The Black Spider

This is the third time that Gotthelf's "The Black Spider" has been done, but the first two efforts were operas by Willy Burkhard and Heinrich Sutermeister. It's a classic horror story about a woman who makes a deal with the devil for the soul of her unborn child. The tiny village is terrorized by a merciless knight; the devil agrees to thwart him in return for the baby. The woman foils Satan by baptizing the infant immediately. He gets even by sending a black spider to wreak havoc on the burghers of the town. Rissi (director) took that basic premise and modernized it with drug dealers, a chemical warehouse, and the accompanying ecological problems that accrue. Whil...