IMDb Bottom 100 Review – Number 69 Body in the Web

Uranium miners, remote islands, oversized spiders and a plane full of go-go dancers crashing? Sounds like another Wednesday at the totallywhatevs.com offices. Sure we're just one employee here, but since when has that stopped fun from happening. Don't even get me started on the Christmas parties. No seriously. I'm only barely recovered from the last bout of them. Anyway, that's besides the point and wildly inappropriate. Because what I really want to talk about, or at least write about as it were, is a movie I happened to just see. And by happened I mean felt compelled because you readers are insatiable in your demand for Bottom100 entertainment. So with only a little further adieu ado please feast your lovely little eyes on the following review of...

Said body in said web. Looks legit. 

Bodyin the Web aka Horrors if Spider Island aka Ein Toter hing im Netz (1960)

In my native tongue we have a saying. But you probably don't care about that. So let me just explain what my point is instead, so you don't have to think too much. Basically this movie has a lot of names, and the saying would have illustrated how lots of names makes whatever has said names all the more endearing. So the saying isn't even applicable in this case. So the last few sentences were essentially wasted. Thanks for not stopping me. The reason for all these names is really completely different. Different than whatever reason that saying would have us believe was a valid explanation. You see, when watching the movie, I was comparatively annoyed, that the audio was out of sync with the video. A problem that pops up from time to time. Usually I'd find another source for the movie, say one where whoever crafted that particular file had taken time to make sure shit worked. But in the case of these B100 flicks, as aptly demonstrated last week, alternatives are limited at best. Only later, upon inspecting the IMDb trivia/goof sections respectively, did I learn that the movie was in fact German and that it was later dubbed for US television. We'll look into that more later. No really, I plan on dedicating a paragraph just to analyzing the sociopolitical and pop cultural impact of this movie.

"A long hammer, eh? Well I may just be a showbiz promoter, but if there is one thing I know, it's that long shafted hammers are used primarily in the mining of uranium"

The plot in this movie is beyond ridiculous. Yeah, I know. I'm not saying I'm surprised. But really, it's so fucking stupid and devoid of meaning, that I just don't understand why it's even there. And it's not just that the plot os stupid. It's that people in the movie react in the most pointless and lame way to everything that happens. Somebody dies? One second of mild bemusement, then moving on to a party or a leisurely evening stroll. It doesn't make sense. Basically the movie opens with a dude and his assistant and/or wife and/or lover at a talent agency in Los Angelas. Girls come into the room one by one and do a dance routine or just stand there, and are selected for some kind of stupid show these two are putting on in Singapore. They pick some girls for the show, and fly to Singapore via New York, which is a good tip off that whoever made this movie had no fucking clue where anything is. Anyway, the plane crashes. I want to dedicate a moment to this scene, because it is a defining one for this flick. The plan crashes without reason. Fair enough, I guess. But not only does it crash, it plummets, nosediving from, what I can only assume was, a cruising altitude of 30000 feet, fully ablaze, straight into the water. Let me recap: 30000 feet, whole airplane in flames, nosedive straight into body of water. And everybody walked out of that crash unharmed. All except the pilot(s) who apparently went down with the plane. Yeah. That happened. I was mildly shocked.

This is the crash. Straight into a body of water. Water is soft, surely, how could anything go wrong? It couldn't. Unless you aren't important to the 'story'.

Everybody are surprisingly upbeat, despite being stranded on a seemingly deserted island. The manager dude perhaps not so surprisingly, since he stranded on a desert island with 8 chicks. Or perhaps they are all elated from surviving the most unlikely plane crash in the history of human aviation. Turns out the island isn't as deserted as they thought. They find the cabin of the resident uranium mining professor. Yes. He's mining uranium with a simple hammer. But alas, his mining days are long gone, as he is found stuck in a giant spider's web inside the cabin. So the walk out of an insane plane crash unscathed, and bounce back in minutes. They find the only inhabitant on the island on which they are stranded dead in a supernaturally large cobweb and moments later they are getting comfortable in the very same cabin. Presumably they buried the dead guy. What ensues from that point on is really nothing I can adequately describe, because it's so fucking ridiculous, I'm almost actively encouraging you to watch it. But seriously though, don't. I've got enough on my conscious already. The short version is, Gary the manager, after kissing another girl (ballsy move on a deserted island with your partner also present) and blaming it on the heat, runs off into the darkness and gets bitten by a uranium infested giant spider. Gary turns into a spider-man, but not the cool wisecracking web shooting wall crawling kind. If only. Amidst Gary's killing spree, 2 dudes show up, apparently to help the professor with uranium mining. They meet the girls and a party ensues, because hey, why the fuck not. More killing, more partying and the end. Yes. Literally. That's how it happened.

Spider-Man in an alternate universe. Marvel, please make this happen!

This movie is both kind of racist and pretty misogynistic. Not because of semi-naked chicks and dudes who are only after one thing really. Well that too. But not exclusively. The girls are pretty much reduced to just being there for looks. One tries to get a drink while drifting at sea in a dinghy and is immedately slapped unconscious by Gary. At the cabin they bicker amonst themselves over a cardigan, at one point erupting into full blown fighting. Yes, two chicks duke it out, for a full like 4 minutes, and everybody is just casually looking. Washing dishes and cooking is another fun activity. Gary wanders around bare chested, smoking and drinking. Later when our two dudes show up, and sees the girls swimming, one of them sneaks down and grabs a woman. Like from behind a rock. She immediately falls helplessly in love with him. And he with her. She was what he had been looking for for years. Not that he isn't also making out with several other girls later on too, but she was definitely the one for him. More bickering, more bullshit. Oy vey. A travesty.

Fighting over a piece of clothing. Women, eh? What can you do. Even on a deserted island, haute couture takes precedence. 

The director is German, but took on an American name for the US release. Originally the movie was made in 1960 and featured quite a bit of nudity and possibly soft core sex scenes whatever. Two years later it was dubbed to English and most of the nudity was cut out for a wider US release. I'm kind of sad about that part, because that, at least, would've made it somewhat worth my time. But again, I also don't care. I mostly don't care, because there is nothing in this movie worth caring about. Gary turns into a spider person, and kills off one woman and one of the dudes. Then he walks into quicksand, scared by people holding flares, and dies in the lamest death scene ever conceived. People weave in and out of relationships with wanton abandon. Like somehow the film makers were trying to establish a love story or several concurrent love stories to fill in just some of the 74 minutes with actual meaningful content. But not only is the acting supremely wooden and nonsensical, every interaction between characters is aloof and pointless, because whatever anyone decides to do, will be immediately negated by a contradicting action by the same character. Why then even have anything happen? Why not just film two people taking turns throwing leaves of grass at each other, and push that shit to silver screens across the entertainment starved globe? My guess is, that would've carried more impact than what we did end up with.

The old 'hands reach out to kill someone, but retracts as soon as somebody is aware of them' bit. It happened 3 times here. Also right after this scene, everybody was like "oh well... probably just a gust of wind". Great. 

To add insult to injury, we are also treated to some of the lamest fight scenes you could possibly imagine. The two dudes throw down in fisticuffs when one drunkenly insults the other's lady (that he literally just met 20 minutes earlier) but instead of battling outside, they decide that inside the cabin is by far the best place to go at it. After some super lame punches and kicks, and general mayhem, they realize the futility of it all, and instead they laugh and hug like the buddies they surely are. It was all a bit of fun. After one of them is killed at the spot where he was supposed to meet the love of his life (that he had not only met 20 minutes earlier, but also, very probably, raped) for a date, by Gary in Spider-Man form, and the lady he was supposed to meet pushed over the edge of a conveniently located cliff, also by Gary, we get to see a really interesting fight scene between Gary the Spider and the second dude inside the cabin. And by interesting, I, of course, mean insultingly unfathomably diffuse and obnoxious. On top of all this, of course, the women still have impeccable hair and make up after spending just over 4 weeks on the island, with no power or running water. Also there was food for 9 people for over a month, despite only one person actually living there. It's safe to say, that less than nothing made sense in this movie. The title itself is questionable. The German title's literal translation is: A man hangs in a net. Whoop-de-fucking-doo. That happens once. Name the movie after that one, apparently totally insignificant, event why don't you? Also, mining uranium with a hammer? Even in 1960 surely that didn't even make sense? Perhaps the 1960 Germany was a totally different place, where tropical islands contained uranium ore right on the surface and giant spiders would appear as a consequence? If only actual live spiders had come up and bit me to death during the watching of this movie, I might have gotten a little more enjoyment out of it. Would that I could be so lucky one day. Would that I could be so lucky.

Dudes fighting over a bad word. Then laughing about it. Hilarious.