Hawkzino is back with another Giant Spider Review. Just like real spiders, you think you’ve seen one, but there are lots more out there.
Spider’s Labyrinth (1988)
Spider Labyrinth is the second entry in what I have dubbed the ‘spider god’ series. In chronological order, these movies are Ator, the Fighting Eagle (1982), Spider Labyrinth (1988), Itsy Bitsy (2019) and Spaceman (2024). In each of these movies, a spider is either worshipped as a god, or might actually be one but is too modest to admit it.
The Spider Labyrinth is also a Giallo thriller, which is an Italian-made movie that combines elements of crime, mystery, the supernatural, gory horror and sex. All the good stuff, in other words. There’s only one way to improve on that heady cocktail: spiders!
American university professor Alan Whitmore is working on a research project translating an ancient language from stone tablets. I was hoping he’d discovered Fred Flintstone’s shopping list. These tablets have been found around the world but appear to refer to the same religion that may be spider-related. I guess the worldwide web is older than we thought, eh? Anyone? I’ll see myself out.
The research project is called Intextus, which is Latin for interwoven or weaved, which is an obvious spider reference. Also, Whitmore has a phobia of spiders due to being locked in a cupboard with one as a child. It doesn’t really impact the plot so I’m not sure why I brought it up, other than my love of a good arachnophobia origin story (I have my own, but I’ll save it for another day).
Your mission, if you choose to accept it
Whitmore meets with the three project leads, who want him to travel to Budapest to track down a colleague, Professor Roth. Roth is holding up the project by ghosting them, which in those days meant not returning their letters.
Their conversation is very awkward, with odd pauses creating a tense atmosphere. I’m not sure how much of it is deliberate and how much is down to bad acting, but it works. Task failed successfully, as the saying goes.
The project leads utter ominous lines like ‘if only you knew how important it is’ and, after Whitmore leaves, ‘he’s naïve to the situation.’ What situation? I’m intrigued! Are spiders involved? I bet spiders are involved.
After arriving in Budapest, Whitmore is met by Roth’s hot assistant, Genevieve. He eyes her up and down. She eyes him up and down. It’s a promising start.
Genevieve lives across the street from Whitmore’s hotel and likes to undress in front of the window and just stand there, full frontal naked, with her hands pressed up against the glass. I’m not great at picking up on women’s signals, but I think she fancies him.
Odd Place Budapest
Everyone else in Budapest seems weird. They eye Whitmore suspiciously while shooting knowing glances at each other like they are all in a secret cult together. As it turns out, they are all in a secret cult together (spoiler).
Whitmore visits Roth at his house, so there’s no mystery to his whereabouts. His wife (Mrs Roth) tells Whitmore that Roth has suffered a nervous breakdown. Roth seems paranoid and distracted. He gives Whitmore his notes and some Polaroids of the stone tablet he’s seeking but won’t say what’s bothering him.
For some reason, Roth tells Whitmore to come back later and he’ll tell him then, which means Roth will definitely be killed before the evening. It’s obvious. As if to foreshadow this, a black ball is thrown through the window from outside. It’s unclear what it means, but it can’t be good, right? They broke the window, for a start.
How do you solve a problem like Maria?
After checking into the hotel and ogling Genevieve’s boobs across the street, Whitmore visits Roth again and guess what?
Yup – he’s dead, hung from the ceiling by what appears to be a spider web. Whitmore explains to the cops what happened earlier, but the broken window isn’t broken anymore, and Roth doesn’t have a wife, apparently, so none of Whitmore’s story checks out. No wonder they confiscate his passport.
The only sensible thing Whitmore does is not tell anyone that Roth gave him his papers. The killer was looking for them, so the stone tablet must contain important information. I’m still hoping it’s Flintstones-related. Maybe Fred’s self-chiselled erotic fiction starring Barney’s wife, Betty.
A maid at the hotel, called Maria, warns Whitmore he’s in danger. She gets into bed, but a black ball bounces down the corridor towards her room. Next thing we know, she’s attacked by a crazy witch lady with wild hair and a black cloak.
It’s an interesting and extended kill scene with Maria running through white sheets that have been hung up everywhere, flailing about like a Kate Bush music video, before being stabbed in the head. How do you solve a problem like Maria? Like that.
Whitmore investigates the screams and finds Mrs Kuhn, the hotel manager, rocking a cradle in one of the rooms. It was her son’s room, but he died many years ago. She also has a spider-shaped scar on her arm. I think this would be the point where I said ‘I’m out of here,’ but that’s me. Whitmore’s a researcher after all, and the movie is only half done. He’s not going anywhere.
Exposition time
The next day, Whitmore visits a bathhouse, probably because Genevieve is there, although she’s wearing more than normal (a towel). He confides in her about Roth’s papers, which include the name of an antique dealer that Roth was talking to (who is called Polgár Móricz, for God’s sake. Look at all those accents. I’m not typing it again. It’s enough that I have to keep typing Genevieve).
Genevieve gives Whitmore concise directions to that guy I mentioned, but he gets lost trying to find the shop. Five minutes of the movie is spent with him driving around Budapest. I guess that’s where the ‘labyrinth’ part of the movie’s title earns its name. It’s symbolic of how lost and clueless he is about what’s going on, but it labours the point somewhat.
The delay allows enough time for the crazy witch lady to beat him to the shop and murder the antique dealer. This kill is also preceded by a black ball being thrown through the victim’s window. A large (but not quite giant) spider emerges from the ball, which is a nice surprise. It isn’t involved in the killing, though. It’s probably just a bit of theatre, which I appreciate.
Whitmore discovers the body, but also the stone tablet he was looking for, so it’s not a total waste of a trip. An old man appears and leads him into the sewers, where he delivers some much-needed exposition.
Here goes: Roth discovered a cult called the Weavers, who worship a God that is real and possibly spider-related. The name of their God is inscribed on the tablet, and they don’t want it to be revealed for some reason. The Weavers want to recruit Whitmore, which is why they haven’t killed him yet.
Hawk Tuah: origins
I’m not sure how the old man knows all this. We never even find out who he is. He lives in the sewers but doesn’t even have turtles for company. He’s just some guy who knows about the cult and has formed some kind of half-arsed resistance movement with precisely one member: him.
After Whitmore leaves, the old man becomes the next victim of the crazy witch lady, who is either suffering from a major mucus buildup or possesses an awesome spider power. She spits a long stream of web-like drool from her mouth that wraps around his neck and hangs him. It looks gross, but I suppose that’s the point.
Whitmore journeys through the caverns and discovers lots of bodies, including Maria, the dead maid. This means the old man lived next door to where the cult literally hides their skeletons, but didn’t tell the authorities. I mean…it might have helped. They can’t all be members. Oh well, too late now.
Whitmore gets lost again, doubles back, and finds the old man’s body. Eventually, he escapes and runs into the cop he met at Roth’s murder scene. He tells him the full story, but it’s pointless because the cop has a spider scar on his arm. You can’t trust anyone these days.
Whitmore probably should have checked before spilling his guts to the cop. The old man told him not to trust anyone, plus the cop is wearing a short-sleeve shirt. It’s not like he’s hiding it. Anyway, they fight in a moving car before Whitmore jumps out and lands in a puddle.
The Dribbler
He visits Genevieve’s apartment and crashes on her bed in his wet, muddy, crap-stained sewer clothes. Genevieve arrives and instead of berating him for ruining the sheets, she has sex with him. Afterwards, while he sleeps, she dribbles all over his back. It could be more of that web substance we saw earlier, or just regular drool, but either way, it’s weird. I like it.
Nothing comes of it, but it’s a clue that Genevieve is in the cult too. The other clue is the SPIDER SCAR ON HER ARM that he ignores because he’s too busy fucking her. Understandable, I suppose.
After Whitmore wakes up, Genevieve has disappeared, and he gets attacked by the crazy witch lady. It transpires that this is a test because after he kills her, he hears a voice telling him he’s ready to become one of them now that he’s murdered someone.
I’m not keen on this as a recruitment tactic, because if you have to kill a member to become a member, you don’t grow the cult’s numbers. You’re just breaking even at this point.
Crazy witch lady turns back into a human after she dies, and we see it is the woman who was moonlighting as Roth’s wife earlier in the movie. I like that they bothered to answer this.
Spider with a human head!
Whitmore follows the voice and ends up in a tiled room that looks like an old-fashioned operating theatre. Genevieve is there, plus Mrs Ruhn and a bunch of other cult members. They tie him to a bed, and here’s where it gets weird.
A large baby appears in an alcove above the bed. Ms Ruhn looks at it with love. I’m guessing it’s meant to be her dead son, except he’s not dead (I don’t think). Giant spider legs burst out of him, and he screeches, but it’s not a human piñata situation, where the person has been incubating the spider. The baby is the spider.
Think of it like Transformers, but instead of transforming from a humanoid robot into a leaf blower or something, it transforms from a baby into a giant spider with a human head. It would be the worst toy ever conceived, but on the bright side…it’s a spider with a human head!
Ever since I began my giant spider odyssey, I’ve wanted to see a giant spider with a human head in action. I remember seeing a crude drawing of one in The Monster Squad (1987), but this is the first live-action version.
Sadly, the stop-motion monstrosity doesn’t do much. Mrs Ruhn cuts Whitmore’s arm, and a regular-sized spider climbs inside the wound. It immediately heals shut and leaves a spider-shaped scar. I like that they bothered to answer that one, too.
Whitmore’s return
We cut to Whitmore returning to his university in America, but I would have liked the movie to have stayed in the operating theatre a while longer. I mean…what happened immediately after his wound closed? Did they untie him, have a good laugh and go for a drink? What about Spider Baby, which I presume is their god? Did it transform back into a baby? Did he perform an eight-legged tap dance? I want answers!
I would also like to know why the cult went to so much trouble to keep their god’s name a secret. That’s what’s written on the tablet, and they don’t want it to be known. Genevieve reiterates this point before they cut Whitmore, and it’s got me wondering whether their God is called Gerald or something. It’s got to be embarrassing, right? Maybe Melvin? It’s odd that this is their motivation.
Whitmore meets the three project leads who sent him to Budapest and kills them, presumably to stop their research and prevent them from finding out baby Malcolm’s real name. He’s one of the Weavers now, thanks to the spider inside him.
The ending freeze frames on Whitmore, who has activated his own version of crazy witch mode and looks a bit like the Gary monster from Horrors of Spider Island (1960). Shared universe alert!
I wasn’t expecting much from this movie, but apart from some ropey acting by the lead, it’s a well-made mystery thriller that takes its subject matter seriously. They don’t make them like this anymore, and that’s a darn shame.
Rating: 6 spider legs out of 8
