Horrors of Spider Island opens with Gary a nightclub owner in Singapore auditioning sexy women for his club. They come in by ones and in pairs, show off their “assets”, and either get selected or rejected (spoiler, they all get accepted). Gary than gets all these lovely ladies on to his plane to wing them over to Singapore, so that they can dance at his club.
Unfortunately, they never make it. The plane crashes into the ocean, and they become lost at sea. The group eventually finds their way to an island, but their troubles are far from over. The first morning after arrival, they find a house on the island whose sole occupant is not only dead, but is trapped in a giant spider web, this freaks out the group, but they soon get over it, and set up camp in a house on the island, and try to make the best of the situation. However, one early night, Gary leaves to investigate a noise, and finds himself a victim of a giant spider, which doesn’t kill him, but rather turns him into a spider/man creature hybrid. In this form he manages to kill one of the girls. A few weeks pass, and the group is rescued, but not before they gave a wild sexy party, and more spider-man murders!
Horrors of Spider Island was a fun little German horror obscurity. I’ll admit the Severin Blu was my first time watching the film, but I had quite a lot of fun with it. I had no expectations going into it, but the film felt like a sexy beach party film, with a bit more going for it as the group had a struggle against nature and time plus the obvious creatures. The film was also an early “adults only” feature from Europe, and as such had some minor flashes of skin and nudity which was sure to get 1960’s adult audiences excited. One thing that really surprised me though was how solid the spider FX were. These didn’t seem like a puppet on a string FX, the overall look and movement seemed solid, and as a confirmed arachnaphobic I found the creatures quite a bit scary.
Severin presents Horrors of Spider Island in a solid 1080p AVC encoded transfer. For the most part everything here looks great. There are some vertical lines and various bit of scratching, contrast is stable, detail is solid. Audio is in both German and English and comes through crisp, clear, and without issue. Extras include the alternate U.S. Version It’s Hot in Paradise, an interview with Prof. Dr. Marcus Stiglegger in regards to the film, an interview with actor Alexander D’Arcy by David Del Valle, plus alternate clothed scenes, and a trailer. RECOMMENDED.