After the success of his his Kolchak movies and series, Dan Curtis tried to spring on us another nearly likeable character in the form of actor Anthony Francioso. The similiarities are obvious as several men are being found butchered with large amounts of black widow venom in their bodies. The incredulous solution is that their must be a giant spider running loose, and then it turns out the giant spider is really a woman. This is one far fetched theory that somehow becomes true with the help of some very phony and shakey "legends" that are stretched even more to seem real. Filled with the recognizable faces of Donna Mills, Patty Duke, Sid Caeser, Vic Morrow, Max Gail and June Lockhart, this movie does have a pretty top notch murder mystery in it. The concept of a beautiful woman turning into a monster is a very unused idea in Hollywood, but which woman is the riddle of the movie. Donna Mills' character inexplicably lives through her attack to keep her to the end, but then we don't see much of the spider, and even less of the transformation of the woman turning into it. What ? No brief flesh under ripping clothes ? I still remember the artwork of this movie, though: the top part of a woman connected to the bottom half of a spider with eight shapely women's legs. I wish had had the fore thought to save it; the effects in the movie are bad but fair. Even if you are blind in one eye and have a glass eye in the other, you ought to be able to see the closure from miles away.
Review of Curse of the Black Widow
