Sid Haig and Spider Baby

While I have much more to say on Spider Baby (1967) and Sid Haig Wednesday evening, I didn’t just want leave for sleep without saying something. Haig perfectly plays a man-child, complete with a bent-back walk, wide-eyes, playful (although at times violent because of the deteriorating mental condition for which Chaney’s chauffeur and surrogate father, Bruno, informs greedy distant relatives looking to cash in on the dead patriarch’s wealth) if untamed behavior, mouth often agape, a character named Ralph. Ralph does have hormones, as evident when he peeps on Ohmart (from the 1959 Castle classic, House on Haunted Hill) by climbing down from the highest room window/balcony like a spider (a common, running emphasis, in terms of the sisters of Ralph) of the mansion in decline, upside down while getting an eyeful. Ohmart, in lingerie and shawl, has a very memorable pose in the mirror before an even more memorable flee from the house where Jill Banner (in a striking performance) and Beverly Washburn give chase with sharp implements because “she will tell”. Haig catches her, both falling out of the camera’s eye as Banner looks on leaving us to wonder if rape or whatnot is taking place. Whatever it is, Ohmart returns to the mansion, shrieking, fingers/nails stretched out, as if a cat about to strike, totally dedicated to getting her hands on Haig. Obviously two of my favorite scenes in the film feature Chaney specifically, so when I do my “Top Five Favorite Scenes/Moments” in the evening, they will be prominently unveiled. But I did want to mention Haig. I decided Spider Baby would be my feature first day film of October after a rather disappointing start to the month. I felt like shit all day so the big plans to really hit it off with a bang fell through. Best laid plans, right? I do wish Haig could’ve made it into October, but this whole month, I’m sure, will have plenty of tributes to him with lots of binges in his honor. I couldn’t have started with a better film than Spider Baby. It was endlessly fascinating to me. It speaks at great length on mental health and how a family in dire need of professional guidance and assistance, when left in the parentage of a well-meaning and caring but incapable and challenged (clearly he also has issues that seem to help foster the ongoing psychosis and homicidal tendencies of the kids, in the end seeing no other alternative but to raid the dynamite shed of work crews preparing for a highway) Chaney, can produce tragic and perilous results. Chaney even keeps aunts and uncle of the kids in the basement when their progressive brain “regression” left them unable to function normally, while the patriarch’s skeleton is still in his deathbed upstairs! ****