In San Francisco, well-known sportsman Kay Hoog announces to a club that he has found a message in a bottle with a map drawn by a Harvard professor who has gone missing. The map tells of a lost Incan civilization that possesses an immense treasure. Hoog immediately plans an expedition to find it. But Lio Sha, the head of a criminal organization known as the Spiders, is determined to get the treasure for herself and plans a rival expedition.

A witch is burned on the stake, but her spirit has possessed a giant spider and is on the rampage. Enraged and thirsty for vengeance, a mob of torch bearing villagers march through an eerie wood in search of an evil child-eating woman. But dealing their own brand of justice, this might just be the worst mistake of their lives, as the one they seek possesses a darker power then they would have ever imagined. Spider woman spins the nightmarish tale of an unsuspecting group of people encountering a mystical world of buried secrets, human possession and gigantic spiders. Evil never takes kindly to those who oppose it...and in this case, its counterattack pounces with eight-legged agility.

Ulrich Mühe plays a German businessman who was born completely without scruples. This makes him an eminently suitable candidate for success in the chaotic years after World War I. The shameless man's story is contrasted with that of his polar opposite, a Jewish anarchist.

Some gnomes are searching for a wonderful spider that weaves webs of golden coins. Intent on their search, they are unaware that their movements are closely followed by a poor woodcutter, who also penetrates into their caves when they have caught the spider and imprisoned it there. He watches the wonderful spider making gold and other articles with wonder and in this scene the moving picture camera has excelled itself in turning out some good tricks, and finally he steals the golden spider. (Moving Picture World)