The Horrors of Spider Island (1960) *Spoilers*

There is nothing I liked more as a child than watching a monster movie. I especially loved creature features like Them or The Creature from the Black Lagoon. I just loved the monsters and the time put into creating them. So it was of great fortune that I found this gem sitting in the Wal-Mart $5 bin.

So obviously, I'm in for a treat getting my monster movie fill, right? Well, I know better than to think that all 12 movies are going to be the next John Carpenter's The Thing. So I decided to give all these movies a shot and for the next 12 days I'm going to give you 12 reviews on each of the movies in the set starting with...

love his shade of lip stick

The movie is about a man named Gary who gets a group of young women together to transport to Singapore for his dance club. On the way, the group's plan crashes and they become adrift. Luckily, they come upon an island and begin to explore, finding a cabin. Happy that they have found signs of human life, Gary and the girls dash into the cabin only to find a man hanging dead in a giant spider web.

Damn kids and their silly string

They learn from a journal, that this man was a professor who had come to the island in search of a large uranium deposit. He found what he had been looking for, but feared his end was near. The girls make the best of the situation and start rationing a months worth of food while Gary takes of his shirt and claims he is going to take a walk... nice knowing you Gary.

We the viewers will finally see the evil menacing spider that claims this island as its own

FEAR ME!

As Gary takes his manly jaunt, it becomes night and a storm is coming. He gets lost and and takes a breath. Just then, the dollar store Halloween decoration, I mean the spider attacks Gary. He receives a vicious bite to the neck and transforms into... Spider-Man

Meth is a hell of a drug

The girls are worried about Gary, so they go out in search of him. While the rest of the girls search for Gary, one of the women is left behind at the cabin... poor choice. The Spider-Man finds here and strangles her as she lets out an incredible canned scream. The girls hear her screams too late and rush back to the cabin to find her dead. Afraid and forlorn, the women swear to watch each others backs until help arrives.

After a few weeks, two men who worked for the professor come back to the island in a row boat (never skip arm day I guess). They find the beautiful girls and tell them that help will arrive in a day or two. The girls are so happy that they strip down to their bras and panties and have a party with the men (I know it sounds weird the way I put it, but that's actually what happens). The party is in full swing when one of the men goes off into the woods to meet one of the ladies for "alone time". Well, Spider-Man (who until this moment has been off fighting crime for a few weeks because he obviously isn't attacking beautiful women as this movie would have you believe) decides to be a huge cock block and kill this man and his date.

Only ten minutes left in this movie's run time so let's get to some monster killing. The other man and the women chase down Spider-Man with flares. Apparently, he is afraid of bright lights and runs off into quick sand and slowly sinks into B movie obscurity.

See you in the sequel...

 Now, I knew what I was doing when I popped this in. This is a 12 pack of B horror movies. I'm not expecting Oscar winning performances. However, when I see a movie called Horrors of Spider Island, I want more spiders and horrors. This movie was more about young women being on an island where they were in fear and felt the need to undress themselves... often.

I never knew where the spider came from (I'm guessing the uranium has a good deal with how it got big and turned Gary into Spider-Man). Out of the whole movie, The spider and Spider-Man only got 15 minutes of screen time.  The movies is an hour and fifteen minutes. The romantic sub plot with the rescuers and the pantie part was, at least, forty minutes. Why? I don't know, but damned if there isn't some allegory I'm too dense to decipher. I wanted more spiders! My kingdom for more spiders!

I can't say everything about this movie was horrible. There is always a silver lining. There is a really good shot of Spider-Man trying to attack one of the girls. The dynamic shadows of his claws are covering her face as she draws back in fear. I may make fun of the spider, but I thought it was really cool looking. I even liked Spider-Man though his costume was minimalistic. The music was actually amazing and I think the sound track was better than the plot. Sometimes it's the little things that make the hour plus spent watching at least kind of merited. Plus who could say no to this...

I'm still a man damn it

I'm going to go ahead and gives this movie, one buxom late 50's starlet out of ten. Not a very good movie, even by B movie standards. If you feel the need to watch it, Mystery Science Theater 3000 has an episode for this. This is the movie where you have your cynical friends come over and listen to them rip it apart over popcorn.