venom

Alternative title: The Legend of Spider Forest

“They say I’m dangerous.

If anyone touches me, the

spiders come. Does that

frighten you?”

Neda Arneric in Peter Sykes’s Venom (1971)

Somewhere in the middle of a convoluted story of Nazi scientists and stolen paintings is the tale of a feral girl in a forest who believes she’s cursed – any man who touches her will be set upon by incredibly venomous spiders and killed instantly.

As such, whenever she gets close to anyone they die a horrible death, which has caused her to adopt an increasingly outcast life that strengthens the superstitious feelings of the local townspeople.

Like a female version of Martin, she has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, preferring to die with her mad doctor father in a laboratory fire than to escape with the chance of a normal life.

This is the debut feature (if you don’t count the hour-long psychedelic satire The Committee) of Peter Sykes, who subsequently made Demons of the Mind and To The Devil a Daughter.

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