This Is Weirder Than 'Spider-Man 3'

For those of us who spend ungodly hours of our lives trawling through the dank, manic halls of Tumblr, there's a certain lore to be observed: Widely observed etiquette, a general love of Benedict Cumberbatch, the circulation of certain gifs. Some of those gifs are so embedded in Tumblr culture that users rarely even pause to figure out where they came from. But some have some pretty great origin stories — like the gifs that came from Italian Spideman , the weirdest spoof you'll see this week.

A few months back the Internet uttered a collective "what the flying fuck" at a gif of (initially) mystery origin that depicted Emma Watson transforming into Sofia Vergara through the disturbing method of peeling off her own face. That one was more baldly terrifying than Italian Spiderman, but the source material was also way less entertaining than the gif suggested. Such is not the case here.

Italian Spiderman, it turns out, was a 2007 Australian spoof purporting to be an Italian action-adventure films from the '60s and '70s. It came from director Dario Russo and starred David Ashby as Italian Spiderman. It is also a masterpiece. It very much makes us wish more countries would appropriate American superheroes and legends in contemporary times — just on the off chance it could produce more gifs like these:

At long last, the trailer for the original:

And the original itself:

You're welcome.

Image: Tumblr; Alrugo Entertainment