Spiderhole

[thefarstairs 0]

If you guys ever get the urge to do a torture porn movie, Spiderhole is really special. Apart from the wonderful title, we've got four flat, unlikeable characters who spend most of their time shouting hysterically, who can't seem to go anywhere without walking slowly down hallways all huddled up Scooby-Doo style, and who can't figure out any way to get out of what is apparently a normal house once they're locked in. They never try smashing a wall, for example.

 

We've also got scenes that go nowhere, such as when they find a hole in a basement wall that leads to a door, but then go back upstairs instead of exploring it. Then one of the characters gives a long speech about how he was too scared to go in there, which is why he didn't even tell the others about the door (he ignores the fact that they were standing right next to him, and could presumably have seen the door themselves). Another character responds, "Fuck-a-doodle-doo. A door is something we could really use right about now." This is laugh-out-loud funny right in the middle of what is supposed to be an intense scene.

 

Then we have people's legs getting hacked off and their eyeballs pulled out by an aimless, morose madman who seems alternately bored and upset by his own handiwork. He's an old man who keeps a shrine to another old man in his house. This is NEVER EXPLAINED. Oh, and his most deadly enemy seems to be the shoddy construction of his own house.

 

Finally, we have the most appallingly egregious leave-the-killer-alive scene of all time. In an earlier scene, two of the characters BEAT THEIR FRIEND TO DEATH with weapons made of wood and nails because they think he's the killer. They are horrified to find that the killer has merely dressed their friend up in his clothes to fool them. Later, the "heroine" is presented with the EXACT SAME situation, this time with the REAL KILLER stuck in a flight of stairs that he has fallen partway through (damn that shoddy construction). Instead of using this opportunity to BEAT HIM TO DEATH -- something we clearly know she's capable of -- she knocks him out with a piece of the banister, takes his keys, and flees down the hallway, already looking over her shoulder fearfully in case he wakes up. This was my "what the fuck" moment, and it leads directly to her death, which she absolutely deserves.

 

The icing on the cake is the mind-numbingly pointless twist at the end, followed by some kind of fruity and bizarre medieval English madrigal crooned by a waifish folk singer during the end credits (the rest of the movie having had an exclusively rock/electronic score).

 

I thought of you guys the whole way through this terrible, absurd movie. It's not quite as batshit crazy as Human Centipede, but I would argue that it's worse in that particular way you guys crave. Instead of the campy ridiculousness that made HC kind of good, Spiderhole takes itself way too seriously and has awful writing, directing, and acting.