“Horrors of Spider Island” (1960)

Studio: Pacemaker Pictures
Starring: Alexander D’Arcy, Barbara Valentin, Elfie Wagner
Directed by: Fritz Böttger
Rated: Not Rated
Running Time: 75 min.

Synopsis: A group of dancers get stuck on an island and their boss gets bitten by a spider and becomes a spider monster.

REVIEW

Chris Woods

I recently saw this piece of trash called Horrors of Spider Island because I saw a trailer to it when I was watching my Something Weird Video Sampler that features tons of trailers of movies they put out on DVD. When I saw the trailer to Spider Island, I remember that I had that film on a DVD 50 movie pack. So, I decided to check it out and after it was done I wanted my 75 minutes of my life back.

The movie, which happens to be a German import, is about a group of women who are dancers and along with their manager are going to Singapore for a job. Their plane ends up crashing and they wind up on a mysterious island. They end up finding a cabin in the middle of the jungle and a dead man who is trapped in a giant spider web. The group disposes of the body and decide to set up camp there. They find a bunch of food and water there and are set for a while until someone comes to rescue them. The manager decides to venture off and explore the jungle. He ends up getting bit by a weird looking spider and becomes some type of spider creature, but kind of looks like a wolf man and then starts a killing spree on the island.

This film had nothing to offer in my opinion. The pacing was very slow throughout and the cinematography was dull and uncreative. There were plenty of boring wide shots and most of the shots of the island looked like stock footage. All the characters were unlikable and the actors that played them were God-awful. At one point in the film there was a long gap between an attack or any scene with the so-called spider-man.

A sub plot emerges when two men come on the island to visit the man who owned the cabin. One of them spots the girls having a little skinny dip in the water. The two men later explain to the women that a ship will come to pick them up in a few days and will take the women with them. They all celebrate and all of the six women try to get with the two men. Meanwhile they all seem to forget that there’s a half man half spider lurking around.

The stop-motion animation on the spider puppet that they used and some of the make-up used on the manager when he changed into the spider monster were okay, but all in all, this movie was terrible. Also, this film was originally going to be a nudie-cutie film, but at the last minute all the nudity was cut out and it became a straight up horror flick. A version of the film that was released in the U.S. in 1962 under the title It’s Hot in Paradise was an adult only feature when it was out and later the edited version was released in 1967 as Horrors of Spider Island. Not sure if the Something Weird release is the uncut version. Other than that, this film is very weak and I understand why it’s on a pack of 50 other bad movies, well mostly bad.