SPIDER BABY; OR, THE MADDEST STORY EVER TOLD! is a rabid time capsule of late 1960s dementia. In a dilapidated rural mansion covered in spooky cobwebs, the last generation of the degenerate, inbred Merrye family lives with the inherited curse of a disease that causes them to mentally regress to "pre-human savagery and cannibalism" as they age.