The Black Spider / Die schwarze Spinne (1983) Mark M. Rissi, Beatrice Kessler, Walo Lüönd, Peter Ehrlich

January 31, 2023

This film about a black spider that symbolizes evil works well when focusing on the old 19th century story by Jeremias Gotthelf. A group of drug addicts are doing without because of a crooked dealer and in desperation, they break into a chemical plant to get their hands on what they need, later escaping to temporary shelter in a farmhouse. While one woman trips out, she hallucinates the story of the black spider, set in the Emmental valley of Switzerland in the middle ages. At that time, a beautiful farmer’s wife makes a pact with the devil: if he helps the men survive the excessive toil imposed by a tyrannical knight, she will give him a newborn baby. When the time comes to collect the child, the wife has the baby baptised right after birth, and the devil is foiled. In revenge, he sends a black spider into the village to spread pestilence and death.