A dead man hung in the net
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | A dead man hung in the net |
 | |
| Country of production | Federal Republic of Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1960 |
| length | 82 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 18 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Fritz Boettger |
| script | Fritz Boettger |
| production |
Wolf C. Hartwig for Rapid-Film GmbH, Munich Gaston Hakim for Intercontinental Filmgesellschaft, Munich |
| music | Willy Mattes Karl Bette |
| camera | Georg Krause |
| cut | Heidi Genée |
| occupation | |
| |
A dead hung in the net is a German horror film from 1960 by Fritz Böttger . In the lead role is Alex D'Arcy, imported from the USA, as a show manager bitten by a mutated giant spider.
action
Show manager Gary Webster is looking for several dancers for a revue in Singapore. Together with Mike Webster and Gary's assistant Georgia, he assesses a number of candidates for the vacancies. It quickly becomes apparent that for Webster it is less the dance qualities that count than the physical equipment of the young women, especially their legs. The buxom blonde Babs, who is immediately committed after just one turn, appears particularly hard-boiled and tough, while the excellent ballet dancer Caroline, who shows her skills, appears to be unsuitable and is rejected. The brunette Linda, on the other hand, who takes off her dress right in front of Gary, doesn't even have to dance to be engaged immediately.
Hardly in the plane did technical difficulties arise during the flight high above the ocean and the plane crashed into the sea. Webster, Georgia and the seven girls escape to a tropical island in a rubber dinghy. You explore the remote island and soon come across a hut in the jungle. When the girls open the door, one of them lets out a sharp scream. In the middle of the room is a huge spider web in which a dead man is stuck. Gary finds the dead man's diary, a researcher named Prof. Green. Again and again he writes of a hissing sound that he heard. Everyday life on the island leads to the fact that some of the girls are soon nasty; one day two dancers even have a serious fight over a triviality. On a hot tropical night, Linda finally tries to seduce Gary, the rooster in the basket. When Georgia catches him talking to Linda, she gives her two slaps in the face while Gary goes on a nightly stroll through the island jungle with the professor's pistol in his waistband. Meanwhile, a thunderstorm is approaching with a rumble of thunder.
A continuous vibrating noise in his vicinity is the sign that a dangerous enemy is approaching Gary in the jungle thicket. It is a gigantic spider that attacks Gary from behind and bites his neck just as he is standing with his back to a dead tree stump in the hollow of which the eight-legged one is hiding. Although Gary can get rid of the monster spider and kill it with several shots, the painful spider venom quickly transforms him into a monstrous, werewolf-like figure with three pointed teeth and ugly claws. When Gary does not return, several of the girls go looking for him. The next morning the dancers find their colleague Linda lying in a pond. She is dead, strangled by the mutant spider man Gary.
Two of the girls try to attract the attention of a passing ship with fire and smoke signals, but are unsuccessful. In the meantime, two other men have landed on the coast in a rowboat. The younger of the two, Robby, first looks with relish as the girls bathe nude in the sea, but then goes into the water himself and grabs Gladys as she swims into a small indentation. Three of the women finally discover the place where the spider attacked Gary and find the professor's pistol lying on the ground next to the spider's body that was shot to pieces. One of the girls there almost becomes another victim of Gary, who at this point is crouching in the same tree stump from which the spider had attacked him the night before. When they see Joe, the other man, walking along the path, he appears highly suspicious in view of the events of the past few days. They threaten him with Prof. Green's (unloaded) pistol, take him to the hut and ask him what he did with Gladys. Finally, however, Gladys comes to meet them, arm in arm with Robby.
The men in the professor's service are informed by the girls about their dead boss in the web and the giant spider. The professor was entrusted with research that focused on uranium , say the men. The following evening everyone has a party with music and dancing. There is a lot of flirting, especially Robby doesn't let anything burn and enjoys being the cock in the basket. According to Gladys, it will soon be Babs' blonde bosom miracle, in whose clutches he is only too willing to go. When Joe reproaches him about it, the two men get into a hard fight. Then Robby stumbles outside, where he has a rendezvous with Gladys. When Gladys sees him leaning against a tree, she is horrified to find that he has been bitten to death and also strangled. Her bloodcurdling scream makes those left behind in the hut rush outside and look for her. On the run from the spider monster, Gladys climbs a coastal rock, pursued by the transformed Gary. When he stands in front of her, she falls backwards into the depths.
A little later Joe discovers the dead Robby, but now Gary also appears. There is a duel between the two, but the mutated Gary is much stronger. Joe runs back to the cabin to get ammo for the unloaded pistol. But spider man Gary also arrives. He wants to claw Georgia, who is also present, but lets go of her at the last moment when his long-time confidante and friend speaks to him by name. Then there is another duel between Gary and Joe. When the monster Joe begins to choke, Georgia lights a magnesium torch with presence of mind. The monster is frightened by the bright beam of light and runs out in a panic. The other girls join in, and each of them receives a torch with which the spider creature is hunted in a kind of hunt. Pursued by his captors, Gary escapes into the swamps, where he eventually sinks into the muddy ground. The next morning, the survivors leave the island with Joe's supply boat.
Production notes, backgrounds, interesting facts
A dead person hung in the net is an extremely rare example of a horror film for early German post-war cinema and was produced immediately after the horror film Die Nackte und der Satan , also from Rapid Film Production, in the Bavaria Atelier in Munich-Geiselgasteig. In October / November 1959, shot on San Nicola (Italy), the horror piece A Dead Hanging On The Net builds not only on horror elements but above all on the physical stimuli of the scantily clad young women, which are shown extensively in numerous scenes. At the time, some of these sequences were considered very daring. The film premiered on April 16, 1960.
For screenwriter Fritz Böttger this was the third and final foray into film directing. Ludwig Spitaler was production manager.
The film, produced by trash specialist Wolf C. Hartwig , is heavily influenced by the American horror films of the 40s (e.g. Der Wolfsmensch ) and 50s (e.g. Formicula , Tarantula and other Jack Arnold productions), which were produced by the Universal Studios were established. Tellingly, B-actors from Hollywood ( Alex D'Arcy , Harald Maresch ) were brought in for the male leading roles , while the roles of the well-built dancers were cast with up-to-date, nameless young German actresses. Of them, only Barbara Valentin, who was barely 19 at the time, made fame later . A few months earlier, Valentin had made her film debut in another Hartwig horror film production, The Naked and the Satan . In a scene from A Dead Hanging On The Net , she and her film partner Gerry Sammer engage in a catfight also borrowed from the classic Hollywood trash film . Hartwig's future wife Dorothee Parker made her debut in the cinema here, then still as Dorothee Glöcklen. She plays Gladys plunging into the abyss.
criticism
At the time of the premiere, the Catholic film critics reacted stunned to disgust. In films 1959/61 it says: horror plus "sex". A garbage product that can no longer be undercut .
Three decades later, the situation there was much more relaxed and reflective. In the lexicon of international films it says: The naive fable combines elements of sex and horror into a film (which the FSK of the 1950s provided with numerous editing requirements), whose genre qualities were only noticed much later by domestic and international critics.
In tierhorror.de you can read the following: “It's hard to believe that this film shot in SW is a German production. Here horror elements are enriched with a lot of eroticism. The film is only out for fun and trashy entertainment, so it's actually more of a typical American B-movie. (...) When the film was released back then, there were heavy reviews because of the nude scenes, today you can only smile about it and describe the film as harmless. At best, the giant spider looks like a funny dummy, the monster, on the other hand, is quite original with its three pointed teeth and large claws. "
Individual evidence
- ^ Films 1959/61. Critical notes from three years of cinema and television. Handbook VI of the Catholic film criticism. Düsseldorf 1962, p. 172.
- ↑ Klaus Brüne (Red.): Lexikon des Internationale Films, Volume 8, S. 3868. Reinbek near Hamburg 1987.
- ↑ A dead person was hanging on the internet at tierhorror.de ( memento of the original from February 1, 2014 in the internet archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
