Writer/director Jack Hill’s 1967 film Spider Baby or, the Maddest Story Ever Told (watch it HERE) – which boasts a cast that includes Lon Chaney Jr. and Sid Haig – ranks up there as one of my all-time favorites, so I’m happy to see that it has finally, nearly sixty years after the film was originally released, been given the novelization treatment! Written by Dayna Noffke, the novelization has been published by Encyclopocalypse Publications and is available for purchase, in paperback and Kindle editions, at THIS LINK.
Here’s the description of the novel, which has a page count of 210: In a crumbling mansion on the edge of nowhere, the Merrye children live a secret life, watched over by their devoted caretaker Bruno and cursed by a rare genetic condition that causes them to regress into violent, childlike states while retaining the strength and appetites of adults. Virginia catches flies in her imaginary web—then slashes them to pieces with butcher knives. Elizabeth sulks and plots. And Ralph… well, Ralph scuttles in the shadows, twitching, grinning, watching. When distant relatives arrive to claim the family estate, Bruno can only hope the “children” remember their manners. This official novelization of Jack Hill’s cult horror classic Spider Baby plunges deeper into the grotesque humor, cracked psychology, and rotting grandeur of the Merrye legacy. Author Dayna Noffke brings new life to the tale, adding expanded scenes, rich inner monologue, and backstory only hinted at in the film. Told with gleeful menace and unexpected tenderness, this is an invitation to descend into full Merrye madness. This edition also includes a foreword by cult film scholar Mike Watt, as well as reconstructed “deleted scenes” and annotations that expand the twisted lore of one of exploitation cinema’s strangest treasures. Some families have skeletons in the closet. The Merryes feed theirs in the basement.
Lon Chaney Jr. and Sid Haig were joined in the cast of the film by Jill Banner, Beverly Washburn, Carol Ohmart, Quinn Redeker, Mary Mitchel, Karl Schanzer, Mantan Moreland, Carolyn Cooper, and Joan Keller Stern.
Are you a fan of Spider Baby, and will you be buying a copy of the novelization? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
