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[Jonny]

Produced and written by Tonino Cervi this is a decent horror film and quite surprisingly so for one made in the late 80's.

Can't say I'd heard of lead man Roland Wybenga before in fact all of the cast are new to me apart from William Berger who pops up in the role of 'Mysterious Man'...

There's a mix of Giallo and supernatural horror mixed into this tale of an ancient spider god worshiping religious cult living in a deserted Budapest. Professor Alan Whitmore (Wybenga) is sent off to Budapest to help a colleague investigate a mysterious tablet that has bizarre inscriptions on it. Pretty soon the people involved in the investigation are being killed off, each death heralded by the arrival of a mysterious black ball in the room...

Nicely shot and has a decent score, surprising to find on a film of this vintage as usually films of the 80's are ruined by synthesizers and electronic drums.

Sergio Stivaletti delivers some neat practical effects in the form of a stop motion spiders and goey gore fx plus a great transforming baby/spider god thing that is well worth waiting for.

The copy I have is from a widescreen Japanese VHS, English language with Japanese subtitles. Did this get a release anywhere else?

[ecc]

This is one of my favorite Italian eighties horror films.  I have the Japanese widescreen tape and an even rarer Australian ex-rental (cropped).  The voice actress who dubs co-star Paola Rinaldi in this film also dubbed Cristina Marsillach in Argento's OPERA.  Stephane Audran is prominently featured (according to Jess Franco on the FACELESS DVD, Audran is a lover of horror films which makes her appearance here seem less like an older actor looking for work).  William Berger shows up long enough to get killed and there is some nice prosthetic work by Sergio Stivaletti (the stop motion is less convincing but effective enough if you have a thing about spiders).  There is a SUSPIRIA type stalk and kill sequence set in a corridor of billowing sheets and its nice to see a horror film shot in Eastern Europe (Hungary in this case) that doesn't try to make the country stand in for another (for instance, Czechoslovakia for Paris, Hungary for Victorian London, Romania for various places).

Did this get a release anywhere else?

Besides the Japanese and Australian tapes, the only other English language release I know of is in Greece.

[Jonny]

Thanks for the info ecc, I'm guessing the Japanese VHS is the best choice out of the three VHS releases then.

It's a good film isn't it? I've had a copy for years but only got around to watching it this morning. A nice DVD of this would be very cool as some of the colour schemes look like they'd hold up very well to a decent re-master job.

[Mark GW]

Over the weekend, I was quickly looking through some VHS tapes that i've had for years but never got round to looking at.  This was one of them and is a dupe off a Japanese Laserdisc.  Shame the subtitles are so big and intrusive    I'll probably give it a watch now that it seems to be favourably regarded.

[Mario]

Did this get a release anywhere else?

Besides the Japanese and Australian tapes, the only other English language release I know of is in Greece.

Argentinean release too (cropped).

[MarcMorris]

I wish I knew who the rights owner of this film is! Anybody any clues?

[ecc]

I wish I knew who the rights owner of this film is! Anybody any clues?

Is Reteitalia still around?

The Italian video distributor was Penta Video?  Any relation to the defunct Berlusconi/Cecchi Gori company?  If so, Medusa might be the one to check with (their site only includes the film's they are distributing and the catalog titles that are on DVD.

[bdc]

Don't know if this helps but it seems this was a co-production with Splendida Film?

c. pr.: Splendida Film / Reteitalia, Segrate (MI)

Also found this:
Medusa Film   Foreign Theatrical Distributor (Italy)

[ecc]

I'm fairly sure I've seen a Turkish tape on eBay but it of course would not be in English.

[ecc]

Japanese trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMKjIroB4Ws

[Johan Melle]

That's a great trailer for a great film! Interestingly, this trailer seems to have been dubbed in Rome - one can clearly hear Nick Alexander dubbing the voice of Professor Roth. The film itself, however, was dubbed by Gambit International in London with an all-different voice cast.

[ecc]

That's a great trailer for a great film! Interestingly, this trailer seems to have been dubbed in Rome - one can clearly hear Nick Alexander dubbing the voice of Professor Roth. The film itself, however, was dubbed by Gambit International in London with an all-different voice cast.

OPERA was originally dubbed at Gambit (the re-voicing was done at International Recording) and as I mentioned above, SPIDER LABYRINTH's Paola Rinaldi is dubbed by the same voice artist who did Cristina Marsillach in the Argento film.

[ecc]

According to a post at Latarnia, there's a widescreen disc of SPIDER LABYRINTH up at Amazon.com.  The distributor is listed as PR Studios.

The cover is a cropped scan of the Australian VHS release and I'm betting if its widescreen, it is a boot of the likely unauthorized German release that was only sold on eBay.

[demented_uk]

Or sourced from the Japanese VHS maybe?

[ecc]

I don't think they'd try to pass off a foreign subbed source as a DVD but who knows.  Video Asia blacked out the Japanese subs and sold Franco's MANHUNTER.