Format: Internet video on laptop.
Spider Baby, also known as both The Maddest Story Ever Told or Spider Baby or, the Maddest Story Ever Told is a movie that is just a couple of months younger than I am in terms of its release date. In truth, that’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of names for this thing. It was also billed as The Liver Eaters, Attack of the Liver Eaters, and Cannibal Orgy. Based on those names, you can pretty much gauge where we’re going here, right?
What’s most interesting to me about Spider Baby isn’t what happens on the screen, the presence of Lon Chaney Jr. in one of his last appearances, or the presence of a very young (and beardless) Sid Haig, but the obvious influence this weird little film had on horror that followed. You can draw a straight line between this and the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre within the first couple of minutes of the start. You can also connect it to The Hills Have Eyes, and not just because the young Sid Haig looks a little bit like Michael Berryman.
