An entertainingly lurid, European early Verhoeven ‘black widow’ thriller really sums up this film. The mood and tone is set by the title credits showing a spider capturing and eating a victim with a final passing shot of a white statue of the Virgin Mary.The main character’s dodgy relationship with reality is established early on (a by-product of his alcoholism?) the slow camera movement is very effective and Verhoeven does manage to effectively build up a sense of tension and dread, even once we are pretty sure as to the situation.
The European vibe is largely indicated by the casual use of male nudity – never gratuitous, often very pleasing and always totally natural.
As the end approached we were definitely approaching Gothic territory in mood but it never fell over into that extreme and easy-to-be –ridiculous trap – although the brief post-credit spider sequence was really not need. OK, we get the idea! An entertaining movie.