User reviews

Apparently, this is only considered minor Curtis but I thought it was pretty well-done for TV. Many films have been made associating femme fatales with the black widow spider, but this gives it a literal spin, thus linking it with the 'atomic monster' cycle of the 1950s where various insects caused widespread panic and terror after growing to enormous size. Ingeniously, this adds yet another level to the mystery (and the fun) by making the villainess a twin (though not identical) so that, once one has swallowed the notion (given incontrovertible evidence in the wake of its killing-spree) that a woman could in fact turn into a monster, there still remains the question of identifying her...and, making the process all the more tougher, is the fact that the lady concerned suffers from schizophrenia and assumes this form (for whatever reason, during the cycle of the full moon) once her other personality takes over!

It seems complicated and it is, with a number of questions remaining unanswered by the end of it: a young girl is eventually established as the daughter (born from a rape!) of the villainess (the twist in the final shot making it more than clear in this case) but she calls both her and her sibling "Aunt" – then who does she think is her mother? Likewise, an old woman is addressed as "Granny" but she is not the twins' mother (played by SHE-WOLF OF London {1946}'s June Lockhart), who is thought to be dead but is actually being held, blinded and crazed after an attack by the monster (about to be victimized again at the climax, she is so distraught as to throw herself out the window!), in a back-room of the house! Confused yet? It transpires that Granny (who goes by the name of Olga and is played by June Allyson, formerly a syrupy lead at MGM) knows about the woman's many afflictions and protects her, while the other twin is completely oblivious to the melodrama going on in their family home! By the way, Donna Mills and Patty Duke Astin appear as the twins, one chic and sought by several men (including those supposedly going out with her sister!), the other somewhat frumpy and introverted.

On the other side of the spectrum, we find down-on-his luck private investigator Anthony Franciosa (I wonder whether his reliable turn here landed him the starring role in Dario Argento's TENEBRE {1982}) who actually almost got it himself in the very first scene and, naturally, he subsequently determines to get to the bottom of things and unravel the mystery. In this, he is helped by his adoring but ditzy secretary (Roz Kelly) and hampered by Police Inspector Vic Morrow (who knows what is going on but does not want it to get around so as not to alarm the community: it was weird watching the actor's uneasiness at each grisly scene-of-the-crime when his own tragic and notorious death 5 years later on the set of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE {1983} must not have been a pretty sight either!). The latter's partner (Max Gail), however, proves more receptive to Franciosa's probing, and also involved are "guest stars" Sid Caesar (operating from an office opposite the hero's and constantly complaining of the cold, aggravating Kelly in the process) and Jeff Corey (as the Indian guide who found the twins, still mere toddlers, and their mother when the plane they were on crashed – with the spider bites received by one of the girls resulting in her current predicament).

Anyway, the film is absorbing and very enjoyable along the way, if not without flaws (apart from those already mentioned): for instance, in the last half-hour or so, when Astin takes center-stage with a bravura performance, a lot of things happen (including two transformations!) in the time it takes Franciosa and Kelly to reach the house (I understand it may have been located some distance from the city but, then, cut-aways to the speeding car should have been incorporated because, as it is, one tends to forget that the hero was even on his way there!). The monster is not too badly rendered, even taking care to have it rush headlong into walls in pain and desperation upon being set on fire (established earlier on as the sole method of destroying the beast).

After all the movies I have seen, some of the most enjoyable, are those turned out for ABC's Tuesday Night at the Movies in the 1970's. They were B-movies in all their glory. The Curse of the Black Window is one such movie. Filled with good character actors, a fast plot and cheesy special effects, it filled a void for genre movies on tv. Other genre movies created in this time were-The Cat Creature, Black Noon, Dual and the great Night Staker(One of the great Vampire movies.).It was not just horror movies, but detective, war, love and comedies that entertained the viewers. The tv movies of the today are mostly teen flicks, love stories or social pronouncements. I do wish for a good old fashion cheapie horror tv movie.

Just keep your eyes open(0n cable,dvd or video)for the giant black spider of Dan Curtis mind.

This movie was great! Patty Duke & Donna Mills as (fraternal) twins?!? Guess there have been stranger things...like a man-sized Black Widow spider terrorizing Los Angeles! I won't give away who the "spider woman" is but within the first 2 minutes all you have to do is hear her voice & you'll know instantly it is either her or her proper twin cousin from Brooklyn Heights! Fortunately the fx in this film are so realistic you too may even believe that 6ft spiders are made of paper mache. Of course we also get the creature-point-of-view, and since spiders have 8 eyes we see 8 victims at once. If you have the opportunity to see this, you must watch it.

ABC produced some entertraining, fast paced monster movies in the late 70's. This movie wastes no time getting to the action. Since it was made for TV and premiered on a Friday night, it had to be action filled before every commercial break to keep you tuned in. The twist at the end was neat. It's also interesting to see some TV star veterans who you might recognize from popular shows of the 60's, 70's and 80's, like Donna Mills from Knots Landing, June Lockhart from Lost in Space, and Rob Kelly who was one of two actresses that played Pinky Tuscadero on Happy Days.

If you enjoyed this movie, a couple other hidden gems that were ABC made for TV films are The Bermuda Depths starring Carl Weathers and Connie Seleca, about a legendary woman who turns into a giant sea turtle, and Cruise into Terror starring Dirk Benedict and John Forsythe about a cursed Egyptian mummy sarcophagus being transported on a cruise ship. These films won't win any Emmys, and some of the stars were embarrassed to be in them, but nevertheless they are memorable because they were so schlocky and yet well-cast with TV all-stars, and broadcast in an age of television where there were only three networks to choose from.

Valerie Steffan is a mysterious woman with dark hair and eyes, who talks like Adolf Hitler and likes to pick up men in bars. Only problem is instead of having a fab time, the guys end up drained of blood and wrapped in a webbed cocoon. And it's because she's actually a giant black widow spider! Several of the victims are former fiances or lovers of star Donna Mills. Is the killer jealous of her perfectly feathered blonde locks or white flare pant suits? Or is it just the nature of the "freak-o human fly?"

If you enjoy funky music, flashy fashions, cheesy acting from a classic TV-movie cast, eight-eyed POV bug shots, puppet monsters that look like they time-warped in from the 1950s and dialogue like, "Why don't I hold a press conference and tell them it's a big spider killing people and I'll issue all my men giant cans of Raid and send them out after it?," then this one's for you.

Score: 4 out of 10.

Take Patty Duke, Donna Mills, June Allyson and June Lockhart. Add schizophrenia, were-spiders (similar to -wolves, but with eight legs), 1977 Los Angeles and Dan Curtis. Sprinkle with a bit of nepotism (Tracy Curtis, daughter of director Dan, has 15 seconds showing off on a balance beam that's grafted on like a third arm), add a pinch of bad cinematography and annoying commercial fade-outs, and bake well for what seems like forever.

Garnish with stereotypical "Injuns", gay morgue directors and sassy streetwalkers, then soak in brine for two hours. Prop dialogue firmly on stilts and spit in its eye. That's this movie. I loved it.

Right down to the meaty, slappable smile of the implausible leading man, every detail seemed just a bit ... off. And happily so. If this one doesn't generate derisive howls of laughter at your next homocockail soiree, sweetie, you need to redecorate or something.

Peculiar but entertaining and strangely compelling TV-horror from the 70's, directed by one of the masters of the era – Dan Curtis – and revolving on an atmospheric albeit terribly grotesque basic premise. The dead bodies of multiple strong, handsome and successful males are discovered completely drained of all bodily fluids and with two giant chest wounds. They're always seen last in the company of Valerie Steffan, a dark-haired and dark-eyed beauty. Since the police investigation leads nowhere, one of the victims' fiancée hires private detective Mark Higbie to investigate. He may not be Carl Kolchak – from Curtis' popular movie franchise "The Night Stalker" – but with the help of some inside police sources and previous witnesses, Higbie finds out the murders are committed exactly like a black widow spider kills and consumes its preys. So we have a giant life-sized spider woman walking around, that's already quite fantastic, but wait until you hear the explanation of HOW this lady obtained her curse! I always like a little bit of far-fetched imagination in my horror movies, but the development of "Curse of the Black Widow" is a tad bit too much. Still, if you manage to switch off all your normal brain functionalities, the film is a good and enjoyable piece of TV-horror, with only a couple of moments of slowness. Obviously not recommendable to people with arachnophobia, since there are quite a bit of cameo appearances by hairy little eight-legged critters. The spider-kills and Valerie's metamorphosis are pretty cool, but unfortunately too brief. First her eyes turn orange and glassy and we see how she observes her victims through a maze of beady little eyes. I always had a weakness for this particular special effect, regardless of how cheesy and stupid it is. It also features in plenty of bee movies. "Curse of the Black Widow" is slightly overlong with an extended climax and one too many plot twist in the last 10-15 minutes. I really don't understand why Dan Curtis only showed a couple of brief shots of the impressive and massively constructed spider monster at the end. It looked really cool.

In the late 1970s, you had to buy a movie ticket to see this many stars humiliate themselves, I.e., The Swarm, Hurricane, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, etc.

This is just bad. It is bad in a fun way though. You might wince seeing such a great talent like Patty Duke being so awful but you'll forget the more you start laughing.

I'm not going to bother explaining the pmit. Its really irrelevant.

Shall I say not one of Dan Curtis' best made for TV horror film. This is a strange little movie about the danger of picking up strangers in bars, no you won't get an STD but you might just get killed and wrapped up in a spider's web. This story was bizarre even by 1977 Dan Curtis standards. I usually love anything Patty Duke is in, but I don't know what she had been smoking or snorting when she agreed to appear in this mess. This involves twins, spiders, police, plane wrecks and houses burning down and some other calamities I just have blacked out of my head. Certainly not the worse movie I have ever seen, but not even really funny. I loved Dan Curtis's Kolchak the Night Stalker movies and series, but this is just a little much.

Who is the dark-haired woman with the European accent in Los Angeles luring men to their deaths, leaving them drained of blood with puncture wounds to the chest? Director and executive producer Dan Curtis, still in "Night Stalker" mode, was responsible for this weak thriller, a movie-of-the-week for ABC-TV and one with the requisite "all-star cast" (mostly familiar faces from television shows and sitcoms). Tony Franciosa has the Kolchak-type role of cocky private investigator, Donna Mills is his client and wife of a recent victim, Vic Morrow is the hard-nosed police lieutenant on the case, and Patty Duke Astin is Mills' fraternal sister (her visits to an apparent recluse on the top floor of her rural estate are meant to build intrigue, but instead feel ripped-off from Curtis's "Burnt Offerings"). Hammily-acted and badly-written. *1/2 from ****

CURSE OF THE BLACK WIDOW opens with the violent death of a man by what appears to be a monster. It turns out that several such incidents have occurred recently.

Private investigator, Mark Higbie (Tony Franciosa) is drawn into the case while investigating the disappearance of a woman's (Donna Mills) husband. Her name is Leigh Lockwood, and her family might just have some connection to all of this.

Police officers Conti (Vic Morrow) and Ragsdale (Max "Wojo" Gail) are also on the bizarre case. It is discovered that in all of the deaths, the victims were totally drained of blood, and injected with some sort of venom. It seems that a mysterious woman named Valerie Stephen is somehow involved. Could the crazy theories and first-hand accounts that Higbie has been hearing, actually be true? What, if anything does this have to do with Leigh and her family?

COTBW is another of Director Dan Curtis' made-for-TV horror creations. Sporting an intriguing creature and an all-star cast, it's enjoyable, though formulaic, following a similar pattern as Curtis' THE NORLISS TAPES, THE NIGHT STALKER, etc.

Franciosa is quite believable in his role. Co-stars the inimitable Patty Duke as Laura Lockwood. June Lockhart makes a brief, though exciting cameo as Mrs. Lockwood. Also, watch for June Allyson in a tiny, but memorable role as Olga.

P.S.- The title beast doesn't look too bad at the end, as long as you don't look too close!

P.P.S.- It's interesting that the family members are listed as "Lockwood", but are called "Lockridge" in the movie...

The private investigator Mark Higbie (Tony Franciosa) is drinking in a bar with his friend Frank, who is waiting for his fiancée Leigh Lockridge (Donna Mills), and the bartender Carlo Lenzi (Michael DeLano). Out of the blue, a young woman asks Frank to help her to go to her car, but something happens and Frank screams, and his friends find his severed body. Soon Leigh goes to Mark's office and hires him to find what happened to her fiancé since Lt. Gully Conti (Vic Morrow) believes she is involved in the murder. Her last husband vanished in a ship during a voyage with her and her twin sister Laura (Patty Duke). Mark visits Gully in the precinct and learns that the suspect is a woman named Valerie Steffan. His further investigation shows that there were three previous cases similar to Frank's one, and all the bodies had their fluids sucked out of them. Mark's assistant and secretary Flaps (Roz Kelly) researches the Lockridge family and learns that their parents died in a plane crash and an old Indian found the sisters, but one of them almost died bitten by spiders. Further, in accordance with ancient legends, women affected by a curse turn into giant spiders during the full moon and under stress, killing their victims. Mark proceeds his investigations and starts to believe that the legend might be true. Now he wants to know whether Leigh or Laura was the child bitten by spiders. And who is Valerie Steffan?

"Curse of the Black Widow" is an American TV Movie from 1977 with a kind of tribute the sci-fi films from the 50's. The story is not bad, with many details and twists, and certainly attracts the fans of these old movies. There are some silly and confusing things that could have been improved, as follows: (a) The last name of the family is "Lockridge", but the film credits and IMDb write "Lockwood" instead. (b) The successive fade-out for the insertion of TV commercial is annoying and could have been lesser with better edition. (c) Is Olga the Lockridge sisters' nanny, or the mother of Mrs. Lockridge's husband since she is called grandmother by Jenny. (d) Why Jenny calls Laura and Leigh "aunt"? The special effects are poor, but acceptable for a low-budget TV movie. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "A Maldição da Viúva Negra" ("The Curse of the Black Widow")

While watching this movie it reminded me of Kolchack, The Night Stalker, the music, the plot. I'm seriously thought it was made by the same folks. Looking up the credits I didn't see anyone who worked on both shows. That said the movie is so similar the lead even drives a Mustang like Carl Kolchack. The music, the acting the script screams 70's horror schlock. Instead of a newspaper reporter, like Kolchack ,the lead now is a private investigator. Some of the actors even appeared on Kolchack series. Donna Mills and Patty Dukes as twins, come on that makes no sense ha. The plot is far fetch like Kolchack. I'm wondering why someone wasn't sued for copyright infringement.

Curse of the Black Widow is one of Dan Curtis's less famous, and in many respect, lesser, contributions (as producer or director) to the 1970s cycle of American made for TV horror flicks. Black Widow includes many of the tropes most commonly used in Curtis productions: "The bodies were all completely drained of blood!"; old, dilapidated structures; a plot centered around a supernatural mystery; a stalwart professional investigator. Unfortunately, it lacks the pacing and suspense of the best projects Curtis was involved with, such as The Night Stalker, (naturally) the Dead of Night anthology (that third segment, wow!), and The Norliss. Tapes (underrated). It outright stalls during an eye-rolling, needles sex subplot halfway through. Still, while Tony Franciosa doesn't have much to work with, he's always a welcome presence, and Rozz Kelly is truly the highlight of the movie. Her confident, sardonic, and intelligent turn as Franciosa's Girl Friday is wonderful by any standard. And the bonkers last 25 minutes of the movie have to be seen to be believed. That alone makes Widow worth watching. It's especially worth watching for fans of Curtis's work or of that particular cycle of 70s horror, even if it's not among the best of either.

This film begins with three men having some drinks at a local nightclub when an attractive woman with a European accent asks one of them to help her with her car in a nearby parking lot. While at her car, she attempts to seduce him but, because he is married, he resists her advances. It's then that she changes into something horrifying and within seconds he is dead. Hearing his screams, the other two men go rushing out only to find their friend lying there with two large puncture wounds in his chest and no trace of the woman. It is then revealed that one of the men at the nightclub is a private detective by the name of "Mark Higbie" (Tony Franciosa) and--because of his connections with the Los Angeles Police Department--learns that there have been several other murders just like this and he is given strict orders to stay clear of this case. Not long afterward, a beautiful woman named "Leigh Lockwood" (Donna Mills) walks into his office and informs him that the police believe that she is somehow involved and wants him to investigate the case to clear her name. Needless to say, this immediately puts him at odds with the local investigator named "Lieutenant Conti" (Vic Morrow) who had warned him not to become involved. What neither of them realize, however, is just how bizarre their independent investigations will become. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was one of those made-for-television horror movies which would have clearly benefited from better special effects or a bit more suspense. Even so, it was still worth the time spent and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Average.

Some men are dying in horrific ways in SoCal and a private investigator seeks the answers (Tony Franciosa) while the detective in charge tries to keep a lid on the unusual details (Vic Morrow). A woman hires the private eye, who has a twin (Donna Mills and Patty Duke).

"Curse of the Black Widow" (1977) is similar to other spooky thrillers of the 70s by Dan Curtis, like "The Night Strangler" (1973), "The Norliss Tapes" (1973) and "Scream of the Wolf" (1974), all of which were made-for-TV. One critic said it's unintentionally funny, but I didn't see that. Sure, it's an outlandish state of affairs, which is acknowledged by the players, but the tone is kept serious with the cast respecting the material.

Aside from Duke and Mills on the feminine front, Roz Kelly appears as the private eye's assistant, Flaps. You might recall Roz as Pinky Tuscadero on Happy Days.

I was expecting something along the lines of 1987's "Black Widow" with Debra Winger, Theresa Russell and Dennis Hopper but, no, this is more in the vein of the aforementioned flicks mixed with Marvel's Werewolf By Night.

The F/X at the end aren't bad considering this was a television production long before CGI became in vogue. While a couple things in the story are predictable, e.g. The epilogue, there are also some interesting bits and one or two really creepy scenes at the dilapidated farm. Meanwhile Franciosa makes for a surprisingly good protagonist and his relationship with his spunky subordinate is entertaining.

The film runs 1 hours, 40 minutes, and was shot in 20th Century Fox Studios in Century City and other spots of the Los Angeles area, i.e. Piru Mansion, Malibu, Buena Park, Culver City and West Hollywood.

GRADE: B-/B.

Macabre maestro Dan Curtis's sinisterly spun 70s TV shocker finds Private Eye Mark Higbie (Tony Franciosa) investigating the increasingly fantastic links between a series of murders and two beautiful, apparently cursed siblings (Donna Mills, Patty Duke Astin). These bizarre deaths are grimly suggestive of some ill-fated arachnid malediction, as all the mutilated male victims have their pale, exsanguinated bodies eerily encased in spider's silk!!!!

Once again, telly box hero, Dan Curtis knocks this classy creepy crawly 70s creature feature gem out of the park! The altogether brilliant cast and a grisly web of intrigue are sure to keep avid aficionados of vintage horror tantalised until the spider-tinglingly strange climax! An extraordinarily gifted actress, I'd happily watch Patty Duke eat the livid scab off a Leper's gangrenous toe, and she certainly doesn't disappoint, delivering yet another consummate performance. Smarmy Franciosa is more credible than usual, lively comedic element Roz Kelly is quirkily delightful, and the bluff, Vic Morrow always plays exactly the same inflexible hard ass, and I love him dearly for it!