Overrated

It is a performances centric movie

good back-story, and good acting

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

A decade before this film, the exotically beautiful Gale Sondergaard had won an Oscar for being the not quite noble servant Faith in "Anthony Adverse", and followed this up with a decade of equally sinister characters. Her role as the villain in a Sherlock Holmes film was her most silky smooth spider woman to date, so Universal followed that up, giving her real spiders as co-stars as well as the deformed Rondo Hatton who speaks not a word but presents a gentle demeanor underneath his imposing figure.The lovely heroine in danger at their hands as the newly hired secretary/companion to the allegedly blind Sondergaard who has a mysterious and evil agenda concerning each of her secretaries, becoming wonderfully evil in the scene where she reveals her plans. You can't take these B movies as anything but fun camp, and Sondergaard gives it her all. No matter her distaste for the story or quality considering her talent, she never lets it show. At only an hour, this is harmless, wonderful watchable fun, a perfect addition to any double bill.

Having read the other reviews of this movie, I am struck with the idea that people must have been expecting another Dracula or Frankenstein or The Black Cat. This movie is emblematic of dozens of B horror films of the period that were fun to watch but were hardly great art. It adds the distinction of great atmospherics: the "old dark house", the fabulously creepy Rondo Hatton, the deliciously evil Gale Sondegaard and the handsome, wholesome hero, Kirby Grant. Citizen Kane it ain't, but in the context of films like "Fog Island", "The 13th Guest", or "a Shriek in the Night" it was certainly more enjoyable. Plot wise, it incorporates elements of vampire flicks (blood sucking), wolf man flicks (rare plant research), and the good versus evil conflict within Rondo Hatton's character. Oscar material? Hardly, but great fun. Lighten up people!

Spider Woman Strikes Back, The (1946) ** (out of 4) Rare and forgotten Universal horror film has a nurse going to a creepy house to take care of a blind woman. The blind woman actually has her sight and is poisoning cows so that she can run the farmers off. Sound dumb? It's actually very dumb and the title is quite misleading, although I guess they were trying to cash in on the Sherlock Holmes film. This is the type of film where you keep waiting for something to happen but it never does. The performances are all rather dry as is the direction but it does move at a nice pace making the 57-minutes go by very fast. Jack Pierce is credited as the makeup artist yet there's no makeup in the film!

This movie promises to be a sequel to the Sherlock Holmes movie, "The Spider Woman". It isn't. True, Gale Sondergard is the villainess and "Spider Woman" is in the title, but that's where any similarity ends. It's not a horrible film, but it's disappointing to tease the viewer with the promise of something that isn't there.Rondo Hatton plays a mute, deformed servant. Too bad that he was so exploited.I do wish Universal had made this a true sequel to the Holmes film. It would have been more interesting.