Jack Hill is one of exploitations biggest legends. The man who brought us Pit Stop, The Swinging Cheerleaders, and so many other classics, his head belongs on the Mt. Rushmore of grindhouse -- right next to Roger Corman, Russ Meyers and David Friedman. This blog, however, is dediacted to his 1968 horror classic Spider Baby.
Starring such legends as Lon Chaney, Jr. and Sid Haig, Spider Baby is a landmark drive-in shocker that remains one of Hill's most popular films, inspiring everything from stage adaptations too a 2008 remake. How the film has stayed so popular forty years later is bit of a mystery -- but there's no denying that exploitation fans both young and old can't get enough of the Merrye family and that nasty disorder of theirs.
The film's influence reaches far -- Spider Baby most definitely provided the archetype for Rob Zombie's "House of a Thousand Corpses" and it's sequel, "The Devil's Rejects." The similar stories of murderous, yet oddly likeable, families is no coincidence, and neither is the casting of Sid Haig in both films.
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