Spider - David Cronenberg (2002)[MT]

In Britain, Dennis Cleg has just been released from a psychiatric hospital, and upon the recommendation of his physicians has moved into a halfway house catering to psychiatric patients, the house run by the prickly demeanored Mrs. Wilkinson. His release was despite his still being in a somewhat catatonic state due to his issues. When he was a child, Dennis was nicknamed Spider by his mother because of stories she told him about spiders, and as such he has always been fascinated especially by webs and spider silk. Although he does not speak about it to either Mrs. Wilkinson or his housemates, Spider continues the thoughts that led to his psychiatric problems, namely how he saw his working class parents as he was growing up, and how his view specifically of his mother began to be sexualized in seeing his parents together. In these remembrances, Spider externalizes his view, as if he is looking at them, others and himself as a bystander, albeit one who cannot intervene in the proceedings. He also continues to transfer his mother's image onto other women of a certain type, such as onto Yvonne, who was a barfly and tart at the pub where his father often frequented. These continued thoughts may affect his viability of living in the outside world.