The Spider Woman Strikes Back (Blu-ray)

Gale Sondergaard (The Cat and the Canary, The Mark of Zorro) returns as the sinister Spider Woman, a role she originated as the femme fatale Adrea Spedding in the Sherlock Holmes whodunit The Spider Woman. In this non-canonical spin-off, she is even more diabolical as Zenobia Dollard, a wealthy blind woman shrouded in mystery. Jean (Brenda Joyce, Jane in several Tarzan films) is hired as Zenobia’s caretaker after all the preceding caretakers vanish without a trace. She becomes entangled in a web of horror as she discovers that her employer, aided by a hideously deformed household servant played by legendary creeper Rondo Hatton (The Pearl of Death, The Brute Man), has used the blood of her predecessors to create a death serum when it is mixed with spider venom—and that her own blood is now being harvested at night, while she is in a drugged sleep, to continue the experiment. Veteran director Arthur Lubin (Hold That Ghost, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves) delivers a terrifying tale chock-full of bizarre blood-drinking plants, old-dark-house spookiness and the wickedness of the Spider Woman!