Spider (1992 film)

Spider (Zirneklis) is a 1992 erotic horror film directed by Vasily Mass, based on the 1987 story of the same name by Vladimirs Kaijaks. The film is considered a joint Soviet-Latvian work: started during the USSR, and released in independent Latvia.

Plot
Modern times. The priest commissions the artist Albert to depict the Virgin Mary. For the painting, the artist invites Vita, a young girl on the threshold of adulthood, to pose. The artist's workshop terrifies her from the very beginning  the artist's hellish paintings come to life in front of Vita, the nakedly sensual, deformed world of the canvases frightens her, and at the same time awakens her unconscious sexuality. After posing sessions, she begins to have strange mystical dreams, opening a window into the other world, full of evil and vice, where a terrifying spider wants to take possession of her. Her life is turned upside down, now populated by hallucinations, unconscious sexual desires causing a feeling of fear and helplessness. The darkness consumes and sucks in. The psychiatrist recommends sending the girl to the village, but the spider pursues Vita there too.

Cast

 * Aurēlija Anužīte as Vita
 * Liubomiras Laucevičius as Albert, artist (voiced by Timofey Spivak)
 * Mirdza Martinsone as Vita's mother
 * Saulius Balandis as Juris
 * Romualds Ancance as Aivars
 * Olgerts Kroders as Arsts, psychiatrist
 * Algirdas Paulavičius as priest

Awards
Awarded a special mention for the screenplay at the Lielais Kristaps 1994.

Critical response
It is believed that the film “Spider” is the first and only erotic horror film in Latvian cinema.

Dmitry Karpyuk (RussoRosso) noted: A sticky web of sexual darkness, visions and dreams better than Lucio Fulci, and a fight in a bathhouse with a giant monster made no worse than David Cronenberg. A stunning and undeservedly forgotten movie.

Dr. Svet Atanasov: During the Cold War era government censorship undoubtedly prevented a lot of very ambitious and talented directors in the Soviet Bloc from realizing their dreams, but the truth is that it also inspired many to be creative in some very special ways. Vasili Mass' Spider is a perfect example of a bold and very original film that exists only because it essentially tried to outsmart the people that were going to determine its fate. Unsurprisingly, it has multiple identities, though stylistically it fits somewhere between Sergei Parajanov's The Color of Pomegranates and Andrzej Zulawski's Possession.