Time for a walk through of this year’s Transworld Halloween trade show. These are always a lot of fun.
Bigger-than-life animatronic figures seem to be a continuing theme (and Sam’s has had one or two such for sale the last few years), including a number of oversized werewolves, and my neighborhood has several Gashadokuro this year. There was also a number of high quality giant spiders on display.
Way down on the list of my collecting vectors is books about giant spiders, so when I saw in a Heritage Auctions lot I decided to track down a copy.
Gotthelf, Jeremias (pseudonym for Albert Bitzius). The Black Spider. John Calder (Publishers) Ltd., 1958. First English language edition, a Near Fine+ copy with slight spine lean and former owners name inside front cover under flap, in a Very Good+ dust jacket with 1/4″ chip at head, two pinhead-sized abrasions at heel front join, wear at points, and moderate age darkening to white portion of spine. Nineteenth century allegorical horror story about evil made manifest as a giant black spider. Introduced and translated from the original German by H. M. Waidson. Barron, Horror Literature 2-35. Not in Bleiler’s Guide to Supernatural Fiction. Bought off a fellow Biblio dealer for $21.25.
More purchases from Half Price Books and Recycled Books, one of which was actually a mistake.
I’m running out of Halloween season, so it’s time for a post on that perennial source of creepiness: Spiders.
There are few things that triggers our primal fear reflex more than spiders, so here’s a Whitman’s Spider Sampler of Creepiness.
I’ve tried to avoid the common gifs everyone’s already seen, but I am intrigued by this completely unconvincing, yet oddly unnerving film snippet, and I’d like to know what (presumably silent) film it’s from:
Here’s the exceptionally creepy spider attack from The Mist:
And here’s Cyriak’s deeply disturbing “Cobwebs”:
Let’s end on a lighter note. There’s a Simon’s Cat with a spider:
And this:
Looks like I’ve been falling down on my Giant Spider reporting duties. A retro black-and-white giant spider film has been released called, oddly enough, The Giant Spider.
There’s an IMDB listing for it as well.
Here’s a trailer for the forthcoming film Big Ass Spider:
It’s every bit as good as you would expect a trailer for a film called Big Ass Spider to be.
I’m pretty sure the intro at the beginning of the clip was timed just right to make the bikini volleyball scene show up as the default YouTube image…
Supposedly one with the long lost “spider pit” footage. I’ll believe it when I see it, but that’s probably the second-most-famous missing footage from an existent film, behind only the missing reel of The Magnificent Ambersons.
(Hat tip: Bill Crider. )