| “How dare you speak to us this way!” |
| —Aunt Spiker to James |
Aunt Spiker is James' aunt, Sponge's sister, and one of the main antagonists of the 1996 live-action film, James and the Giant Peach. It is unknown whether Spiker and Sponge are the sisters of James' father of mother, or possibly his great-aunts, since they appear to be elderly in the book's illustrations.
Background
After the death of James' parents, she and Sponge had no choice but to take in James and "raise" him. Instead of caring for him, she and Sponge force him to do all the work around the house, they had a tendency to beat him when he disagrees with them or backtalk, and almost always make him go into his room without dinner. She and Sponge always call James mean and insulting names instead of just calling him by his name.
Appearance
Aunt Spiker is a strikingly tall, skinny, and cold (on the inside) woman. She is probably the older aunt. She claims that she is a very beautiful woman like her younger sister Sponge, but looks beg to differ. She also seems to be the smarter one of the two.
History
She and Sponge adopted James after his parents were eaten by a rhinoceros and are very abusive and treat him like a slave, forcing him to do hard labor and feeding him nothing but fish heads. Aunt Spiker is thin, quiet and cold. Both have a terrible hatred of insects and bugs and kill them in a variety of awful ways, and are thus hated by them as well. It is unknown which one of James's parents was Spiker and Sponge's sibling.
Sometime later, she and Sponge discover a peach on a withered old tree, and watch it grow to immense proportions in a matter of seconds. She and Sponge use the giant peach as an attraction, making lots of money as James watches from the house, not allowed to leave or play with the other children. That night, she and Sponge send James outside to pick up the garbage dropped by their customers.
Later, when James escapes on the giant peach, he is followed by her and Sponge all the way to New York, apparently somehow managing to drive their now crushed car under the ocean and reach New York covered in seaweed and crabs, where they try to convince the authorities that James is a liar and that he be released to them. One night, while navigating on the peach, James has a nightmare about his aunts when him as a caterpillar being chased and attacked by Spiker, Sponge, and the rhino, eventually getting trapped in a blind alley before he awakens. However, James, now no longer afraid of her and Sponge, stands up to them and reveals the truth about their horrible treatment of him. Unable to believe that James dares to stand up to them, she and Sponge furiously attack him with firemen's axes until the sudden reappearance of the insects. James then ties her and Sponge up with Miss Spider's thread, and the beat cop has them taken away on a crane.
After the credits, there's a scene showing an arcade-like game which consists of controlling a rhinoceros to attack replica models of her and Sponge.
Book
In the book, when the peach gets loose and rolls, it flattens her and Sponge, killing them both, and they subsequently do not reappear at the end.
In the 1996 film, she and Sponge survive and pursue James to New York City in their beat-up car (in the Ice World, James and Miss Spider see a shipwreck with figureheads, having a terrible resemblance of her and Sponge). Upon arriving in New York, both are soaked as if they had been driving their car across the seabed. She and Sponge attempt to kill James but are tied up with Miss Spider's silk and arrested.
Trivia
- When James and Miss Spider were searching for both Mr. Centipede and a compass, one of the sunken ships had both Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge on the mast for unknown reasons.
- Aunt Spiker has similarities to Lady Tremaine, as both of them force the protagonists of their respective films to work like slaves.
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