Having spent most of his life in a mental institution, Spider is released to a halfway house in the East End of London. As he revisits the familiar streets of his childhood, reawakening memories of his mother and father, Spider begins to uncover the truth behind the mystery of his youth.

A departure from his usual North American settings, Spider sees David Cronenberg travel to 1950s London for this spooky Patrick McGrath adaptation. Anchored by Ralph Fiennes’ haunted unreliable narrator, the film sees Cronenberg in psychological thriller mode rather than his trademark body horror.