Professor Alan Whitmore doesn’t like spiders. We know this because through the entirety of Italy’s The Spider Labyrinth, first-time director Gianfranco Giagni keeps flashing back to a childhood incident in which Whitmore (a mamby-pamby Roland Wybenga) was locked in a closet with one big mofo of a creepy crawler.

What’s this have to do with anything? Eh, not much. But the Dallas academian is hired by a secretive institution to travel to Budapest, re-establish contact with an AWOL professor named Roth, and bring back all the research the old man has collected. When Whitmore meets Roth, he finds the guy visibly frightened and threatened … and later strung up dead by a web.

Despite this and numerous other warnings to get out of the town before it traps him, Whitmore sticks around. I’m guessing part of this is because Roth’s assistant, Genevieve (Paola Rinaldi), likes to undress in front of an open window. That may give you reason to stick around, too, as will the string of strange murders and increasingly bizarre proceedings that, at the very end, jump from aping the stylistic methods of Dario Argento to David Cronenberg.

The Spider Labyrinth must qualify as a giallo simply for having so many of its elements in place: black cat, black gloves, surreal settings, lurid voyeurism, colored gels, bad dubbing, crap that makes no sense, etc. Wonderfully wacky, this one, full of stop-motion spiders and one insane ending that’ll have you saying, “Now that’s Italian!” It’s kind of like Arachnophobia meets … oh, a craft services table with three kinds of tortellini. —Rod Lott

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Universal monsters screenwriter Curt Siodmak monkeyed around on his typewriter to go ape with Bride of the Gorilla, which you could mistake for a partial remake of his The Wolf Man. It’s equally as cheesy as other monkey movies of the era, but twice as routine.

Raymond Burr stars as a beefy worker on a jungle plantation who’s diddling his boss’ wife. When the boss finds out, he punches Burr in the face; Burr responds by throwing him at a deadly snake, which fatally bites the old man. A nearby witch witnesses the event puts strange leaves on the boss’ eyes, thus placing a curse on Burr.

No sooner has the future Perry Mason married the not-bereaving widow when he begins turning into a gorilla, through a series of cheap and unconvincing transformation sequences. Your average killing rampage ensues. My mind was long checked out by then. —Rod Lott

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H.P. Lovecraft’s demented Dr. Herbert West made a third house call with the long-overdue Beyond Re-Animator, a sequel that’s a garish, gory and good-humored (although definitely not good-natured) good time. Jeffrey Combs returns as West, now imprisoned in the Arkham State Penitentiary after one of his living dead experiments escapes from Miskatonic Asylum for some milk and kills a young woman. Thirteen years later, that girl’s little brother — who witnessed her gruesome demise — is the prison’s new doctor, and he’s brought West a present: a syringe full of that familiar glowing green goo.

The doc (likable but goofy Jason Barry of MirrorMask) wants to use the serum to find ways to help people; West, however, just seems interested in continuing his freakathon, although he has developed a method for restoring life, thanks to some secret research with rodents. At first, they inject a prisoner here, a smokin’-hot Spanish reporter (Elsa Pataky, Fast Five) there, but the second half of the film is an all-out prison riot with electrocutions, hangings, exploding stomachs and a wrestling half-torso, courtesy of the unique talents of Screaming Mad George.

I’ll admit I harbored strong reservations about Beyond; the fact that it was shot in Spain, set in a prison, scripted by a first-timer and had no principals return except Combs combined to portend an idea whose time had long passed. Plus, director Brian Yuzna’s spotty filmography — Faust: Love of the Damned, anyone? I thought not — didn’t bode well, either. To my relief, Beyond is a solid third chapter in a B-movie franchise of Grand Guignol that has a lot of life left in it, reanimated or otherwise.

If you thought that all the Re-Animator trilogy lacked were a techno-dance theme, you’ll thrill to the disc’s unintentionally hilarious Dr. Re-Animator music video for “Move Your Dead Bones” (sample lyric: “Reanimate your feet!”). And don’t you dare switch the movie off before the closing credits, lest you want to miss the fight between the rat and the penis. —Rod Lott

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An attractive, young coed from a wealthy family is left with partial amnesia after suffering through a traumatic incident everyone around her prefers to pretend never happened. A kindly psychologist attempts to help her recover her lost memories, while she deals with the perils of fitting in with her school’s most popular clique. But when people start dying around her, it becomes obvious that either she’s completely crazy or has a psychotic doppelgänger she doesn’t know about.

Sound familiar? It should if you’ve ever seen the 1981 slasher classic Happy Birthday to Me, but — as you’ve already guessed — I’m actually describing The Initiation, which was made three years later and shares virtually the exact same plot.

Based on my fondness for HB2M (which I would happily list among my top five slashers), you’d think this would cause me to dismiss The Initiation as an unworthy copycat, but it’s actually a pretty decent flick, despite its lack of originality. The principal reason: a script that takes pains to develop real, likable characters who we sympathize with, which makes it something of a revelation in a genre where it’s normal for everyone other than the lone female protagonist to be an asshole who needs to die.

As the heroine, Daphne Zuniga (who gets an “introducing” credit, despite her appearance as a human speed bump in the awful The Dorm That Dripped Blood two years earlier) nearly makes you forget Melissa Sue Anderson, but your heart will ultimately belong to Marilyn Kagen and Trey Stroud, whose sweet, shopping-mall intimacy dooms them while simultaneously allowing them to transcend their clichéd roles of uptight prude and practical joker.

While not quite an unrecognized classic, The Initiation is still a far better film than it has any right to be. Just make sure you check out Happy Birthday to Me first. —Allan Mott

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Hi, folks, and allow me to personally welcome you to Greece, the Land of the Minotaur! I’ll be your tour guide, pointing out some interesting sights along our route, and I’m happy to answer any questions that may arise! Don’t be shy! That’s what they pay me for!

If you look to your left, you’ll see two guys and one lovely young woman. For the life of me, I can’t tell the men apart because their hair is so long. Damn hippies! Ha-ha! But I kid. Look to your right, and you’ll see some local youths playing soccer, as they are wont to do. Watch it, you scamps!

Look! Over there, emerging from the car, it’s Mr. Peter Cushing, ladies and gentlemen! He’s Baron Corofax and he owns the castle o’er yonder, which is one of the oldest pagan sites in the country! And hey, let’s all give a hearty wave to Donald Pleasence as Father Roche! Hi, Father! Looks like he’s got a lot on his mind. This whole village is possessed by the devil, you see!

Just between you and me, folks, it’s easy to tell who’s in the satanic cult ’round here: It’s the people in the blue, silky KKK outfits! Hi-oooh! Amiright? We’re coming up to our final stop, the fabled giant minotaur. That’s half-man, half-bull, if you were paying attention in school! Now, you’ll notice he shoots fire out of his nostrils, but if you local reaaaal close, you’ll see his weenus! Go on, he’s not shy!

Did you hear Father Roche just now? He said, “We are up against a force that no traditional weapon has the power to destroy!” He’s weird that way. I just don’t trust the balds, but that’s neither here nor there. Anyway, on to the gift shop, ladies and gentleman! —Rod Lott

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