The Water Spider

The spider’s transmutation into a beautiful girl is brilliantly done; a pulsing heartbeat on the soundtrack slowly gives way to a sinister bassoon drone while massive close-ups of arachnid body parts suddenly reveal a human eye glimpsing out amid strands of hair. (Though in a much quieter key, this shot anticipates the millennial Japanese ghost story Ringu.) … That L’araignée d’eau wasn’t about to revolutionise French fantastique became clear when it took over two years to get a release, only appearing in January 1971.