds up with a Clipper 247 crashing into the ocean on the way to Singapore. From there the film makes it's way into soft porn territory as one by one, the girls shed their clothes and cavort on their island paradise, unfazed by the occasional dead body among them that under normal circumstances might raise an eyebrow or two. The film is a mess, and couldn't have done worse if each player was given carte blanch to make up their own story as they went along. Come to think of it, maybe they were.

Hard to believe that as late as 1960, films were still being made where story continuity took place seamlessly with scenes alternating between day and night. It's the only movie I've ever seen where two guys go inside to have a fight, with the expected result of cracking up over how ridiculous that was. In the end, you'll shout, you'll scream, you'll wonder how you ever made it to the end. Fortunately, there was still room in my Top Ten list of all time worst movies for this bomb, if only Spider Island can stay afloat.

Too much island and not enough spider

[soulexpress · 2/10 · 22 August 2017]

Too much island and not enough spider. Not to mention dialogue like, "There's absolutely no reason yet to fear the worst. Until now, we only know that the plane caught fire and we've lost radio contact."

En route to a show in Singapore, a troupe of beautiful dancers is stranded on a deserted island when their plane crashes. Before long, a radioactive spider bites their manager and turns him into a wild- eyed, furry-faced monster with three fangs and a passion for strangling. But remember, there's no need to fear the worst.

This was made in Germany as a skin flick. For its U.S. release, it was re-edited in an effort to appeal to both fans of nudie and horror movies. (It appealed to neither.) The biggest "horror" of this film is the MAD MEN-styled sexism that our token male, Gary, exhibits toward the women—or, as he calls them, girls. Then there's the horrendous dubbing job, right down to the half-assed background noises. In one scene, as a dancer showers beneath a waterfall, we hear what sounds like gargling. When the plane crashes, it magically transforms from a DC-3 into what looks like a Japanese Zero in a ball of kamikaze fire. Furthermore, Gary calls his gun a revolver, even though it has no chamber. In fact, when Gary loads the gun, he shoves in a magazine, thereby proving it's not a revolver.

Not that any of this matters. The so-called "plot" was merely an excuse to show pretty young women in various states of undress. In that regard, I suppose the film succeeded. And the jazzy score greatly contributes to the burlesque mood the film sets from Scene One. Of course, it was 1960, so the most cheesecake you'll see involves tight-fitting bikinis. Still, they do fit tightly!

Now I'll have to re-watch the MST3K episode.

Gary would have had the time of his life if not for the one spider and Georgia!

[Aaron1375 · 2/10 · 22 March 2001]

I saw this film as an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 as I am sure a good number of people have. I have never really seen it anywhere else as I have a good number of DVDs featuring public domain horror films and this is not one among them. Which is too bad, I would almost like to see this one without the MST3K cuts to the film and see if maybe there are more than one spiders on this so called spider island and if there are any scenes more risqué than the ones they actually left in for the show! The movie itself is pretty bad, but there is a lot of girls to look at, but just not all that many spiders. For an island called, Spider Island there is a surprising shortage of the arachnids living there. To be fair though, the Spider Island title is only one of a couple as the first title it is known as here is Body In the Web which is not a good title either because it makes the movie sound like one of those Italian Giallo films.

The story has a big beefy guy audition a bunch of girls to be dancers and their destination is Singapore. Well, tragedy ensues as the plane crashes leaving the dancers, the beefy guy and his assistant and girlfriend stranded. They soon find an island and begin to uncover horror as a dead man is stuck in a huge spiderweb. Gary (beefy) tries to keep everyone calm, but he cannot resist this one girl which sends him on a walk where he encounters the one spider on the island and he is soon transformed into a horrible half man/half spider! Okay, it is more like 90% man and 10% spider. Will the girls get rescued? Will Gary kill all the girls? Will we see lots of underpants shots? I'll answer that one...yes.

This made for a very funny episode of MST3K as they were on point in nearly facet of this one. The riffs were good, the bumps were good and the set up was good. Though I often think that the bump featuring Mike in the web should have been the second bump while the one where he auditions Pearl and company should have been the first. Just a minor complaint, just seems it would have made more sense in the context of the film. Many jokes about the fact Gary doesn't look much like a spider, the strange fight between the two guys and my favorite parts featured Tom passing out a couple of times due to all the shots of underpants! So, no, this film is not that good. Still, it has a couple of good scenes featuring girls nearly nude in it too. Not much in the way of spiders, horror, but I will give them credit for having plenty of island in it! The lone spider is a big spider, but the one guy who got trapped within the web had to be blind or an idiot to get caught up in the thing. Gary at least got caught by surprise and still managed to dispatch the spider before turning into a person with monster hands and a bad complexion.

The unspectacular spider man.

[Zeegrade · 1/10 · 2 March 2010]

A bunch of really horny frauleins are on a plane ride to Singapore presumably to dance (I'm sure "dancing" in Singapore has a different meaning) when it crashes into the sea killing everyone except the girls, the girls' manager Gary, and Gary's assistant Georgia. Lucky for us. While lost at sea on a life raft, which I assume they pulled out of the sinking plane while leaving the pilots and crew to die, they happen upon an island and paddle ashore. Gary and his female crew come to a cabin on the island only to find a dead man hanging in a very large spider web. Turns out he was bitten by a rather large spider with claws that has become mutated by the uranium on the island. While on an evening stroll Gary gets bitten by said spider and becomes a goofy were-spider with claws that he uses to strangle victims with. Well, enough of that, let's get to the main focus of this film which is to ogle the ladies in various states of undress. "Horrors of Spider Island" was originally a nudie flick however when it was released in the U.S. all of the nudity was taken out. Hooray? This is an incredibly silly movie that needed all the help it could get so excising the nude scenes doesn't exactly enhance the viewing experience. The dubbed dialogue is just as bad if not worse than any seventies kung-fu movie I've ever seen. The women "ooh" and "aah" so inappropriately it sounds like they're having orgasms. The slaps are particular bad as the actresses don't come within a mile of making contact. One particularly stupid conversation has the girls stumbling upon the body of one of the ditzy broads when Georgia says "She's been strangled" to which Babs retorts "A spider". What? Where do you make the connection from strangulation to arachnids? What kind of spiders are in her neighborhood? After some skinny dipping two guys show up and proceed to try and impregnate the more than willing ladies. After about thirty minutes of lame dancing and prostitution Gary the spider monster shows back up for the anticlimax. I had an idea about a movie like this that involved whiskey and horny island women. It was "Zee Dies and Goes to Heaven".

The Horror of Spider Island!

[filmbuff-36 · 1/10 · 3 November 2001]

It was horrible all right, but for the viewer! This is in a sense a non-movie, rather, it is just a bunch of stuff that was filmed and then loosely tied together in order to give the semblance of plot.

There are many problems with this film, and it has definitely earned its spot on the IMDb bottom 100 list. Let's discuss the major crimes this film commits:

(Spoilers, but hey, if you're here it's probably because you, like I, watched this on MST3K, so you already know what happens anyway...)

1. As most previous commentators have stated, there is only one mutant spider on the island. Not much is given to explain its creation, except there was some professor on the island who must have been fooling with radiation of genetics or something. (Science in the 50's was like magic in movies, there was no explanation for why it could mutate animals, it just did.)

2. After the guy (Gary) is bitten by the creature, he transforms into a spider-like monster (not really, more like a guy with clawed hands and a messed up face, but bear with me here). After he scares the girls on the island, he mysteriously vanishes for most the movie! I'm serious, the next 40 or so minutes is the girls doing things on the island while dressed erotically. And no, not even that redeems the film.

3. Two sailors show up on the island, which immediately prompts squabbles among the women over who belongs to who. Very misogynist, since everyone seems to like the guys who treats woman like objects. There are dances, group bathing and other various hijinks, all of which take place during the above mentioned 40 minutes of monster-less "horror." Not for one moment during this time is there mention of the monster, or even a feeling of fear among them. There is only pure, unadulterated hedonistic feelings of joy, save a good cat fight and fisticuffs between the two men.

4. This is a personal problem with the movie, but a major one for me nonetheless. When the monster finally reappears, he looks exactly like he did when we last saw him. What the hell?! I figured with all the time he spent off camera, he was probably mutating further. He was bitten by a mutant spider, for God's sake! He should have grown a couple extra sets of arms or something! But no, he just comes back on screen, same stupid make up, and kills two more people.

5. After discovering their two dead companions, the girls finally rally up the strength to hunt Gary down and destroy him. Maybe if they had done this to begin with, the last two people wouldn't have been killed. But then, I didn't like anyone in the movie anyway, so good riddance. Anyway, the chase Gary out to a field full of quicksand, which wasn't even shown or even mentioned previously in the movie, he sinks, he drowns, he dies. I really hate 'deus ex machina' endings. They rarely work, especially in bad b-movies. But it hastened the end of this movie, so whatever.

So, there you have it. The folks on the "Satellite of Love" made this watch much, much easier. Mike and the bots help was down this crap, but it still is tough to take.

1 star for the movie, which it's lucky to get that, and 8 for the MST3K version. Not the best episode, but still highly entertaining.

Misunderstood

[facelessturtle · 10/10 · 29 April 2007]

I was reading through several people's comments and it became abundantly clear that because this movie was originally a porno they writ it off as a cheap film with no deeper meaning. Frankly, people need to understand that a writer with a message will try to get it out, no matter what venue comes their way. If we view this film as a social allegory the inconsistencies and quirks of the movie are suddenly cast in a new light.

First, we must look at the change in characters once they reach the island. The island represents a separation from society (as in Lord of the Flies). The writer shows that civilization puts restraints on both males and females. The male characters, when separated from society quickly give into their animalistic, and violent tendencies. This is primarily represented by the transformation of the manager into a horrible abomination, but can also be witnessed by the fact that the two research assistants begin to fight after only one night on the island. The shift in females however is decidedly different. The females, instead of giving into their violent desires, gave into their sexual appetite, evidenced by well, pretty much every scene in the movie. The writer has therefore shown us that the root desires of mankind are summed up as two parts- sex and violence, chilling commentary indeed.

At the end of the film we see the manager sink into the mud as the dancers chase him into the mire. While this might seem silly and over the top, it is far from it. The dancers started working together, rather than embracing their desires, this action was symbolized by the flares, their light representing the light shed by wisdom. Thus, if we view the spiderman-monster as the darker parts of the human psyche, we can see that the light of knowledge pushes them off and takes away the threat they represent. The very end of the film is also potent with rich meaning. On the one hand, it shows that while humanity had triumphed in this situation, we're still sailing on a stormy sea. Now that these major aspects of symbolism have been discussed, let us look at the so called 'inconsistencies'

The goofs section listed the view of D'ary from a distance without his make-up on as a screw-up, but whoever said this is an idiot. Rather, it was to show us that when viewing individual cases it might look like men are ravaging beasts, however when we view the situation from the distance the image is quite the opposite. We see that rather than being a monster, he was simply a man desperately chasing after innocence, we see that when he finally reaches the innocence, it is inevitable that the end result is it's destruction (I highly suspect that the imagery of innocents falling from the cliffs in Catcher and the Rye were inspired directly from this movie).

The beginning leg scene might be construed as simply a cheap excuse to show off girls legs, but the truth is far deeper. It was showing us that legs are the vehicle we use to travel into the future and which are necessary to enter into (as well as escape) any situation that life takes us into.

When the dancers first leave on the venture, we see that they are in a typical transport plane, however when they crash it is a kamikaze plane. The reason for this is simple, when we leave on ventures, they may seem innocent enough- but can quickly lead to disaster if we don't watch our path. Indeed, they can go so far as to even kill the part of us that makes us human, in the movie the author shows this to be our human inhibitions.

I hope you have all come to view this film in a new light, and hold the appreciation for this movie that it truly deserves. Watching the movie I realized that many of the scenes directly inspired the famous blockbusters of our generation. Jurassic Park II from the scene where they're running through the brush, Signs from the scene with the corn in the background, Spiderman for the radioactive bite, Alien for the latching on of the radioactive spider on his throat, Frankenstein when they chase D'Avery with the torches, Flight of the Phoenix for the plane crash, Freedom Writers for the large female presence, ET the Extraterrestial for obvious reasons, and any movie involving the female double pimp slap (the slapper whapper). I am recommending that they show it in my college film class, and I hope all of you can do the same.

Utter rubbish—and loads of fun.

[BA_Harrison · 7/10 · 19 October 2010]

An all female dance troupe and their manager Gary (Alexander D'Arcy) are en route to Singapore when their plane catches fire and ditches into the sea. Somehow, Gary and a handful of his dancers survive the disaster and, after several days adrift in an inflatable raft, chance upon a remote tropical island that is home to a monstrous spider whose bite causes terrible mutations.

Horrors of Spider Island started life as a German adults-only feature, but was subsequently trimmed of most of its nude scenes and turned into a cheesy horror flick for the US market, all of which goes to explain why the film seems more concerned with titillating its viewers than terrifying them.

The opening scene sees Gary auditioning a series of sexy 60s babes who flaunt their generous curves, show off their long legs (clad in sussies and stockings, of course) and even strip down to their their underwear in an effort to secure a job; once the action moves to the island and the girls adopt tropical attire, barely a minute goes by without a glimpse of bare thigh, a flash of cleavage, a tempting expanse of mid-riff, or the sight of a shapely rear; and when two men arrive on the island ready to party, the wanton women are only too happy to oblige. This smörgåsbord of cheesecake and smut is accompanied by a wonderful jazz soundtrack that wouldn't seem out of place in a seedy 60s go-go strip joint, and which helps to propel the film into the uppermost reaches of the trashosphere.

As far as the horror is concerned, all we get is the giant spider—a very peculiar looking creature with alien-like eyes and what look like teeny hands at the end of its legs—and one mutated bite victim, who grows fangs, facial hair and an impressive set of claws with which to terrorise the women.

On top of all of the eye-candy and lacklustre horror, viewers are also treated to dreadful dubbing, terrible acting, amateurish direction, some poorly choreographed brawls (including the obligatory cat-fight), and plenty of unintentional laughs (try keeping a straight face at the dancers' reactions when the plane is about to crash, or Gary's inexplicable knowledge of Uraniam mining equipment), all of which go to make this one seriously bad movie that no self-respecting fan of kitsch Z-grade garbage should miss.

Grade C lost-on-a-deserted-island flick entertains despite itself

[Wuchakk · 5/10 · 25 December 2020]

A plane transporting a female troupe of eight dancers from New York City crashes into the sea en route to Singapore, but several of them survive and make it to a deserted island where huge spiders dwell. Will they make it back alive?

A West German production, "Horrors of Spider Island" (1960) is a black & white 'B' movie that's basically an island adventure with some old-fashioned horror elements. I call it "Grade C" because there are some glaring flaws. For instance, the story starts in Hollywood, but when the plane departs for Asia it's clearly New York City. Furthermore, when the plane crashes into the sea off camera, it is shown going straight down into the water. Needless to say, if this were actually to occur no one would've survived.

If you can overlook these faults and the flat B&W photography, this is actually an entertaining B flick. All eight women are alluring one way or another, but voluptuous Babs (Barbara Valentin) is easily the most physically attractive. The director effectively displays their beauty without resorting to raunch.

It's also interesting going back in time to 1959, when the film was shot, and see one of the blueprints for all these sci-fi/horror adventures that have emerged since.

The episode of Gilligan's Island that featured the goofy giant spider must've been inspired by this movie, although the spider here is actually pretty creepy-looking for a B flick shot in 1959. Of course, the spider is strictly peripheral; the lovely ladies lost in the wilds are the showcase here. On that level, the picture delivers.

The film is short 'n sweet at about 1 hour, 17 minutes, and was shot in what is now Croatia on the Adriatic Sea (then Yugoslavia) with establishing shots of Los Angeles and New York City, plus other stock footage.

GRADE: C