Spider Baby, or The Maddest Story Ever Told (1968)
Screams and moans and bats and bones
Teenage monsters in haunted homes
The ghost on the stair
A vampire's bite
Better beware
There's a full moon tonight!
Cannibal spiders creep and crawl
Boys and ghouls having a ball
Frankenstein, Dracula, and even the Mummy
Are sure to end up in somebody's tummy! Hah hah hah!
Take a fresh rodent, some toadstools and weeds
And add an old owl and the young one she breeds
Mix in seven legs from an eight-legged beast
And then you're all set for a cannibal feast!
Sit round a fire with this cup of brew
A fiend and a werewolf on each side of you
This cannibal orgy is strange to behold
In the maddest story ever told!
...the most fantastic title song I have ever heard at the opening credit of a horror film!
At the core of its gross-out humor and monstrous morbidity,
Spider Baby shows an endearing, touching affection for its family of misfits. The performances of the cast, especially Chaney Jr. Jill Banner as Virginia, and very young Sid Haig (surprised to see him! cause I didn't know he started his career so early), were undeniably excellent in their roles through out the film.
Overall, an extremely macabre but no gore(!) and pretty underrated twisted horror gem that's still playing a very influential role in the hype of the modern horror films.
>>: A-