The Spider Labyrinth (1988)

A professor sent to Italy to check on a reclusive colleague finds himself in a world whose reality seems less and less certain. That's about all one needs to know about the plot. Most Italian horror is mood driven not plot focused. The Spider Labyrinth certainly owes a debt to Dario Argento. We have a mystery, a sect, a hotel with strange residents, and the unsettling feeling that the protagonist left reality behind the moment he stepped off the airplane. The world of the film is one of magic, just like in Suspiria or Inferno, yet the film does not fall into the trap of being a rip-off of those films. Only one scene, the murder of a maid in a room with hanging sheets, suffers from being overly familiar. Otherwise, the film has the feel of an Argento film without coming across as theft. While The Spider Labyrinth is not without problems (some hokey FX; an at times easy to predict plot), it seems more daring and evocative than Mother of Tears, Argento's last Three Mothers film. I am surprised by how little attention the film has gotten in the U.S. even with horror film fans like myself.

Not only do I hunt the independent flicks, I also try to track down those flicks that were never released in a proper way, no DVD or official VHS was released. Sometimes they were only available on VHS at a rental base. Most of those flicks are well sought after and aren't cheap to buy. But sometimes if you hunt and are patient you can find those gems. This is one of them. It's an Italian horror movie but I wouldn't say that it is a giallo. Therefore there are to much strange things going on, the occult takes an important factor in the storyline. It never bores but as always with the Italian ones the sound isn't what it should be. The added sounds like doors closing or the wind is always too loud and that makes you look for failures. Like when the wind blows hard you see leaves flying away in front of the street but further the trees are standing still. Do I need to say more. But the movie works and has his creepy moments. the killings aren't bloody or gory but they work and that's good, isn't it. There is some stop motion used with the rip off of the spiderhead scene in The Thing, but still it's worth seeing. The version I have is English spoken with Japanese subs and clocks in at 87 minutes, uncut. And for those perverts out there, yes, some nudity is involved but due the Japanese release private parts are blurred, you know what I mean...

This combo of favourite Italian 'Giallo Supernaturale' aesthetic and Lovecraftian 'Wierd/Cosmic Terror' plot; "Il Nido del ragno/The Spider Labyrinth" deserves far more attention.Prof. Alan Whitmore; a standard Lovecraftian man of science (haunted by a childhood nightmare of being locked in a closet with a strangely sentient spider seemingly watching him from its' web), is co-coordinator of the 'Intectus Project' - which is studying a mysterious and ancient, world-spanning cult.Sent to Budapest, Hungary to recall data obtained by colleague Prof. Leo Roth, Prof. Whitmore is sent into 'the vortex of madness' as the hideous truth of his childhood nightmare spins a web of the greatest horror.My first knowledge of "The Spider Labyrinth" came from Travis Crawford's review in the 'Eyeball Compendium', as other reviewers here have pointed out this film is easily obtainable on 'boot-leg', but cries-out for a better DVD release.Gianfranco Giagni has certainly crafted a classic, beautifully merging the cinematic supernaturalism of Mario Bava ("Kill, Baby Kill!" and "Lisa and the Devil"), Dario Argento ("Suspiria" and "Inferno") and Lucio Fulci ("The Beyond" and "Manhattan Baby") with the literary plot-work of H.P. Lovecraft ("The Call of the Cthulhu", "The Whisperer In Darkness", "The Dunwich Horror", and the piece which inspired Lovecraft; Arthur Machen's "Novel of the Black Seal").

SPIDER LABYRINTH is a late Italian Horror film, obviously inspired by the classic works of Mario Bava and Dario Argento. However, this is a classic in it's own right. A young scientist travels to Budapest to investigate the reasons for unexpected problems with a top secret project. He soon becomes, ah, entangled in the web of a sinister society... Highly recommended.