{"id":40538,"date":"2025-11-19T10:33:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T15:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=40538"},"modified":"2025-11-19T10:33:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T15:33:16","slug":"spider-baby-1967-written-directed-by-jack-hill-starring-lon-chaney-jr-sid-haig-and-mantan-moreland-z-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=40538","title":{"rendered":"“Spider Baby” (1967) written & directed by Jack Hill, starring Lon Chaney, Jr., Sid Haig and Mantan Moreland \/ Z-View"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Spider Baby<\/strong><\/em> (1967)<\/p>\n

Director: Jack Hill<\/strong><\/p>\n

Screenplay: Jack Hill<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stars: Lon Chaney Jr., Carol Ohmart, Quinn K. Redeker, Beverly Washburn, Jill Banner, Sid Haig, Mary Mitchel<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>and Mantan Moreland.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tagline: Seductive innocence of LOLITA<\/em><\/p>\n

The Plot\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Merrye family lives in a house on a hill outside the city.\u00a0 Since their parents died when they were children, the family butler, Bruno has watched over Ralph, Virginia, and Elizabeth.\u00a0 Now young adults, the three have the Merrye syndrome, a genetic family curse named after them.<\/p>\n

Once members of the Merrye family reach adulthood, they begin to regress mentally and socially.\u00a0 They become violent, although they act childish.\u00a0 Although Bruno does his best to watch over them, the three have killed people who wander onto the property.<\/p>\n

When Bruno learns that distant relatives are coming to pay a visit, he does his best to prepare Ralph, Virginia and Elizabeth so they will not act out their murderous impulses.\u00a0 Bruno’s plan is to entertain his guests and then send them on their way.<\/p>\n

Ralph, Virginia and Elizabeth have other ideas.<\/p>\n

Thoughts (beware of spoilers)\u2026\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Spider Baby<\/em> was filmed over 12 days August\/September of 1964.\u00a0 It wasn’t released until 1967, because the producer (a real estate agent) went bankrupt.\u00a0 The budget was $65,000.00.\u00a0 The star of the film, Lon Chaney, Jr. was paid just $2,500.00.<\/p>\n

Spider Baby\u00a0<\/em>was released under various titles including Spider Baby; The Liver Eaters; Attack of the Liver Eaters; Cannibal Orgy;<\/em> and The Maddest Story Ever Told<\/em>.\u00a0 The latter title was a play on the popular film, The Greatest Story Ever Told<\/em>.\u00a0 One of the posters used to promote the film had the tagline, Whatever Happened to Spider Baby<\/em> which of course, was a play on Whatever Happened to Baby Jane<\/em> (another popular movie of the era).<\/p>\n

Lon Chaney, Jr. sings Spider Baby<\/em>‘s theme song.<\/p>\n

Spider Baby<\/em> marks director Jack Hill’s feature film debut (although it was released after some of his other movies).\u00a0 Hill would go on to direct explotation films such as The Big Doll House; The Big Bird Cage; Coffy; Foxy Brown; The Swinging Cheerleaders<\/em> and The Switchblade Sisters<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Spider Baby<\/em> is a cult film. I wanted to see Spider Baby<\/em> mainly for Mantan Moreland.\u00a0 Best known for his comedy roles, Mantan was chosen for the film since he is brutally murdered in an opening scene.\u00a0 The director rightly figured this would shock audiences.<\/p>\n

Spider Baby<\/strong><\/em> (1967) rates 2 of 5 stars.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spider Baby (1967) Director: Jack Hill Screenplay: Jack Hill Stars: Lon Chaney Jr., Carol Ohmart, Quinn K. Redeker, Beverly Washburn,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17,53,54,65,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebs","category-horror","category-movies","category-trivia","category-z-view"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40538"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40539,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40538\/revisions\/40539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}