WEB OF THE SPIDER. Kinski as Poe in a Gothic Horror

Web of the Spider is one of many arguments supporting the thesis that remakes usually do not measure up to the originals.

The film opens with a sequence of Edgar Allan Poe searching through a tomb to confirm the existence of ghosts. At the decisive moment, a terrified Poe leaves the crypt and heads to a tavern, where journalist Alan Foster arrives intending to interview the famous writer. They are also joined by Poe’s friend, Lord Blackwood, who proposes the following bet to Foster: if the journalist survives one night in the supposedly haunted castle owned by the lord, he will receive a monetary reward. Foster, a skeptic and atheist who denies the existence of supernatural phenomena, accepts the bet and goes to the castle. There, he meets, among others, the beautiful Elisabeth, the capricious Julia, and Dr. Carmus, who becomes his guide through the castle. Foster is convinced he is dealing with living people, but the truth is far more unsettling.

During his nearly forty-year career, Antonio Margheriti, also known as Anthony M. Dawson, directed almost 60 films in various genres: science fiction (Space Man, 1960), peplum (Il crollo di Roma, 1963), horror (I lunghi capelli della morte, 1964), giallo (Nude… si muore, 1968), western (Joko invoca Dio… e muori, 1968), spy film (Operazione Goldman, 1966), action cinema (L’ultimo cacciatore, 1980), adventure cinema (I cacciatori del cobra d’oro, 1982), war cinema (Kommando Leopard, 1985), romantic comedy (Io ti amo, 1968), and so on. The Italian director was known for working at a fast pace with very low budgets, which affected the quality of many of his films; most of them were cheap B-movie productions. Sometimes, however, Margheriti managed to achieve better results, as in And God Said to Cain (1970) – an excellent western mixed with gothic horror.

Horror films constitute a significant part of Margheriti’s extensive filmography, and arguably the most famous is Danza macabra (1964), also known as Castle of Blood. Margheriti was dissatisfied with the box office results of this black-and-white film, so he decided to shoot a color remake with a different cast (Anthony Franciosa, Michèle Mercier, Klaus Kinski, Peter Carsten; the only actor appearing in both films, albeit in different roles, is Silvano Tranquilli). The new, color version of Danza macabra was advertised as an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s story Night of the Living Dead; in reality, Poe never wrote such a piece, and In the Spider’s Web was based on a script by Margheriti, Bruno Corbucci, Giovanni Grimaldi, and Giovanni Addessi. The only reference to Poe in the film is his character, played by Kinski, and a recited fragment from the story Berenice.

Margheriti was not satisfied with the result. He complained that the use of color made it “very difficult to create the right atmosphere. Some sequences were really vulgarized by the use of color.” The director concluded that “it was stupid to remake [Danza macabra],” and “the color photography destroyed everything: the atmosphere, the tension.” It’s hard not to agree with him: Web of the Spider showcases almost every possible cliché associated with gothic horror films. There is a dark castle full of secrets, a skeptical main character put to the test, candlesticks and cobwebs, and spectral figures wandering through dusty chambers. However, there is no aura of threat, no tension, and no element of surprise: everything becomes obvious and predictable within the first few minutes of the nearly two-hour screening.