Mystery Science Theater 3000 presents:
#1011:
Horrors of Spider Island
Large, rectangular Gary, lovely assistant Georgia, and slightly less lovely assistant Mike audition dancers for a trip to Singapore. This takes up approximately the first two-thirds of the movie, and culminates in the labored explanation of a joke: when Gary likes a dancer, he crosses his legs; when he doesn't, he uncrosses them. That's how Georgia knows his answers, without Gary even saying anything, and that's why Mike was confused.
No, it's not. Pay attention. The dead guy is Professor Green, and a quick reference to uranium in his diary is all the explanation we ever receive for the confusing events about to unfold. All move in to his cabin, and the dancers begin disrobing, writhing, taking showers, and rubbing their hands across Gary's crotch. Caught by Georgia while kissing a dancer, Gary stalks off and is attacked by a large puppet spider.
Let's speed this up. The women go out looking for Gary, can't find him. Two sailors, Joe and Bob, show up to pick up Professor Green, and you can imagine their chagrin when they find, instead of the professor, a cabin full of exotic dancers. There follows a couple days of drinking and sex, as they await a ship's arrival; there's some vague disagreement between Joe and Bob about Bob's dismissive attitude toward women, which offends Joe since he's taken with Ann (from Minnesota!) Gary reappears, apparently now a spider although he's just a guy in slacks, and kills Bob and Bob's special honey Gladys, and the women all get torches and chase Gary into a swamp and the ship comes. The end.
So, are the big spiders because of the uranium? Is Gary's transformation into whatever caused by the uranium? Just what exactly are the horrors of this place? Does anyone know? Hello?
Prologue: Crow has a syndicated newspapers column, inspired by Larry King's pointless ramblings in USA Today: "I give Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia a B+!"
Segment One: The Castle is gone - actually, it's just moved, to a suburban setting somewhere: Pearl is tired of shelling out fifty bucks a year for Bobo's license. Brain Guy's crabby about all the work, but Bobo likes his huge new tag. He barks at the neighbor's dogs, though.
Segment Two: Mike gets stuck in a web, like the professor in a movie; Crow and Servo made it and are delighted with the big bug they catch for dinner. A huge spider threatens Mike, though. Do the 'bots care? No. Sometimes you have to wonder about those guys.
Segment Three: Mike, his feet on the desk like Gary, auditions all in the castle, who (of course) buy into it immediately. Bobo tries soft shoe; Brain Guy dons a wig and imitates a steamy scene from Flash Dance; Pearl tries a ballet and falls over.
Segment Four: Crow: "So Mike, if you're a woman and you're in a plane crash, you instantly become languid, helpless, sex- starved, and you murmur a lot?" They test the premise - turns out you do.
Segment Five: Mike becomes an unconvincing spider; all share a way-too-hearty laugh when it turns out he's planning to make a braunschweiger melt, just like the 'bots. Pearl and company are moving the castle back, and are at a truck stop, where Bobo discovers a machine in the restroom purveying individually wrapped balloons.
Stinger: The plane plummeting, the dancers screaming.
We learned, I forget just how, that this movie was a cooperative effort between Germany (West Germany, I assume) and Yugoslavia in the early 1960's. Believe me, I tried like the dickens to provide a joke about the Marshall Plan - that this was how our U.S. tax money was being used by the good people of Europe, as they attempted to rebuild their economies, and such. To all you Marshall Plan fans out there, I'm sorry.
The weekend after we finished this, I was consumed by curiosity and used all my Frequent Flyer miles to fly to Singapore - it sounded like such a swinging town! And I was not disappointed. I hooked up with Babs, of course, and we had a great time, and then she decided to fly back to the States with me - and that's when tragedy struck. We crashed, and I had to depend on Babs to carry me ashore on an island, and take care of me, with her commanding manner. We're still there, in fact, me and Babs. You get used to it after a while. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing going on.
- Paul Chaplin
Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie/episodes availability on videoand on DVD
The best book for looking up movie titles and descriptions is the Movie / Video Guide by Leonard Maltin. If for some reason Horrors of Spider Island isn't available on videotape, you can still get Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie while supplies last...
Or the MST3000 Titles Index Page
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