I've seen "Nosferatu". The original one. It was German, you know. And it was good.

And I've seen this film. It's German, too...but it ain't good.

"Ein Toter hing im Netz" (or "The Horrors of Spider Island" as I know it) is about horrors, all right: the horrors of male chauvinism run rampant.

Seems Gary, or "That Lucky SOB", is stranded on a desert island after a plane crash with loads of gorgeous babes who are headed to Singapore. But not just any babes, mind you. These are babes that wear nicely tattered clothes, murmur and faint a lot, shed their extra clothes and dance and writhe a lot. Can you tell which part of this movie held my interest the most?

Oh yeah - Gary gets bitten by a spider (that looks more like the grumpy neighbor of a cartoon character) and turns into a spider monster.... Well, more accurately, he turns into a shirtless guy with a hairy face and three teeth, and almost INSTANTLY after being bitten.

I really can't get much into the plot, as the plot is pretty shallow. Besides, the best exposure to this flick is on MST3K with Mike and the Robots, as you can well imagine.

FAVORITE MOMENT - when a guy is caressing one of the dancers then another woman stands seductively over them as one of the robots grunts, "Hey, how 'bout tryin' a she-male, buddy?" And if you ever want to see a robot faint, show them this movie.

Three stars, amazingly, for this movie, for the babes. Ten stars for the MST3K version, as if there was a doubt.

And Babs, if you're reading this...marry me.

Oh God, was this painful, the most deepest of Deep Hurtings.

The plot seems to have been improvised. Actually, the plot was only partially concealed in those dancer's slit skirts, (some of which were more slit than skirt!) That is to say, scenes were mere contrivances to film the girls in various states of (un)dress as they lolled about this deserted cabin.

All female voices were obviously dubbed by one actress. She'd simply change her accent to differentiate. One line, she changed accents three times on the same actress! Just beautiful!

Many scenes were filmed murkily. The two fight scenes ivolving male cast members were laughably ridiculous. Watch as one guy, holdinga a chair over his head, WAITS for the other guy to get out of the way before he throws it!

Again, I digress. I realize this was just a thinly transparent effort for voyeurs. It's interesting to note what the concept of beauty was 40 years ago. It was different than today, because, like it or not, those grls had more meat to them than the anorexic models of today!

Oh yeah, I think there were spiders on the island, (plastic models, of course.)

An all female dance troupe and their manager Gary (Alexander D'Arcy) are en route to Singapore when their plane catches fire and ditches into the sea. Somehow, Gary and a handful of his dancers survive the disaster and, after several days adrift in an inflatable raft, chance upon a remote tropical island that is home to a monstrous spider whose bite causes terrible mutations.

Horrors of Spider Island started life as a German adults-only feature, but was subsequently trimmed of most of its nude scenes and turned into a cheesy horror flick for the US market, all of which goes to explain why the film seems more concerned with titillating its viewers than terrifying them.

The opening scene sees Gary auditioning a series of sexy 60s babes who flaunt their generous curves, show off their long legs (clad in sussies and stockings, of course) and even strip down to their their underwear in an effort to secure a job; once the action moves to the island and the girls adopt tropical attire, barely a minute goes by without a glimpse of bare thigh, a flash of cleavage, a tempting expanse of mid-riff, or the sight of a shapely rear; and when two men arrive on the island ready to party, the wanton women are only too happy to oblige. This smörgåsbord of cheesecake and smut is accompanied by a wonderful jazz soundtrack that wouldn't seem out of place in a seedy 60s go-go strip joint, and which helps to propel the film into the uppermost reaches of the trashosphere.

As far as the horror is concerned, all we get is the giant spider—a very peculiar looking creature with alien-like eyes and what look like teeny hands at the end of its legs—and one mutated bite victim, who grows fangs, facial hair and an impressive set of claws with which to terrorise the women.

On top of all of the eye-candy and lacklustre horror, viewers are also treated to dreadful dubbing, terrible acting, amateurish direction, some poorly choreographed brawls (including the obligatory cat-fight), and plenty of unintentional laughs (try keeping a straight face at the dancers' reactions when the plane is about to crash, or Gary's inexplicable knowledge of Uraniam mining equipment), all of which go to make this one seriously bad movie that no self-respecting fan of kitsch Z-grade garbage should miss.