User reviews

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!

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 ****

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

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.

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.

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.

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".

Words can barely describe the genius of Horrors Of Spider Island. Fritz Boettger's crap classic embodies everything I love about Z-grade movies: ingenuity, innovation, ridiculous special effects and a complete disregard for anything as boring as logic or reason. Horrors Of Spider Island will resonate in your mind long after the final credits have rolled.

I think I'm going to start using IMDb's bottom 100 as my official viewing guide. There seems to be more quality product clogging up that list than the overwhelmingly insipid top 250. Horrors Of Spider Island basically owes its place in the bottom 100 to MST3K and their followers who automatically assume that a film is atrocious if MST3K have deigned to make a mockery of it. Forget about those failed comedians and out of work actors. If you want to fully enjoy the brilliance of this movie, watch it without MST3K's incredibly unamusing voice-over.

Horrors Of Spider Island begins like a raunchier version of "King Kong". Sleazy Gary is auditioning ladies to join his "dance" troupe, which is about to embark upon a tour of Singapore. The audition scene is a delight. These girls are a bunch of hardcore skanks. Linda doesn't even bother with the pretence of dancing; she simply walks into the audition and whips off her dress. Unfortunately for the men of Singapore, Linda and her colleagues never arrive. Instead, a plane crash leaves Gary and his ladies stranded on a remote Pacific island.

The film really comes into its own on the titular "Spider Island". We are treated to the hilarious arrival scene in which the women walk along the sand in high heels and then drench themselves under a pretty dubious looking waterfall. Our stranded friends soon find an abandoned house and do not appear to be overly concerned about finding a corpse hanging in a giant spider web. These women have more important things to worry about, like fighting over Gary and determining who looks the best in rags. Unfortunately, this idyll is ruined when Gary is attacked by a giant spider and transforms into a murderous spider hybrid.

The spider effects are adorable. I'm convinced that Gary is attacked by a fluffy toy and the mechanical giant spiders are a sight to behold. The inherent ridiculousness of these effects is kept under control but some wonderfully evocative black and white photography. Once Gary has transformed, the focus of the film returns to the lovely ladies. The scene where Babs, the buxom super-bitch, attacks Nelly with a belt surely belongs to the cinematic highlights of the 1960s. The film becomes increasingly lewd as help arrives in the form of two scientists. Before you can blink, these girls are falling over themselves to grab a man. Barbara Valentin deserved an Oscar for the scene where Babs tries to steal Gladys' lover.

Horrors Of Spider Island is a great 81 minutes of entertainment. The film has an inherent camp appeal but there is more to this film than its technical failings and ludicrous plot. Boettger's film is taunt, tight and terrific. The photography is great and the actors are charming. I can not recommend Horrors Of Spider Island highly enough. A fully restored, uncut version of the film is long overdue.

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.

Well, well, well. Guess what I haven't found in the Bottom 100 list for a while, huh? That's right, a "Mystery Science Theater 3000" flick!!!!! And I'm reviewing this...now!

"Ein Toter hing I'm Netz," or in plain, simple English, "The Horrors of Spider Island" was a very freakish freak show. I mean, this movie had lots of those creepy crawling things known as...spiders!!!!! Now that's scary! And, in a way, cheesy. I mean, would you like to have been stranded on a deserted island, ala "Gilligan's Island," and find out that this uncharted, deserted island contained nothing but...spiders????? Now I'd be calling "Help!!!!!" for the next plane out! Just so you know, this movie is so awful this would make a great punishment if you're a human or a bot. (Hint, hint!)

BTW, "The Horrors of Spider Island" was one of the very last films to be featured on the MST3K show. And boy, do I miss the funny trio of the Satellite of Love very much!

While most people might interpret "Ein Toter hing im Netz" as the typical schlock that appears on "Mystery Science Theater 3000" (when "MST3K" showed the flick, it was called "Horrors of Spider Island"), I wish to assert that it's worth studying a little further. Part of the thing is that the main purpose is obviously to show the women wearing as little as was allowed at the time. But expanding on that, the flick functions as a sort of segue into the permissiveness that was slowly but surely burgeoning on movie screens in many countries.

Then again, I may be trying too hard to analyze the movie. It's probably easiest to interpret it as a nice, silly time. I mean, what guy wouldn't want to be stranded on an island with plethora of scantily clad babes (that would be better than what Gilligan had!). OK, so it's a pretty slipshod production: continuity goofs, lousy makeup jobs, bad dialog and terrible dubbing. But this is one that I recommend. I view it as more than "a must-see for bad movie buffs". And not just because those are some REALLY FINE gals!

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.