After the success of Gale Sondergaard as the menancing, evil Spider Woman in Universal's "Sherlock Holmes and The Spider Woman", Universal gave Sondergaard her own film with the added attraction of Rondo Hatton, known as "The Creeper" having given films like "Pearl Of Death" a chilling, murderous feeling. The film is therefore something of a star vehicle and was one of the last serious horrors made by Universal in the golden era. Without Roy William Neill's pacy direction this plays more like a reasonable B-movie from the Republic studio than a main feature.
Gale Sondergaard is effective once more as the evil Spider Woman, now pretending to be blind and breeding spiders and plants to kill off and scare away the locals in order that she can claim the land. However shes misses a decent foil to lay against, Rathbone as the brilliant Holmes provided a spark on screen that is missing here. Her fiendish plans are now really quite evil enough to raise the film and make us root for the limp Milburn Stone, we never see her plotting or involved in the deeds carried out in her name. Hatton is once more chilling as the mute servant murdering and extracting blood from the girl bought in to assist Sondergaard, although in reality her next victim. There is an unrequited love theme for Hatton that is never picked up which is a shame. By this time, Hatton's real physical problems were distorting his face and hands to a large extent and you cannot help but feel for him, his genuinely deformed presence is both disturbing, fascinating and saddening in equal measure. The film is very tied to one small set and lacks the added element that would have made Sondergaard a real diabolic human monster. Instead, the ending comes with fire in her laboratory and a joke. Surey not fitting end for what had potentially been a major but unrealised horror film heroine. 6/10.
Special Thanks to Mark Coyle for this Movie Review.