Let’s get one thing straight: Curse of the Black Widow is not a “bad” movie—it’s a catastrophic television experience in polyester drag, performed with absolute seriousness by actors who all knew better and did it anyway. Directed by Dan Curtis (Dark Shadows, The Night Stalker), the film blends murder mystery, psychological horror, and creature feature into a sticky mess of silk threads and Freudian subtext. It has all the elegance of a spider crawling out of a port-a-potty. And yet… It’s weirdly compelling. Like watching a flaming piñata roll down a hill: you know it’s doomed, but you can’t look away.
When Camp Met Curse
By 1977, Dan Curtis had already made his name as the godfather of primetime horror. With The Night Stalker and Trilogy of Terror, he’d proved TV horror didn’t have to suck—but could bite, snarl, and rake up ratings. Then came Curse of the Black Widow, which feels like it started as an idea scribbled on a cocktail napkin after a long lunch: “Sexy twin? Big spider? Trauma?” Boom. Greenlit. The ABC execs probably nodded solemnly while high on polyester fumes and network Kool-Aid.
The film, oddly retitled Love Trap for its 1979 re-airing (presumably by someone who didn’t watch past the first five minutes), is essentially a creature feature wrapped in a dime-store paperback psycho-thriller, tied with a bow of made-for-TV melodrama. The tone is hysterical, the effects are recycled (Rodan’s screech is your monster noise), and somewhere, in a prop warehouse, a very large rubber spider is still laughing.
Casting, Production, and the Tangled Web
Then there’s the cast. Tony Franciosa plays private detective Mark Higbie with all the subtlety of a foghorn in a library. Patty Duke shows up to do her best “woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown” impression—twice, since she’s also playing her alter ego “Valerie,” who is basically Laura’s inner rage monster with a German accent, a bad dye job, and a severe aversion to rejection. Patty Duke herself admitted she only did the film for the money, which—frankly—makes all of us feel a little better. At least one person was honest.
Donna Mills (pre-Knots Landing) spends the film with immaculate hair and a constant look of “how did I get here?” on her face. Vic Morrow grumbles his way through the role of a cop who knows more than he’s saying, mostly because he probably skimmed the script and realized this was not Citizen Kane. Meanwhile, Sid Caesar, billed as “Sin Caesar” on the VHS box, shows up in a cameo that reads like a contractual obligation to his agent’s cousin.
Plot-wise, it’s bananas. Spider venom, child trauma, ancient Native American curses, multiple personality disorder, attempted seductions, fiery deaths, and one gloriously unhinged final twist where a girl reveals the red hourglass birthmark of doom. If you’re thinking, “Wait, did they really pass a supernatural spider curse through generations like a haunted family mole?”—yes. Yes, they did. And they gave it a music cue.
Reception and the Beautiful Disaster of Legacy
When it aired in 1977, audiences were probably too stunned to complain. But critics? Oh, they tried. Videohound called it “recycled,” which is polite-speak for “a flaming bag of TV tropes.” Jim Craddock gave it two out of four “bones” (woof). Others noted the script’s meandering nonsense, the lackluster pacing, and special effects that wouldn’t frighten a six-year-old with arachnophobia and a high fever.
Still, the film has its fans. Some adore it for its high camp, its commitment to absurdity, and Dan Curtis’s insistence on taking this gooey mess seriously. David Deal generously called it “entertaining” with an “old-fashioned sense of fun,” which is probably what you say when you love your grandpa even though he wears socks with sandals and tells the same ghost story every Thanksgiving.
It has achieved cult status largely because it tried. Earnestly. Desperately. Hilariously. In an age of cynical genre rehashes, there’s something noble in how this film throws every idea at the wall and shrieks, “Make it DRAMATIC!”
A Toast to the Trash
Curse of the Black Widow is not a “good” film. It’s not even an okay one. But in the annals of 1970s made-for-TV horror, it deserves a little shelf space—right between Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and Killdozer. It’s pulpy, ridiculous, and occasionally effective in the same way a fever dream is: you wake up disturbed, confused, and unsure if what you saw was brilliant or just mold on the VHS tape.
Two stars. One for the rubber spider, one for Patty Duke’s paycheck.
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