Spider (1991)

 

a.k.a. Zirneklis

Director: Vasili Mass

Writer: Vladimir Kaijaks

Cast: Aurelija Anuzhite as Vita; Liubomiras Laucevicius as Albert; Algirdas Paulavicius as the Priest; Mirdza Martinsone as the Mother

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #168 / An Abstract List Candidate

 

Remember that appearances are deceptive. They hide the soul.

Here is a rarity, a horror film from Latvia, probably one of the few unfortunately because, as documented in a director interview from the Mondo Macabro¹ release, Vasili Mass is his debut (and only film) came to the production in a brief period after the country was no longer part of the Soviet Union where there was a chance to make said film, only to have its film industry suffer from the economic problems that came soon after. That it is also an erotic horror film is of mention, though in an anecdote that is gross, Mass did mention that nude scenes were shot in Soviet era films, even if erotica was seen as Western degeneracy, knowing they would be censored and entirely for the pleasure of members of the film industry to see before hitting the cutting room floor. Spider, whilst a lurid and weird horror film, looks better immediately in comparison but is also an erotic horror film created by someone, originally a production designer, indebted to art cinema in his cinema and inspired by Soviet era filmmakers like Sergei Parajanov; for all its perverseness it is a feast of the eyes and with more on its mind.

Simply, with mind of an ironic slant on Western cinema tropes here but played seriously, this takes the trope of good versus evil over a youth, a priest against a corrupted painter named Albert, over Vita, played by then-newcomer Aurelija Anuzhite, a Lithuanian originally studying as a shadow puppet performer before being cast who would continue on in acting over the decades. Vita's story is also one told over and over again in fiction, the youthful and virtuous youth finding their sensuality as they become an adult, never thankfully a moral condemnation of female sensuality in this particularly tale. Instead, originally ask to pose as the Virgin Mary for one of Albert's pieces, the concern is that Albert is fixated on her and, as it happens, he is now also a supernatural figure who can turn into a giant spider. Befittingly it is first as a stand-in for the Virgin Mary, as Vita will mature, fall in love and grows fully as an adult from a child; unfortunately, Albert, able to invade her dreams and mind, refuses to let her go.

Yes, that does mean a big prop spider that had to be run by a man or two inside it. Yes, there is a sex scene between Vita and a giant spider. It is, honestly, lurid as mentioned, especially that sex scene, but immediately of note is how Vasili Mass made a film that looks as elegant as this is, both in its visual appearance to even the constant visual and lighting flourishes that add an eeriness to it, such as reflection on the screen itself to a red sky over a beach where the priest and Albert confront each other later on in the finale. It looks and feels like a Gothic period drama even though it is set in the then-present day, to the point the second half if set in rural Latvia, the coastal countryside with an actual castle and Vita being brought to it on a horse drawn open carriage contrasted by jeans and a portable CD player.

It is a purely visual film, one which opens with a quotation by Sigmund Freud, about how subconscious sexual desires are linked to a sense of fear. It cannot be denied, as an erotic film, it is entirely fixated on young femininity, but at least the crux of the film is that Vita will eventually find her own self, and that the villain is an older leering man, a figure connected to the motif of spiders, not only the giant one he can transform into (including body horror transformations and people being slowly digested), but regular sized stop motion ones whose movements are inherently eerie alongside the motif of webbing entrapping and capturing victims, such as introduced when two stop motion spiders are seen by Vita in a glass cage fighting before one intends to devour the other. The film also, in spite of explicitness, does come off as a post-Soviet tribute to the kind of fantastique films that were nonetheless made during the Iron Curtain in spite of censorship, the kind (such as Czechoslovakian productions) which are incredible to see more so in the modern day when their simple examples of hard work and good production teams have been seemingly lost, in this case were the creation of talented production teams who made such films in that era were briefly allowed even less restrictions for Spider's surreal narrative. Even the dubbing, dialogued synched after the footage was shot, adds an unnatural air alongside the music. It is of the era, but that is not a criticism; in fact, passages which seem to predate dungeon synth music actually fit the tone of Spider perfectly.

Certainly, by the end, the film definitely has its share of hallucinogenic moments. A recreation of a painting, "the Last Judgement", with real figures (mostly nude) recreating a demonic orgy of noise and image, alongside visual motifs such one involving cockroaches and steam of a spilt bowl, does evoke that the director came to this as a production designer first, and definitely took inspiration from the likes of Parajanov in framing compositions. Whilst through a male gaze too, it is subversive, in one of the film's best moments, that Vita's first awakening sexuality is a scene where she writhes against a mirror with her own reflection, eventually moving by herself (with help of a body double) with the real Vita, the Freudian meaning felt rife. That Vita is neither damned for her sexual desires nor becomes a stereotype eroticised figure helps the film considerably in terms of its gender politics. Spider is an obscure film from horror cinema, probably (and tragically) one of the few or the only one I know of in Latvian cinematic history, but thankfully it is examples like this which we can rediscover and admire as one-offs.

Abstract Spectrum: Eerie/Grotesque/Sensual/Weird

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Low

 

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1) The Mondo Macabro Blu Ray release from 2017 with an interview with the director.