Writer/Director JACK HILL
Jack Hill (1962).

After graduating UCLA film school in 1962, twenty-nine year old Jack Hill was hired by Roger Corman to write and direct additional scenes for unfinished films and to stretch a number of Corman-produced pictures into acceptable running times for television distribution. He left the Corman studio to write and direct SPIDER BABY (originally titled, CANNIBAL ORGY, OR THE MADDEST STORY EVER TOLD), his first complete feature of his own.

While SPIDER BABY remained shelved due to bankruptcy litigation involving the financiers, Jack Hill wrote, produced and directed a film about an ambitious stock car racer thrust into the violent world of figure-eight racing by a scheming race promoter. Entitled THE WINNER (aka PIT STOP, 1967), the film starred Dick Davalos, Brian Donlevy, SPIDER BABY co-stars Sid Haig and Beverly Washburn, and newcomer Ellen Burstyn ( playing under the name of Ellen McRae.) After PIT STOP became bogged down in post-production delays, the black-and-white film was demoted to second feature status after drive-in theaters adopted a “color-only” policy. Hill, eager for work, then took an assignment from Mexican producer Luis Enrique Vergara to create four horror films to shoot back-to-back starring the great Boris Karloff. The films were titled ISLE OF THE SNAKE PEOPLE, THE FEAR CHAMBER,

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